King of the Lost World (2005)

I watched this movie as a little boy, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever, but now that I watch it again, I can see why it has such low reviews. The movie goes way too fast. We have someone being eaten by a massive gorilla within the first, what 10 minutes? We can forget that the monsters are highly unrealistic. Gorillas eating people, scorpions that impale with their stingers, spiders that can wrap, eat, digest, and discard of a human in less than 30 seconds, and literally a population of dragons that appear to be able to change sizes. That's okay, this is science fiction after all. But come on, the effects are just as bad as those SyFy original movies. One thing that really bothered me was the fake language the "natives" of the island speak, that literally sounds like someone speaking ebonics and baby talk at the same time. It's disgusting. Then the ending leaves so many questions, it's insane. But, I mean its got an awesome concept, it just needs a ton of work.

Here we go. It's Saturday morning and while just getting up and around, I turn on the SyFy Channel. "King of the Lost World" is just starting, which makes me very, very suspicious."This must be an Asylum rip-off of something," I thought to myself and decided to watch to see of what. At first, I thought of course it would be The Lost World. But it also had the elements of the TV series Lost. But then... wait for it... wait for it... oh yes, King Kong. Of course they never say "King Kong"; that great ape is just "he" the whole time. Wouldn't want to invite any unwanted lawsuits.As usual, the Asylum has churned out another meandering, un-thrilling, steaming pile of dung that can't even qualify as a B movie. Despite the names you'll recognize in the cast, the acting is forced at best, and the script is just ridiculous. The effects are equally bad, if not worse. My favorite was the little fake ivy you can get at Walmart that somebody pulled with a fishing line to terrify the team. It's all so fake.Oh yeah, and where are the dinosaurs? And I don't mean just the fake impaled dinosaur head. It's the lost world after all...Well, maybe when the Asylum releases "Star Conflicts: The Empire Hits Back", they'll be redeemed...

This movie had the wrong title. It should be called "Toothpicks" Just about every woman in the film has toothpicks for legs. I didn't believe it either. This is okay, except their breasts are all huge and just don't conform to their bodies. A very odd look. Add to this that all the men look exactly alike (well, so do all the women), and it is just a confusing movie.First the things that worked: SOUND-I've been in the industry, and it is a common inside joke that sound people don't know what the H... they're doing. Here, they do. We now know where all the money went in this film (or where it deserved to go). BLOCKING-it is well blocked, characters are situated well. The director does seem proficient at this. SCENERY-Some good cutaways and some decent scenery. Not the best, but passable. The scenery won't bore you. LITTLE THINGS-Like the hero screaming in pain and agony instead of being the usual unbelievable hero we often see. A few little add ons like this made the movie a lot better than the usual corn meal.What didn't work: PEOPLE DELINEATION-Actally, a lot didn't work, but I'll narrow it down to the chief concerns. The people, as stated before, all looked alike. This is a common practice among modern movies (the last 30 years) and why such movies are inferior to older movies. You don't know what is happening to who or who is doing what. Utterly ridiculous. STORYLINE-I should give you the plot, if I knew what it was. It seems there are some plane wreck survivors and somehow they meet big animals and a big ape, as well as strange looking natives. It really isn't the worst storyline, but it was a bit corny. TOOTHPICK LEGS-I still have to say it. What is the deal with all these *toothpick legs attached to large breasts and narrow waists? It isn't unattractive, but it isn't sexy, either. Bizarre. THROWAWAY CHARACTERS-not as bad as some movies. But there were some "throwaway" characters who are written in as "deserving to die". It does get in the way of the escapism when the viewer becomes so cognizant of a writer playing God, instead of letting the story flow with some degree of Naturalism. DRAG-The movie, despite the action and monsters, just seems to drag very slow, while not really giving any character definition. The worst of both worlds. WE'VE SEEN IT ALL BEFORE-I think this phrase is self explanatory.There have been some remarks about special effects, but only a real dork is concerned about special effects. If you are one of these, I really don't think they are bad. In fact, they beat the goofy dork effects of the Star Wars 1-3 trilogy.A very average movie.

King of the Lost World starts as a plane crashes in a mysterious jungle, of those aboard Ed Malone (Jeff Denton) & John Roxton (Rhett Giles) take charge. The plane has been broken in half while crash landing & the end with the radio & black box in is somewhere deep in the jungle, a group decide to go look for it & try to radio for help. However they soon discover a jungle full of horrors including giant spiders, giant scorpions, flying dragons, a giant ape & a tribe of primitives...Co-written & directed by Leigh Scott who also plays Dr. Armstrong in the it this is another terrible zero budget Asylum produced sci-fi flick that in this case is a complete rip-off of King Kong. The script by Scott, Carlos De Los Rios & David Michael Latt takes itself very seriously & moves along at a reasonable pace but the character's, dialogue & situations are terrible. This is a poorly thought out mess designed to cost as little as possible & to cash-in on the recent (at the time) King Kong remake. I don't know why what else to say about this, it's just both conceptually & technically awful. If a passenger plane crashes there would rescue planes & search parties there within hours, we do have things such as radars & tracking devices you know. What happens to the other plane crash survivors who stay behind on the beach & are then taken away by the tribe? Do yourself a favour & give this one a miss.Director Scott turns in an average looking film that isn't much fun to watch. Then, of course, there are the special effects which are simply terrible. The big ape at the end looks awful & all the horrible CGI seems really blurred which makes it look worse, the special effects on the original 1933 version of King Kong are better & more convincing than this. There's nothing quite like bad CGI effects to take you out of a film & make it look cheap & nasty. We get some killer vines, a giant spider, several giant scorpions, a huge ape & some flying dragons all of which look pretty childish & unconvincing. There's no gore or violence in it worth mentioning.With a budget less than $1,000,000 this has terrible special effects that are simply embarrassing to watch at times, the live action stuff is competent but forgettable & unimaginative. The acting sucks too, the always watchable Steve Railsback makes a small cameo appearance.King of the Lost Island is a pretty terrible film as is the general opinion for which once I am in full agreement, definitely one to avoid.