King Kong II

It took a long time to make a sequel to the remake of King Kong from 1979... and I can see why... lack of a decent story. And it's the story and ropy special effects that hurt this film.

So the movie opens with the ending of the 1979 remake; Kong's fall from the tower. However, he doesn't die. As the years pass the doctors realise his heart is failing and his blood is poisoned. They could fit an artificial heart but without a transfusion, Kong will die. Enter Hank Mitchell (Kerwin), who whilst exploring the African continent comes across a second giant gorilla... phew, just in time to save the plotline... Even better for the plot, the ape is female. Against the lead doctor's advice, Amy Franklin (Hamilton), the college assigned to study Kong ship the female across, instead of just taking her blood. Of course, when you put two giant apes together, of different genders, things are bound to get amorous and frisky. As with humans, love and lust can drive apes to do desperate deeds. However, instead of running amuck, the apes settle down to domestic bliss... which totally upsets Lt Col Nevitt as he has some really expensive weapons to play with... and Goddamnit, he's gonna play with them and so sets out to destroy the happy couple.

Okay, so I'm making light of the story plot, but hey, that, in a nutshell, is the story. For a creature feature, there's way too many scenes of Mr & Mrs K sitting around picking racoons off of each other. Also, the fact that it's two men in Gorilla costumes is so evident it's laughable, especially today. This section of the film doesn't wear well after an age. However, it's the other effects that add strength to the action sequences of the film. The fight scenes between apes and army are well done and are paced so well as to actually be exciting.

The other thing that carries the film is the acting. Though the leads, Brian Kerwin and Linda Hamilton are very good in their roles, it was John Ashton as Nevitt that made this film for me.

I'd not really recommend this film to anybody. To be truthful, the original movie is still superb and better than this, let alone the Peter Jackson Remake and the latest action flick Kong: Skull Island, both of which are superior in every way. Though if you like your monster movies with a heavy dose of cheesiness then maybe you can give this a go... it does have it's good points.

Well I gotta tell ya - when I bought this flick ($4 - yeah...I KNOW I was way overcharged)in the late 80's, my kids loved it! As an 8 year old, you tend NOT to notice the hilarious dialog, K-Mart effects and Z-Grade production values. My five year old sobbed her little eyes out when KONG was having a coronary...the other three cheered when he wrote off the bad army guys so hey, I'm biased! This film made my kids happy so I haven't the heart to belittle its achievements - microscopic that they are!

PLUS the fact you get to see Linda Hamilton when she was really pretty so c'mon, be charitable - let it be wouldja?

The decidedly crappy reviews heaped on this film were pretty well deserved, though it must be said that there have been much worse insults to filmgoers' intelligence than "King Kong Lives." Linda Hamilton stars as Amy Franklin, head of a scientific team that develops an artificial heart to miraculously keep Kong with us after his famous fall from the New York City skyline. With the help of blood transfused from a newly-discovered Lady Kong, the big guy is soon up and around and eating people again. But this time his true interest lay in his new girlfriend, whom he not-so-subtly rescues from captivity. The hairy couple hope to live happily ever after, but the brutish army and rifle-bearing yokels have other ideas.

It's difficult to pinpoint the biggest fault of "King Kong Lives." Overall, it's pretty ridiculous, from the story to the special effects to the supposedly emotional moments. It's overlong, the dialog could have been written by junior high kids, and the characters, particularly the "bad guys," are so one-dimensional it's not even funny. But if you can accept all of that, you can get at least some entertainment value out of this sequel, though don't expect a so-bad-it's-funny picture.

King Kong Lives (1986)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Sequel to the 1976 remake has Kong in a coma after falling from the World Trade Center. His heart is quickly going back so he needs a mechanical heart installed. Before the doctor (Linda Hamilton) does this, Kong is going to need blood so thankfully there's a redneck hunter (Peter Elliott) who has captured a female Kong. This movie has the reputation of being one of the worst ever made and people must have believed it because they stayed away from the film when it was originally released and it turned into one of the biggest box office disasters in history. This was a favorite of mine when I was a kid but it really hasn't aged too well. The biggest problem with the film is the film itself because it's never quite clear what the movie is trying to do. The story is all over the place, characters are coming in left and right and the entire Army set up just doesn't make too much sense at all. I'm going to take a wild guess and say this movie was meant for romance because we've got Hamilton and Elliott falling for each other and we've got the two Kong's falling in love. There's no doubt this is a very stupid movie but thankfully it's dumb enough to be mildly entertaining. The scenes with the two Kong's falling in love are pretty funny as is a scene later in the movie where redneck hunters trap Kong and try to torture him. The ending is just as wild as anything that follows it and I must admit that I found it pretty cute and touching. The special effects are certainly several notches below the previous film but they aren't too bad. Elliott and Hamilton really don't have too much to do because the screenplay doesn't offer them much but both are fine in their roles. What really kills the film from being a true cult item is the fact that we've got a 75-minute story expanded to 105-minutes, which is way too long.

Well, the only thing good in this movie is the split-second flash you get of Linda Hamilton's rack. I don't know who the hell the rest of these people were. There was some blond dufus named "Hank". And a lot of really bad special FX. All in all, it's an awful movie.

But just imagine if it had been made today, it'd have super-slick CGI effects for the monkeys and a sound track by Elton John singing about "shining stars" and hairy monkey suits. Joel Schumacher would direct of course. The female lead would be played by Denise Richards except she wouldn't show her boobs. There'd be long shots of Hank's naked ass several times throughout the movie. Wouldn't it be great?

Er, maybe I'll just watch to 80's version again.