Thought dead after his fall, King Kong has been kept alive in a coma at the Atlanta University. The great king needs a new heart, but there is not enough of his blood type around to install the huge artificial heart needed to keep the great beast alive. That is until another great ape is found alive and tamed by a man known as Hank Mitchell who agrees to have her used in order to save the great Kong's life. Dr. Amy Franklin (Linda Hamilton), Kong's keeper and doctor will be the one performing the surgery.

All goes well until Kong recovers and senses that the female nearby is in season. And as we all know, there is nothing going to stop two 100 foot gorillas from getting their freak on.

First off this is a bad idea for a movie. Kong should have stayed dead. Second and as much as I hate to say this, this film is done pretty well. The courtship between the huge apes is extremely amusing, you find yourself rooting for the two to get down to some serious ape on ape action. But unfortunately in these types of movies the ending is pretty predictable and the outcome is quite gruesome indeed.

Also once again the characters in the movie and the viewers who care about Kong are forced to go through another example of man's cruelty to others sequence. Hokey in a good way, but this is a film that did not need to be made.

5 out of 10

I haven't seen this since it was in the theaters, but it wasn't too bad -- at least in the eyes of a kid, and in the gradually failing memory of this old fogey. Scenes of the giant, weary, forlorn, and hungry Kong wandering through the wilderness doing what he can to survive are quite effective -- he's still the most powerful thing around, but he's clearly weakened, lost and confused now that he's no longer on Skull Island. He's like a Titan displaced in time and space, pitifully out of his element in a modern world.

Kong's attempts to unite with and protect his lovely gorilla lady (who he seems to understand would be a better match for him than either Fay Wray or Jessica Lange) were also well done. I always like Linda Hamilton, although the way she had to run around with a little portable computer that somehow monitors and helps Kong's heart was silly -- it felt like some of the old monster movies where some giant monster or robot could be remote-controlled by one or more dudes with their little tinfoil gadgets.

I've never seen the 1976 King Kong, but I think the cultural and racial subtexts underlying the original King Kong are pretty much absent from this one... although there is an implied argument for environmental conservation and endangered species protection. The ending really plays with the audience's heartstrings -- cheezy, yeah, but enjoyable.

5.6 out of 10 alligator snacks.

Yeah Boy! King Kong Lives! After the big success of the King Kong remake the studios decided to give the big fella another go round. This movie is all 80's. To some that may be a bad thing, not to me. I love the 80's and that decade produced more great horror films than all others combined (if you exclude the 70's).

This movie, however, is not great. It is entertaining. The plot is simple, the story is simple. This time you have two apes instead of one. There is a good dose of violence both on man and animal and the acting is nothing to laugh at either. This one is not up to par with the remake (first remake anyway.) Did I enjoy it, YES, just not too much.

5 out of 10 Horny Apes

I found King Kong Lives to be neither well made nor in any capacity emotionally effective. I never once cared about Kong, his mate or anyone in the movie.

Yes, I DID actually expect some semblance of quality from the film . If Dino De Laurentis was going to bother following up his remake, then I do expect some attempt at a good film. Message to DDL: For fuck's sake, man!! This isn't just any movie. This is supposed to be the sequel to KING KONG!

An atrocious storyline, bottom of the barrel visuals and lackluster acting really turn this into a depressingly inept mess.

You know it's bad when you walk out of a movie with the suspicion that the price of the ticket was in fact higher than the F/X budget for the film itself. Event the mechanical giant "ape hand" effects- which were at least adequate in the 1976 film - are botched on this one.

Genuinely awful crapfest. By film's end, I had one regret- that one of the cinema's greatest creations had his legendary name defiled with this ridiculous travesty.

Zero out of Ten Movies where you realize Linda Hamilton is slumming.