Man in rubber suit alert!, 7 July 2003
4/10
Author: Rob Taylor (Rob_Taylor) from London
 
Yes, sadly its true. Not only true, but shockingly, totally and completely devoid of even the slightest hint of "is it or isn't it?" This movie was going OK right up until "Kong" appeared. Even for 1976, the effects here are pretty diabolical.
 
Basically Kong is some guy in a monkey suit who, in their infinite wisdom, the film-makers of this atrocity believe will convince you he's a 50 foot ape. They even pulled their ace card out to help maintain and enhance the illusion......filming the guy in the suit from a low angle, so he appears bigger. Gasp! Oh the high-techness of it all!
 
One wonders, in the original '33 version, whether the crew weighed up the pros and cons of trying to get away with a guy in a suit. I can almost see them doing a few test shots and reviewing the footage. They turn to one another, the mouth of one quivers, then they all fall about laughing. "Man, this is too retarded! We'll never get away with that! Go with that new-fangled stop-motion stuff." So quite why the '76 crew thought they could make it real is beyond comprehension.
 
Further, the guy playing Kong, coupled with the dark makeup, had a rather unfortunate tendency to leer and letch maniacally throughout the film. The only recent actor I've seen do anything like this is Robert O'Reilly, who played (overacted gloriously) Chancellor Gowron from the ST:TNG and DS9 series. But in Kong's case, the effect is disturbing rather than humourous and you are left feeling rather unsettled.
 
If it was only Kong, it might have been bearable, but all manner of ridiculous things crop up here that make you wonder if you're watching some student project. The trees wobble as "Kong" pushes through them in the most rubbery way and look about as convincing as the model trees I used to have for me train set as a kid. Then there are the sets. I'm sorry, but a poorly dressed sound stage will never convince me it's a tropical island, no matter how garish it looks. In order to add realism Dino and clan added some truly atrocious back-projected scenes, including "The Mother of all Bad Back-Projection Scenes (tm)" involving Kong atop the World Trade Centres with circling helicopters in the background. In some shots, the helicopters wobble and even fly backwards as they pass by in the background. Now that's flying!
 
But my award for "All-Time Lame-Ass Creature Effects" goes to the stupefyingly un-lifelike snake that Kong fights (read as "wraps himself up in unconvincingly" ). I will never bad-mouth the snake in Anaconda again! It's perfection compared to this. What's worse, this snake is one of that rare breed of ophidians which is both a constrictor and a poisonous variety - an Anacobra. The snake is soooo bad. Trust me. I've seen draught excluders that look more lifelike.
 
With the above emerging in all too terrifyingly real comic proportions, I quickly found the whole film an entertaining joy to watch. It's one of those "They don't seriously expect us to buy this? Do they?" movies that you have to keep watching just to see how awful it will get. And trust me, it gets pretty darn bad. Jeff Bridge's beard is shockingly unkempt in an uncaring Robinson Crusoe kind of way and Jessica Lange's character is so vapid that I kept hoping that someone....anyone...would slap her about a bit to get some kind of response other than the stat "I'm cute, look at me" routine she was locked into.
 
If you're a fan of the original, watching this will be like having your teeth pulled. If you fancy a beer-and-giggles evening then this movie has to be high on the list, if not No. 1 for bad movie-ness.
 
Yet again a wonderful Dino de Horrendous production. Bravo!