King: rey de los simios

Plane crash survivors in the Amazon battle exceptionally lame CGI critters in this dull, slow-moving tale, which bears absolutely no resemblance to the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle story. The Asylum's "War of the Worlds" shows that they are capable of telling a decent story when they want to do so. They must not have wanted to do so here. This film is exceptionally bad. No dinosaurs, just scorpions, spiders, man-eating vines, and a giant gorilla so bad that it fortunate for the audience that we only see it for a few minutes. The special features reveal that this film was a rush job – no doubt to capitalize on the publicity for Peter Jackson's "King Kong." The reason they went with scorpions and such instead of the dinosaurs was because the special effects guy already had them partially created. At eighty-minutes, the movie drags. (Drags is the wrong word. It's like it's daring you to keep watching it. It was quite a battle, but I managed too.) I ultimately found myself wondering who this film was aimed at. There aren't enough monsters for monster movie fans. Not enough action for action movie fans. It was too boring to children, who shouldn't be able to watch it because of the language anyway. It was like an episode of "Lost" without the insightful writing and acting. Literally, the best thing about the film is the jungle location they found in a private garden. For that, I will credit the location manager, not the director, producer or writers, all of whom should be ashamed of themselves.

And don't get me started about the white native tribe in the Amazon…. Oy Vey! Ineptitude, you have a new name. And poor Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he's spinning away in his grave somewhere.

Where to begin...

This movie was the epitome of everything that is bad about movies from The Asylum. Sure, it should be said that The Asylum actually does spew out the occasional movie that is actually entertaining and worth watching. "King of the Lost World", however, was definitely not one such movie.

The storyline in the movie was such a scrambled and random mess of a storyline as it could be. It seemed that they actually just went in with 20 different ideas, shot them individually and then tied them together to make a movie. There was next to no red line throughout the course of this movie. And it didn't take long before my attention span dropped several levels.

The special effects in the movie were ludicrous. The CGI was phenomenally bad and it is hard to believe that something like that would actually pass as being worthy of making it into a movie even back in 2005. If you actually take the time to sit down and watch "King of the Lost World", you might want to wear protective eyewear just as a precaution.

What was up with the huge creatures that they crammed into the movie? Spiders. Scorpions. And some weird strange reptillian flying creatures. And of course the massive ape itself - which was so fake it was laughable to look at.

As for the acting in the movie, well let's just be honest and say you are getting what is to be expected from a movie such as this. But in defense of the actors and actresses, then they had nothing, absolutely nothing, to work with in terms of a proper storyline, a coherent script or interesting characters. So the acting performers were fighting a losing uphill battle.

I suffered through "King of the Lost World" so you don't have to. Take heed, and give this movie a wide, wide berth...

This was one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I liked the TV show of the Lost World, but this just stunk. BIG time. The acting was awful, and I noticed that many of the actors are in a number of movies by this director. Low budget movies with low budget actors. 2/10. The CGI stinks, the acting is worse. Even the people who have made up the tribe can't act worth two hoots and a darn. I had to keep turning up the TV just so I could hear it. The only actor I know was Bruce. Heck I don't even know who the director is. I only watched it because I could not find something better on. I would have rather watched Golf over this, as I think that watching Tiger Woods hit a little ball into a cup would have had more excitement in it.

Supposedly based on Sir Arthur's "Lost World", this film must have him spinning in his grave. The only resemblance are the character's names and the Amazon jungle setting. This lost world is best described as an episode of TV's 'Lost" as written by your local college frat house. The King, or giant ape of the title, is constantly referred to as he, or him, never by name. At one point Bruce Boxleitner asks who "he" is and one of the natives, who look like frat house refugees, replies "you can not speak his name." Obviously as doing so would have involved a lawsuit for copyright infringement. I should mention that for the entire duration of the film, all 75 minutes, the "King's" screen times amounts to approx. 2 minutes. The remaining 73 minutes are filled with endless babble from bad actors on how they are going to get out of the jungle. Additionally the SFX are on the same level as the acting. This movie needs to be permanently lost!

The Asylum's "King of the Lost World" (2005) is a TV knockoff of Peter Jackson's "King Kong," released one day before that blockbuster during Christmas. While there's a giant ape and an island of colossal creatures, the similarities end there. This has more to do with Arthur Conan Doyle's fantasy/adventure novel "The Lost World" (1912) than "King Kong." The plot revolves around a group of survivors of a plane wreck who search the mysterious island; and clash with the giant creatures & primitive-type people that dwell there.

The movie only cost $1 million and the blurry CGI creatures look it. If you can get past that, there's quite a bit to like here for fans of comic book adventure flicks, especially of the lost on a deserted island variety. Imagine "Mysterious Island" (1961) if it was done on a miniscule budget, like "Planet of the Dinosaurs" (1977), and that's what this is.

The Asylum's "The Land that Time Forgot" (2009) is comparable, but that one had over double the money to spend, as did the 1974 film with Doug McClure. Another point of reference is those cheesy primeval flicks from Hammer back in the day, like "The Lost Continent" (1968) and "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth" (1970).

If you don't appreciate Grade B (or Grade C) adventure fare like this I'd suggest passing but, if you can roll with it, the story and cast are decent, highlighted by curvy Sarah Lieving in form-fitting shorts, not to mention a couple others. The Southern Cal locations feature magnificent coastlines, lush jungles, cool caves and barren landscapes.

The film runs 1 hour, 20 minutes and was shot at Pikake Gardens, Valley Center, and San Diego County, California.

GRADE: C