King Kong Lives

Synopsis: Shot down from the Twin Towers, King Kong lies bloody and dying on the New York sidewalk. His only hope of survival is a heart transplant but there isn't enough of his blood type for a transfusion. In one of those coincidences that only happen in the movies they find a donor in Africa and ship a giant female gorilla over for the operation. Once Kong has gone under the surgeon's knife the gigantic couple are separated but simian hormones are running rampant. Kong goes on a crusade to free his woman and sow his oats. Hunted by rednecks and the US army he is shot down and killed but not before he witnesses the birth of his newborn son.

What was Dino De Laurentis thinking? He had already tortured the cinema going world with his dreadful remake of Merian C. Cooper's King Kong (also directed by Guillermin) but now with an on-the-nose sequel, King Kong Lives, he has destroyed any vestige of  the majesty and wonder that was left standing from the 1933 original.

The usually talented Carlos Rambaldi, the man who created E.T. - The Extra Terrestrial, supplies some truly terrible ape suits; in particular the female and her offspring are hilariously bad. The film plays like an ultra-kitsch version of the 70s era Godzilla films. No attempt appears to have been made in the name of realism. Everything is over the top; the operation scenes feature a fantastic array of oversize scalpels and equipment; like a gorilla-sized version of E.R.. And matters become ridiculous in the extreme as the two separated apes gaze at the moonlight, longing for each other across the Californian desert.

The film's finale, a blatant rip-off of Kubrick's Spartacus, is dreadful; King Kong Jr. is blatantly a man in a monkey suit and the birth scene is just silly. Linda Hamilton looks tearfully on as the generations of the Kong family see each other for the first and last time; the audience watch in mounting disbelief. Hamilton must have been so thankful when James Cameron gave her the role of Sarah Connor in The Terminator. The performances are scarcely adequate, Hamilton tries desperately to emote and Brian Kerwin barely registers as the Indiana Jones style adventurer. Bizarrely the wooden human performances only seem to enhance the realism of the poor gorilla suits, no mean feet considering the walking carpets on display.

Gloriously tacky and camp in the extreme, the film will be adored by anyone who loves seeing men in bad monkey outfits trashing dodgy film sets and running rampant. Anyone who wants a serious film that matches the splendor and grace of the original will be sorely disappointed. The film will remain a guilty pleasure for this reviewer.

 

 

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