King Kong Lives

When we last saw Kong in 1976, he was dying at the bottom of the World Trade Center in New York City. King Kong Lives opens with a reprise of that memorable swan dive, then quickly shifts to the present, ten years later, to reveal that the King has been kept alive in a university research center with the aid of life support systems. The bad news is that Kong is in a coma, and desperately needs a blood transfusion, before heart surgeon Amy Franklin (Linda Hamilton) can install a specially-made seven-foot artificial heart. The good news, thanks to the convenience of a truly contrived script, is that on the other side of the globe in Borneo, Hank Mitchell (a cut-rate Indiana Jones) has literally stumbled on a female Kong. In the film's best scene, Ms. Franklin, with the aid of a crane, and surrounded by a surgical team sporting sponges the size of bean bag chairs, and clamps that should require a driver's license, performs the world's largest heart transplant. All goes well...except, this is a love story, right? Which means that Kong has to escape and rescue Lady Kong and fall in love and be hunted by the military...and you can write the rest of this one yourself. Call us jaded, but we like to see Kong take Manhattan--you know, bend a few fenders, reroute the subway, kick a little butt. But here he mostly traverses gullies and fields, peeks into one house, and visits a barn. It's a little difficult to sustain a sense of massive pandemonium in a gully (although it's a whole lot cheaper than Fifth Avenue). By the time the shamelessly schmaltzy tragic ending rolls around, you begin to wonder if the whole movie wasn't just an extended commercial for the inevitable sequel (think about it: this was a love story). Not recommended. (R. Pitman)[DVD Review--Sept. 21, 2004--Fox, 105 min., PG-13, $14.98--Making its debut on DVD, John Guillermin's 1986 King Kong Lives bows on an extra-less disc that sports a solid widescreen transfer and both Dolby Digital 5.1 and stereo sound. Bottom line: bigger--or, in this case, wider than the original pan-and-scan VHS release--is not necessarily better, and this remains an unnecessary purchase for all but King Kong completists.]