Check out the exclusive TV Guide movie review and see our movie rating for King Kong Lives. Join or Sign In. Sign in to customize your TV listings. Continue with Facebook Continue with email. King Kong Lives, also known as King Kong II, is a 1986 American monster film produced by DEG Studios. Directed by John Guillermin and featuring special effects by Carlo Rambaldi, the film starred Linda Hamilton and Brian Kerwin. The film was a belated sequel to the 1976 version ofKing Kong. 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Reception 3.1 Box office 3.2 Critical response King Kong, after being shot down from the. It takes King Kong Lives to show us just how deeply rancid a King Kong movie could eventually get - I 'm not sure that I can name a solitary aspect of this mournfully bad sequel that I don't at least slightly hate. John Scott's score, I guess; it's not one for the ages, but it has a rich adventure movie attitude that suggests somebody at last.

King Kong Lives Movie Online
King Kong Lives Movie Online
King Kong Lives Movie Poster

Or take the head of the research institute. He's in charge of a project to supply Kong with an artificial heart. When he's informed that the operation is impossible because of Kong's low blood plasma level, he explodes: 'That heart cost $17 million!' In real life, he would have cackled, '...and now we're going to need another huge injection of government research funds to study gorilla blood!' The problem with everyone in 'King Kong Lives' is that they're in a boring movie, and they know they're in a boring movie, and they just can't stir themselves to make an effort. Even the lowliest extras in a 1950s' B picture would have been able to scream better and roll their eyes more than the actors in this film. They act like they've used Kong's tranquilizer gun for target practice on themselves.

The picture's big news: Kong did not die after being machinegunned and falling from the top of the World Trade Center. (I guessed that from the last picture, in which Kong looked remarkably intact after arriving at street level.) The injured Kong was carted to a university research center outside Atlanta, where he has lain in a coma for the last decade, awaiting an artificial heart.

King Kong Lives Movie Online

Anyway, wouldn't you know, just when things look darkest for Kong, a big-game hunter discovers a female Kong in the jungles of Borneo, and transports her to research headquarters for a transfusion that will make it possible to implant Kong's artificial heart.

King Kong Lives Movie Online

After the operation, romance blooms between the two creatures, who break their shackles and escape into the woods, where the Army attempts to shoot them down, while the female heart specialist and the big game hunter (who have taken to sharing sleeping bags) use computers to monitor the big fella's condition.

King Kong Lives Movie Poster

Every movie like this has at least one amazing line of dialogue. I especially liked it when the heroine cried to the Army troops: 'Don't shoot the female! She's gone into labor!' This moment was especially amazing since the two Kongs had mated for the first time only three days earlier. With a turnaround time like that, it's remarkable that there isn't a little Kong in every one of the holiday movies.