King Kong Movies

King Kong

Everyone knows the story. A giant ape is found on a remote island, he falls in love with a woman, is captured and brought to New York City as a show attraction until he escapes. The movie is classic in every way, from the early fog shrouded scenes on the island teeming with dinosaurs, to the big ape's demise at the top of the Empire State Building.

King Kong vs. Godzilla

A turning point in the evolution of our favorite radioactive dinosaur, King Kong vs. Godzilla marks the beginning of such movies as elaborate, colorful fantasy romps instead of dark, brooding disaster films. The plot is pure puff pastry: Corporation sends expedition to remote island to harvest rare berries. Expedition finds berries, island natives, and King Kong. Expedition brings back berries and Kong as a souvenir.

Of course, Kong gets loose and begins loping around Japan, much to the consternation of Godzilla, who has chosen the exact same minute to do the exact same thing. Rather than playing together and making mankind miserable, they proceed to tear hell out of one another. One might think it would be a lopsided match -- one whiff of Godzilla's fire breath should set the big fuzzball alight -- but the odds are evened when it turns out that Kong thrives on electric current, while the big G can't stand the stuff. Good, goofy fun, even when watching the butchered U.S. cut, which removes large portions of dialogue and plot.

Note: despite what you may have heard or read elsewhere, there are no "alternate endings" for this film. A more complete examination of the rumors regarding different outcomes from the King Kong / Godzilla deathmatch can be found at the Urban Legends Reference Pages.

Reviews: Stomp Tokyo.

King Kong Escapes

If you expect the plot of this one to make any sense at all, you're barking up the wrong gorilla. Super-secret government employee Madame X (Mie Hama) has hired Doctor Who (Eisei Amamamoto) -- no, not that Doctor Who -- to procure the rare Element X. Doctor Who's plan to do so involves a giant robot based on sketches of King Kong, a rumored giant ape on the island of Mondo. Unfortunately, the MechaniKong robot can't function under the intense radiation emitted by Element X, so there's another government grant down the tubes.

Like all good (or rather, evil) scientists, Doctor Who has a backup plan -- he'll just hypnotize the real Kong into mining the stuff for him! Of course, it's all going to come down to fisticuffs between Kong and MechaniKong. A mixed Japanese and American cast (the film was produced by Toho and Rankin-Bass) and an actual budget make this one well-funded international fever dream. Supremely entertaining without a shred of dignity.

Reviews: The Unknown Movies

King Kong

Updated version of the classic giant ape movie falls short in too many ways to count. Sure, Jessica Lange is a hottie, and some of the Kong effects are breathtaking, but the script is a mess, the acting is all over the place, and there aren't even any freaking dinosaurs! Instead Kong fights a very immobile giant snake.

The plot sticks pretty close to the original, except that the film crew is now an oil prospecting expedition and our hero is a monkey-lovin' primate paleontologist (Jeff Bridges). When the prospecting crew turns up Kong instead of crude, their fearless leader (Charles Grodin) decides to make lemonade from lemons and shackles the goliath up for a trip back to Manhattan. The usual monkey business ensues.

Reviews: Stomp Tokyo.

King Kong Lives

It turns out that when King Kong fell in King Kong (1976) he was only mostly dead. For ten years he's lain in a coma, as scientists perfected an artificial heart at his scale. Unfortunately they need someone to give the big guy a blood donation. Luckily an explorer (Kermin) has found a female Kong in Borneo, and brought her back to the States. Will love bloom between these two apes?

King Kong

Peter Jackson's upcoming movie will be a period piece set in the 1930's, and will likely have many dinosaurs.

On April 1st of 2005 Peter Jackson announced that he was going to make Son of Kong and King Kong: Into the Wolf's Lair, back-to-back sequels to King Kong where Kong's son is taken to Europe and fights Nazis. He was kidding.