King Kong Lives almost Killed me.

I saw this in a Movie Theater – and it’s one all time stupid movies I have ever seen. With movies so expensive these days you really can’t do what I did then; just waste some money and some of your life to see a bad film. The proper place to have seen - by all accounts the mind numbingly hideous - Bloodrayne was in the theater where you shout stuff and can throw things at the screen - but with the cost of tickets so high it makes sense to have to wait for netflix to send it to me – same with Aeon Flux. But I digress.

I recently purchased (for about five bucks) a DVD of said film and watched it last night just to confirm in my mind how stupid it was. (why why why? I keep asking. Dear God why?)

The film was the unneeded sequel to the unneeded 1976 remake of King Kong and it starts whit the last scene of the 76 film where Kong (actually a man in an ape suit. Side note: nothing screams this movie will suck like a man in an ape suit – Bride of the Gorilla, written by Ed Wood has three men in gorilla suits, a record I think, and yes it is very very bad – end side note) falls off the world trade center to his death. (yes I got a pang – that never will go away) The screen fades out and comes back to show Kong lying some where in Atlanta (why who knows) in a coma with tubes and wires coming out of him. There is a caption that reads ‘Ten years later’.

There are long shots of big machines – it’s a heart lung machine or something and there is a doctor in scrubs walking about taking notes. It turns out that the doctor is the spunky surgeon who is played by Linda Hamilton fresh off her role in Terminator – She does not wear a bra much in this film – either cause she’s the spunky surgeon or to distract us from the nonsense we are seeing on the screen (the latter I suspect).

Anyway the Spunky Surgeon is upset because Kong has been in a coma too long and if they try and put the new heart (a Jarvic 7 Style artificial Heart the size of a VW bug) in Kong now it will kill him. He doesn’t have enough blood and there is no donor to transfuse blood from.

First stupid point: They are proposing to put an artificial heart into a fifty foot gorilla, let me say that again a fifty foot tall Gorilla – and the last time it was awake it killed and injured thousands and god knows what the property damage was. And yet not a single person in the movie asks “Is this the best idea we ever had?”

So Kong needs a miracle and in the tradition of hack moviedom he gets one – an Indian Jones/Jungle Jim type stumbles across a female Kong in the jungles of Borneo in Asia where with the help of some tribesmen who look like they are from the Amazon Basin (don’t ask, maybe they were on vacation) who just happen to have blow darts with knock out poison on them, captures it.

The blood matches Kong’s type so they take some and now the operation can get underway. It’s an absurd farce with the Spunky Surgeon making the first cut with an air powered circular saw. She guns it before she starts cutting (this drew laughs when I saw it in the theater) hell they didn’t need a surgeon to do the first cut they needed Leatherface. And then off they go – first they take Kong’s real heart out with a crane – Stupid point 2 – how the hell do you sterilize a crane? Just asking. And put in the VW bug sized Artificial Heart. Pretty dumb so far.

The female is kept about a mile away.

Later Kong wakes and smells the female and starts jumping around. Okay Stupid point 3 – he’s been in a coma for 10 years, he’s just has invasive open heart surgery which involved cracking his ribs to gain access to the heart – and he’s ready to jump around and he wants to do the humpty hump dance? Moving his fingers would be a more likely first step.

Anyway after some nonsense Kong breaks out and then escapes into the woods with Lady Kong. They are followed by the military led by one Col. Idiot along with Spunky Surgeon (hereafter SS) Jungle Jim (JJ). Eluding the military SS and JJ search for the apes who are in a clearing where Kong is courting his lady fair and anyone watching is suffering trauma because it is just that stupid (I keep using that word to describe this film but it fits). Meantime SS and JJ find them (the army has helicopters but they have the screen writers) and first monitor the courtship. Later they bed down for the night and SS invites JJ into her sleeping bag.
‘Are you sure?” Asks JJ
SS nods and says “We’re primates too’
I had a couple of reactions, One I wanted to kill myself right then and there to make the pain stop (It Burns! Mother! The stupid! It burns! It burns!) And the other was to I wanted to really act like a primate and fling my own filth at the screen.

Stupid point 4 - you’re deep in the woods chasing two fifty foot apes, the army is all over the area, it’s cold and dangerous – and now both of you do the humpty hump? This just doesn’t seem like a normal response. Somebody has issues.

The next day – Lady Kong is captured by the army and Kong goes over a cliff into a raging river – presumed dead.

He isn’t of course – otherwise the movie would be over and we have only begun to suffer. He drifts into swamp where he survives by eating alligators. No I’m not making that up. I’m not saying watch the film if you don’t believe me (I wouldn’t wish this on my worst foe) but I am not making that up.

Lady Kong meantime is being held by the military. Stupid Point 5 – I know it is easy to take potshots at the army and the like but really- what the hell would the US Military want with a 50 foot ape? I was wracking my brain the rest of the film to try and figure that one out. Anyway something is wrong with Lady Kong but Col idiot won’t let SS or JJ see her. She pines and moans.

And of course Kong senses that his lady is in trouble – and heads towards her, revealing to the world that Kong is alive. The world naturally panics. SS and JJ start to track Kong,
There is an incident with 4 hunters who are such clichéd drunken Southern crackers that I apologize to everyone who has ever breathed air. The crackers trap Kong but he escapes and kills them. Later seeing the wreckage and the bodies, SS says ‘Kong. Now you’ve killed. There is nothing to stop them from killing you” SS like everybody else in the film has completely forgotten Kong’s little romp some years ago in New York.

Kong manages to sneak up on the military (Well they are led by Col. Idiot who, let’s face it, didn’t get the lady Kong minding job because he was such a good soldier) and then rescues Lady Kong who turns out to be – ta da – pregnant. Excuse me I have to throw up in my mouth a little. I’m back. {God this is a stupid film}.

Then Lady Kong goes in to labor, the Military catches up with Kong, Kong is mortally wounded, Col Idiot is killed by Kong, Lady Kong gives birth to a man in a gorilla suit, Kong holds man in gorilla suit for a moment,. And man in gorilla suit coos – god it’s embarrassing. I’ve looked at the credits and we never know who the man playing baby Kong was – good move by they way maybe saved his career. (Stupid point 6 Ape babies, like human babies are pretty limited in what they can do and know at birth so it couldn’t know Kong was its dad and also it should have had a much bigger head and looked more like a baby than a man in gorilla suit.) - Kong dies and we are all sad. I’m sad because I’ve permanently damaged myself watching this thing (again) and I’ll never get those 85 minutes back.

Final fade out features mother and son in range in Borneo – which doesn’t explain how they plan to keep Lady Kong and Jr. on the preserve (50 foot apes go pretty much where they want to yes) and so the film ends and the credits roll and I try to smash a bottle so I can cut my wrists until I realize its plastic so I settle for beating my head against the floor.

Anybody wanna buy a DVD?