Le seigneur du monde perdu

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

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.

If your going to produce a special effect movie, at least have the basics with which to carry it off. The Lost World was one of my favourite books as a child and previous translations to the big screen have been OK, at best. However although the acting was certainly acceptable, the budget for the effects must have been raised by a quick whip round of the stars and crew. awful doesn't even come close. The main creature (king Kong who wasn't featured in the original story anyway) looks like and moves like a glove puppet. Anyone over 7 who goes to see this is going to come away extremely disappointed.Bruce Boxleitner has appeared in many Sci-Fi TV series and movies and does his best to carry off this film but he is fighting a losing battle I'm afraid. With the technology thats available today for creating believable CGI effects, it inexcusable to release such a sub standard movies, especially when it seems to be released on the back of the New blockbuster "KING KONG". When low cost TV sci-fi's are being produced now, with quite acceptable visual effects, I fail to understand that those responsible for the graphic effects would deem this movie "Fit for human viewing"

I actually went out of my way to find this movie because I love giant monster movies, especially King Kong related monsters.

The effects in this movie were so bad they were embarrassing.

It's amazing that there were better effects in 1933's King Kong compared to this...I take that back...there were better effects in 1903's The Great Train Robbery compared to this bomb.

It's tough to mess up a movie with giant monsters and decent looking girls...but whoever made this movie did accomplish this feat.

Anyone who is curious like I was about this film stay far away as possible. It is a total waste of your time.

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...