King of the Lost World (2004) User Reviews

Blatant Attemtpt to Cash In on Jackson's King Kong

[austincowboys · 1/10 · 9 December 2005]

Supposedly based on Sir Arthur's "Lost World", this film must have him spinning in his grave. The only resemblance are the character's names and the Amazon jungle setting. This lost world is best described as an episode of TV's 'Lost" as written by your local college frat house. The King, or giant ape of the title, is constantly referred to as he, or him, never by name. At one point Bruce Boxleitner asks who "he" is and one of the natives, who look like frat house refugees, replies "you can not speak his name." Obviously as doing so would have involved a lawsuit for copyright infringement. I should mention that for the entire duration of the film, all 75 minutes, the "King's" screen times amounts to approx. 2 minutes. The remaining 73 minutes are filled with endless babble from bad actors on how they are going to get out of the jungle. Additionally the SFX are on the same level as the acting. This movie needs to be permanently lost!

Oh My God, The ultimate budget movie

[aperfectmatch · 1/10 · 12 December 2005]

If your going to produce a special effect movie, at least have the basics with which to carry it off. The Lost World was one of my favourite books as a child and previous translations to the big screen have been OK, at best. However although the acting was certainly acceptable, the budget for the effects must have been raised by a quick whip round of the stars and crew. awful doesn't even come close. The main creature (king Kong who wasn't featured in the original story anyway) looks like and moves like a glove puppet. Anyone over 7 who goes to see this is going to come away extremely disappointed.Bruce Boxleitner has appeared in many Sci-Fi TV series and movies and does his best to carry off this film but he is fighting a losing battle I'm afraid. With the technology thats available today for creating believable CGI effects, it inexcusable to release such a sub standard movies, especially when it seems to be released on the back of the New blockbuster "KING KONG". When low cost TV sci-fi's are being produced now, with quite acceptable visual effects, I fail to understand that those responsible for the graphic effects would deem this movie "Fit for human viewing"

Waste of Time

[dashro3 · 1/10 · 28 December 2005]

I actually went out of my way to find this movie because I love giant monster movies, especially King Kong related monsters.

The effects in this movie were so bad they were embarrassing.

It's amazing that there were better effects in 1933's King Kong compared to this...I take that back...there were better effects in 1903's The Great Train Robbery compared to this bomb.

It's tough to mess up a movie with giant monsters and decent looking girls...but whoever made this movie did accomplish this feat.

Anyone who is curious like I was about this film stay far away as possible. It is a total waste of your time.

Bought it, and liked it/hated it!

[redhead9898 · 5/10 · 27 November 2007]

This is about when an ape that is a so called "King" and rules his "Lost World" which is no more then trees, dirt bushes, and fake looking back grounds and hills. It starts off with a plane crashing, an explosion, then we find out the front of the plane is missing, which must have crashed with the full plane, and a little explosion that causes it to fly 2-300 miles away without leaving falling trees if it supposedly crashed through them. Then, the survivors encounter fake looking spiders, scorpions, man eating vines, and a 150 foot monkey that is the "King Of The Lost World" along with brain washing natives. It is pretty good except for the cgi effects and the nudity scene. It does include a few good actors, and of course, some bad actors (which is about 90 percent of the actors) Thus, creating a good rip-off of Doyle's novel and the King Kong movies.

Originally titled "Attack of the Blurry Ape"

[Wuchakk · 5/10 · 21 December 2018]

The Asylum's "King of the Lost World" (2005) is a TV knockoff of Peter Jackson's "King Kong," released one day before that blockbuster during Christmas. While there's a giant ape and an island of colossal creatures, the similarities end there. This has more to do with Arthur Conan Doyle's fantasy/adventure novel "The Lost World" (1912) than "King Kong." The plot revolves around a group of survivors of a plane wreck who search the mysterious island; and clash with the giant creatures & primitive-type people that dwell there.

The movie only cost $1 million and the blurry CGI creatures look it. If you can get past that, there's quite a bit to like here for fans of comic book adventure flicks, especially of the lost on a deserted island variety. Imagine "Mysterious Island" (1961) if it was done on a miniscule budget, like "Planet of the Dinosaurs" (1977), and that's what this is.

The Asylum's "The Land that Time Forgot" (2009) is comparable, but that one had over double the money to spend, as did the 1974 film with Doug McClure. Another point of reference is those cheesy primeval flicks from Hammer back in the day, like "The Lost Continent" (1968) and "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth" (1970).

If you don't appreciate Grade B (or Grade C) adventure fare like this I'd suggest passing but, if you can roll with it, the story and cast are decent, highlighted by curvy Sarah Lieving in form-fitting shorts, not to mention a couple others. The Southern Cal locations feature magnificent coastlines, lush jungles, cool caves and barren landscapes.

The film runs 1 hour, 20 minutes and was shot at Pikake Gardens, Valley Center, and San Diego County, California.

GRADE: C

Even LESS then I expected... and I didn't expect much

[beastwarsfan · 2/10 · 15 December 2005]

I saw the cover. Obviously a cheep movie that is trying to make some money from the popularity of Peter Jackson's King Kong. Anyway - a huge gorilla in the lost world - cool! I knew it was going to be cheep, but I liked the idea. And the rating was still 5,8 so I thought it will be worth watching. I was wrong. Since it is the Lost World I expected some dinosaurs. Nope. Compared to this movie the TV series "The Lost World" look like a Hollywood blockbuster. No dinosaurs. Just a sloppy CGI giant spider, a couple of sloppy CGI giant scorpions, and a sloppy CGI giant gorilla, which you finally see for a couple of seconds at the end of the movie. I love B-movies, but not B-movies that pretend to be A-movies, if you know what I mean. If this movie was done intentionally stupid just for the fun if would be nice. Now it is just boring. And I guess a couple of days ago it had 5,8 rating because all the guys from the ending credits voted here.

Could have been a good movie

[lauroy8 · 5/10 · 17 December 2005]

It looked like they were reading their lines from a tele-prompter. In the opening sequence when the plane crashed there was a big fireball, the scene then switches to the crash site where there is no signs of a fire. I can't really give a full review because I shut it off after 30 minutes. If the swearing was removed it could be put on TV. The special effects were weird, some kind of CG that looked really out of place. Imagine putting Sailor Moon cartoons in Toy Story, thats how out of place it looked. My wife and I had just previously watched the old King Kong movie from, I think 1933. We both laughed when we realized that the effects were better. Anyway, wait for it to come on TV. Don't waste your money.

Hope this helps someone.

Only the opening scene and score are good here

[TheLittleSongbird · 2/10 · 27 October 2012]

King of the Lost World is not the worst Asylum movie out there, there are definitely worse. That is not saying very much however because it is still a terrible movie. The opening scene was fun and set the tone of the film reasonably well, and the score is both intense and catchy. That is it for the good unfortunately. Although I was not expecting much in my quest to see whether The Asylum are capable of finding a good movie(so far I Am Omega, #1 Cheerleader Camp and When a Killer Calls are their best, and they are only decent, mixed-reception and average), I was determined to take things at face value and enjoy it for what it was, but sorry it was just too inept to make me do that. Technically King of the Lost World is a mess. The editing is choppy that it doesn't allow you to appreciate the dully lit but non-amateur settings, while the special effects are just terrible, there is a fair amount of them and every single one of them are crude. The ape itself is more goofy in look and manner than it is menacing. The script is childishly written and painfully unfunny, while the direction is flat and the story is dull, predictable and a choc-a-block of ridiculous scenes that you'd be here all night and probably about 500-600 words over the review word limit. The characters you just cannot engage with at all, they are not developed at all and just annoy the heck out of you. The acting is atrocious from almost all of the cast with one exception which is Steve Railsback who isn't in it anywhere near long enough to save it. So all in all, one big colossal failure. 2/10 Bethany Cox

Yawn fest

[supermom-leigh · 2 September 2006]

This was one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I liked the TV show of the Lost World, but this just stunk. BIG time. The acting was awful, and I noticed that many of the actors are in a number of movies by this director. Low budget movies with low budget actors. 2/10. The CGI stinks, the acting is worse. Even the people who have made up the tribe can't act worth two hoots and a darn. I had to keep turning up the TV just so I could hear it. The only actor I know was Bruce. Heck I don't even know who the director is. I only watched it because I could not find something better on. I would have rather watched Golf over this, as I think that watching Tiger Woods hit a little ball into a cup would have had more excitement in it.

It was just downright abysmal...

[paul_haakonsen · 2/10 · 28 January 2019]

Where to begin...

This movie was the epitome of everything that is bad about movies from The Asylum. Sure, it should be said that The Asylum actually does spew out the occasional movie that is actually entertaining and worth watching. "King of the Lost World", however, was definitely not one such movie.

The storyline in the movie was such a scrambled and random mess of a storyline as it could be. It seemed that they actually just went in with 20 different ideas, shot them individually and then tied them together to make a movie. There was next to no red line throughout the course of this movie. And it didn't take long before my attention span dropped several levels.

The special effects in the movie were ludicrous. The CGI was phenomenally bad and it is hard to believe that something like that would actually pass as being worthy of making it into a movie even back in 2005. If you actually take the time to sit down and watch "King of the Lost World", you might want to wear protective eyewear just as a precaution.

What was up with the huge creatures that they crammed into the movie? Spiders. Scorpions. And some weird strange reptillian flying creatures. And of course the massive ape itself - which was so fake it was laughable to look at.

As for the acting in the movie, well let's just be honest and say you are getting what is to be expected from a movie such as this. But in defense of the actors and actresses, then they had nothing, absolutely nothing, to work with in terms of a proper storyline, a coherent script or interesting characters. So the acting performers were fighting a losing uphill battle.

I suffered through "King of the Lost World" so you don't have to. Take heed, and give this movie a wide, wide berth...

Avoid like the Ebola Virus

[freshwayne · 1/10 · 28 December 2005]

This is awful - plain and simple awful. The CGI is pathetic, maybe we've all been spoiled as of late with Peter Jacksons masterpieces and some of the ILM work in the Star Wars films, but this takes the doggy biscuit. A film like this lives or dies by its effects, and quite frankly this film is dead! Add that to some inept acting and direction and you have a turkey thats big enough to feed your whole family for Christmas and beyond. Save your money and go to see Kong. I'm not even getting into the nitty gritty of plots and characters because quite frankly this movie doesn't even deserve my time, effort or your money! Don't take my word for it - look at the naff picture of the gorilla on the box! It doesn't get any better I assure you!

a B movie must see

[bigbadbrewcee · 8/10 · 12 January 2007]

King Of The Lost World, a perfect B-movie classic. Extremely close to King Kong, both original and remake, but seeing as they all inspired by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's book Lost World I can see why. Bruce Boxleitner is cast perfectly, in that is he a bad guy or good guy role. Rhett Giles, is another who I really enjoyed in the movie, he definitely has leading man qualities,I look forward to see him in his upcoming TV show Lost Colony. King Of the Lost World is a great Suanday afternoon movie for those of us who love cheesy films. Giant apes and spiders, Scorpions afraid of a camera flash, and man eating vines, a great way to waste 2 hours.

Not quite B-movie nirvana, but close enough.

[gtc83 · 7/10 · 7 September 2006]

So a plane crashes on a "Lost World" type of island. The plane broke in half in midair, so the survivors set off in search of the fuselage and the radio so they can call for help. Along the way they encounter giant spiders, man-eating vines, Pterodactyls, a rather odd (and entertaining) tribe of natives, and even King Kong.

The special effects are pretty bad, especially King Kong, he's positively humorous. But this story is all about the characters, and it's pretty good in that area. Everyone plays it rather low key, you won't find your usual clichés nor your usual over-the-top imbeciles, but instead some folks that you can actually sort of care about and like. Their quest is also interesting, as they keep finding more and more planes that crashed on the island, which sets up a nice mystery, and then they're captured by the tribe of natives and we're pretty much in the B-movie fun zone after that.

Overall, a surprisingly watchable low-budget effort. Good characters and interesting plot, and some really sexy and likable babes. I give it two thumbs up.

Don't waste your money....

[sfenick23 · 2/10 · 20 February 2006]

I can't say this is the worst movie I have ever seen, but it is definitely in the top 10. The premise of the story is sound enough, and that is what actually attracted me enough to rent this movie. Unfortunately, that is the only redeeming quality in this movie. The actors were given virtually nothing to work with, as the dialogue was absolutely horrible. Some of the lines sound as if they might have been penned by Ed Wood himself, until you consider that Woods' work at least had some naive charm about it. The acting was atrocious. Every single actor in this movie seemed to mail it in at the same time, and it was not all due to the poor writing. Finally, the CGI was extremely poorly done. There was no hint of realism at all with any of the computer work. The effects were cheap and lacked any sort of attention to detail, something the entire movie lacked as a whole. I have to be fair and say that like the previous reviewer, I only watched part of the movie. It turned out that the movie was dirty, and stopped playing after about 45 minutes. I decided it was not worth the time to clean the disc and try to find where it left off. My advice would be to miss this one completely. Don't waste your money renting it, and if it shows up on TV you can certainly find something better to watch.

Arthur Conan Doyle must be spinning in his grave.

[moviemanic07 · 28 January 2006]

Plane crash survivors in the Amazon battle exceptionally lame CGI critters in this dull, slow-moving tale, which bears absolutely no resemblance to the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle story. The Asylum's "War of the Worlds" shows that they are capable of telling a decent story when they want to do so. They must not have wanted to do so here. This film is exceptionally bad. No dinosaurs, just scorpions, spiders, man-eating vines, and a giant gorilla so bad that it fortunate for the audience that we only see it for a few minutes. The special features reveal that this film was a rush job – no doubt to capitalize on the publicity for Peter Jackson's "King Kong." The reason they went with scorpions and such instead of the dinosaurs was because the special effects guy already had them partially created. At eighty-minutes, the movie drags. (Drags is the wrong word. It's like it's daring you to keep watching it. It was quite a battle, but I managed too.) I ultimately found myself wondering who this film was aimed at. There aren't enough monsters for monster movie fans. Not enough action for action movie fans. It was too boring to children, who shouldn't be able to watch it because of the language anyway. It was like an episode of "Lost" without the insightful writing and acting. Literally, the best thing about the film is the jungle location they found in a private garden. For that, I will credit the location manager, not the director, producer or writers, all of whom should be ashamed of themselves.

And don't get me started about the white native tribe in the Amazon…. Oy Vey! Ineptitude, you have a new name. And poor Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he's spinning away in his grave somewhere.

Poor mans king Kong for 2005

[dolifk · 4/10 · 11 December 2005]

Any movie coming out in 2005 and having King Kong in it (although unnamed and in a bit part) is going to suffer badly. Mind you this movie deserves to. Only loosely following the classic Conan Doyle story, and not a patch on the old 1925 silent classic (which incidentally cast Sir Arthur Conan Doyle playing himself) This movie is just far to bitty to be enjoyable, with many plot holes which will leave you asking questions. It also seems to suffer from being updated, maybe it would have been better to have set it in the period it was wrote in. One gains no sympathy whosoever for the cardboard cutout characters, and couldn't care less as they are killed off one by one. Even the end of King Kong, by nuclear weapon, is done somehow in an unspectacular manner!. All in all it leaves one feeling bored and deflated.

The King was missing.

[andyofne · 1/10 · 19 December 2005]

Having just watched the new large screen Peter Jackson remake of King Kong at the theater this past Friday, I was not surprised to find a giant gorilla movie on the shelf at Blockbuster on Saturday. It looked sort of cheesy based on the cover art, which featured a giant gorilla and the word KING in large letters. I stupidly assumed this movie would be centered on a giant gorilla who was the king of his so-called Lost World.

I was quite surprised that this movie was released in 2005; I would have assumed that it had been produced in the early 1990s and shown on the SCI-FI channel after midnight for the last 15 years. "King of the Lost World" is distributed by a company called "The Asylum".

A plane crashes in a remote jungle, presumably in South America, although I'm not sure it was stated as such. There are several survivors despite a large explosion complete with a near mushroom cloud sized fireball. Sadly, the front end of the plane is missing.

Almost immediately we see a woman still strapped in her seat on a piece of wreckage who has just awakened following the crash. Suddenly a giant ape rips her into the air and carries her off. This is sort of where I see the whole "King Kong" aspect of the movie but the part about the girl falling in love with the savage beast never materialized. In fact, I lost track of this woman all together.

Over time, many planes have crashed in the area and the survivors have become some kind of primitive tribe who feed some of the crash victims to flying dragon like monsters as a ritual sacrifice, trying to placate the flying beats? The tribe may be fearful of the flying dragons but they have a much greater fear of the giant gorilla who "brings death" to them. Of course, they can't speak his name. How do they know his name? Who named him? I didn't see any native folks running around in this Amazon jungle, only freaky crash survivors who sit around painting themselves up in war paint and smoking cigars.

After hiking all day these poor LOST survivors (their numbers thinned somewhat) sit down to rest in a cave or something. A girl asks a guy "Want a peanut?" He replies "Peanuts? No. No peanuts. If I never see another bag of god damned gyp joint airline peanuts in my life. My miserable f-king life I'll be just fine. Keep your f-king peanuts." Did I mention the part about how this woman gets a small scratch on her leg at the beginning of the movie? This guy who is horn-dogging on the arguably good looking photographer notices it (he later gets killed by a giant scorpion in a cave when the scorpion puts it's stinger through his chest cavity). The woman blows it off as 'just a scratch'. The next morning it is a wide open, six inch long gash on the front of her lower leg. One of the other women in the group takes a look at it and says "She's infected!" which came out sounding like she had been bitten by a zombie from Dawn of the Dead and would soon be eating the meager brains out of the remaining survivors.

For a stranded person with zero medical resources the easiest fix for a massively infected leg wound is simple -- you simply pack fly larva into the wound in what we call a "Maggot Bandage." The maggots will eat the dead flesh and apparently cure infections. So this enterprising fellow lifts a couple nearby rocks and finds a bunch of squirmy bugs (definitely not maggots) which is proceeds to drop into the wound, complete with a handful of dirt. This is all wrapped tight with a strip of cloth from one of the other survivor's skirts.

For the next half a day in the movie the girl is deathly ill. They make a great show about how they are carrying her all around the jungle. Then, suddenly, they stop because someone spots a plane crashed in the jungle (there are a surprisingly large number of nearly intact planes laying around) and they set the woman down on a rock where she sits for a moment. The next thing you know she's up and running as if nothing ever happened and no further discussion or observation of her wound is necessary.

The very cute, but amazingly stupid, woman in the torn stewardess uniform is the first one to break through the trees and spot the nearby plane. She shouts for everyone to come because she found their plane! At any rate, the plane this woman spotted looked like a fully intact fighter jet not just a cockpit section of a large airliner. The stewardess was very disappointed when it was pointed out that it wasn't their plane, after all. How the hell could she be that stupid? She can't tell the difference between a 727 and a fighter jet? Let's forget that they left their half of a broken plane two days back on the other side of a mountain and that they were searching for the broken off cockpit section OF A HUGE AIRLINER.

In another scene a woman gets her shirt ripped open and another woman is caressing her breasts and licking her face. While this scene was interesting it didn't contribute to the story line. I suppose it was inserted at a strategic point in the film to grab the viewer's attention just when they were planning to hit the eject button.

This movie was full of exceptionally bad script writing, wooden acting, and cheesy not-so-special effects. There really isn't anything I can tell you about this movie that would make you want to see it. In fact, I would urge you NOT to rent this film.

The worst 'Lost World' adaptation yet.

[toastman1992 · 3/10 · 27 February 2008]

There has never been a proper film adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyal's 'The Lost World' and it looks like there never will be. All have them have been low budget TV or straight to DVD movies. The most credible was the 2001 BBC version. So where do I begin with this little beauty? The acting? You can guess. It was cheesy and B movie'ish' which is exactly what you expect. Its almost like the film makers insist on bad acting to live up to the expectations of people who watch movies like this.

I don't understand people who insist on loads of deaths. Why? The original 'Lost World' didn't have any deaths. But this one is rich in death. Characters are killed off left and right in ludicrous pointless ways. Some characters have so little screen time that when their time comes you are baffled because you have no idea who they are or what the hell they were doing to warrant such a killing. Listening to this is gonna cause your ears to vomit. The music is this horrible constant drone that feels like a sledge hammer headache. There is no accuse for such poor special effects. The monsters look like cartoons and bad cartoons at that. Kong is just bad enough to be funny he looks like something a four or five year old might draw only it would be better. So after reading all this and you still want to watch it go ahead but prepare to be disappointed to the max.

Not as bad as the others say.

[13Funbags · 4/10 · 25 July 2019]

I have seen 3 Sarah Lieving movies this week and this is by far the best of them. Of course the cgi is bad, you couldn't have thought it might be good, but the story, acting and dialogue are actually above average for this type of movie. The only thing I didn't like is that the "King" only shows up in the last 5 minutes and doesn't seem to be as powerful as we have been led to believe.

"Nuke the mother f*cker." Bad, just plain bad.

[poolandrews · 3/10 · 15 September 2007]

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.

Another of Asylum's attempts to mislead - avoid!

[boblin2-1 · 1/10 · 7 February 2006]

Just like Asylum's version of War Of The Worlds, this film has the following characteristics:

• Poor acting - Bad effects - Continuity errors all over the place - A few 'glowing reviews' that cannot possibly be real - Timed to coincide with the release of a similar big-budget movie

After the first 20 minutes I had to stop watching it, else my foot would have gone through the screen.

It's not the few dollars that I paid to rent this rubbish, but the fact that I feel cheated once again.

Remember the name: 'Asylum' - the movie company to avoid.

Another Asylum dud

[Leofwine_draca · 3/10 · 15 May 2018]

KING OF THE LOST WORLD is, unsurprisingly, a rip-off of Peter Jackson's KING KONG put out by the team at The Asylum. It's as pitiful as you'd imagine, a cheap reworking of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's THE LOST WORLD, featuring a quartet of explorers who crash land on a remote island when their plane develops a fault. Once there things turn into a lame version of KING KONG complete with bikini girls running around and some appallingly awful special effects. What with the wooden line delivery and general barrel-scraping feel, this is poor stuff indeed, and even some old-timers like Steve Railsback and Bruce Boxleitner do nothing to save it.

I loved this movie

[JonMoody82 · 9/10 · 8 January 2007]

To be quite honest I just got in to Asylum recently and have been lucky enough to interview the director of this movie, Leigh Scott. The first movie I saw was, "Beast of Bray Road" and I really enjoyed that. It was cheesy and fun. So when I saw that they had done a King Kong type movie that mixed with The Lost World I got excited.

This movie had some really cool CGI F/X and knowing that the budget for this flick must have been extremely well it was pulled together quite nice. Now the only thing I had a problem was not enough of the giant ape. If it had more of that and less of the survival story than maybe just maybe it would have been a bit better.

But other than that one little flaw I must say it was really well done. Which is funny cause I hate all these negative reviews I've been reading about their flicks. To tell you the truth I'd rather watch an Asylum tie in than one of the glossy pieces of crap thats been out lately. King Kong was a waste of 3 hours plus of my time. It dragged on way too much. This movie barely drags on and it kept my attention the whole way through.

And lastly the Asylum picks the hottest and best actors and actresses around. Good job, Asylum... combining talent with good looks. A feat thats sometimes not even easy to pull off in Hollywood. All in all I recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys sitting back at home with your friends on a Friday night, eating popcorn, drinking beers, and having a good time. I know I'll be going to Blockbuster soon and renting some more. That, you can count on.

Aims high but comes up short

[mvario · 6/10 · 14 December 2005]

"Before there was LOST... before there was JURASSIC PARK... before the was KING KONG... there was Arthur Conan Doyle's THE LOST WORLD" - That's from one of the trailers for this, so you can see what audience there trying to attract this time. You know the way there would be companies that would specialize in doing rip-off type films *cough New World Pictures cough* ? Well this has been the ground that The Asylum has staked out in recent years. Not that it's necessarily a bad thing as they have turned out quite a few commendable b horror movies of late, but I just wanted to point out for those not acquainted with them what they're about.

Yup, this is the latest b movie from The Asylum. This is probably their most ambitious film to date and for it they gather most of their regular actors, "The Asylum Players", including:

Rhett Giles (Mangler Reborn, Frankenstein Reborn, War of the Worlds, Jolly Roger, Legion of the Dead) Jeff Denton (Beast of Bray Road, Frankenstein Reborn) Thomas Downey (Shapeshifter, Beast of Bray Road, War of the Worlds, Dead Men Walking, Frankenstein Reborn, Jolly Roger, Shapeshifter) Christina Rosenberg (Beast of Bray Road, Frankenstein Reborn) Sarah Lieving (Beast of Bray Road, Frankenstein Reborn, War of the Worlds) Eliza Swenson (Beast of Bray Road, Frankenstein Reborn) Amanda Ward (Legion of the Dead, Way of the Vampire, Alien Abduction) and Leigh Slawner (Shapeshifter, Dead Men Walking, Frankenstein Reborn, War of the Worlds, Jolly Roger) who is also the director and has previously directed Beast of Bray Road and Frankenstein Reborn

Unfortunately there's no sign of Bernadette Perez, one of their regular actors who can usually be counted on to supply some nudity.

They've also added a couple of "name" actors, Bruce Boxleitner and Steve Railsback.

Okay, first off, this is not a monster movie. Yeah, there's a monster or two, but this is really more of an adventure film like Lost World. They also try to capitalize on the popularity of LOST (which I've never seen by the way) and of course the upcoming King Kong by throwing in a giant ape. And just for fun they add a touch of Lord of the Flies.

The story starts with a airliner crash on a beach somewhere that I guess is supposed to be in South America. A group of the survivors move inland looking for the front half of the plane, the radio, and any other survivors. Along they way they run in to some unusual jungle wildlife. The story is really straight forward and just an excuse for the jungle adventure. It moved along at a nice pace, so while the story was nothing special it wasn't boring.

The acting, as usual for The Asylum, is quite good. Rhett Giles, who I usually don't like, does a really good job here. I do think that he studied acting from watching early Clint Eastwood films as I have yet to see him smile in a role. On the other hand, Thomas Downey, who I usually like as a good guy doesn't play a jerk all that well. Jeff Denton does another good job as the main character. Christina Rosenberg is especially hot in her biggest The Asylum role so far. Special kudos to Amanda Ward who supplies the only (brief) nudity in the film.

Bruce Boxleitner does an acceptable but uninspired turn as the military guy with a hidden agenda. Steve Railsback puts in a day's work and collects a paycheck.

So the story is nothing special, the acting is pretty good, but a movie like this lives or dies by the F/X. Unfortunately that's where the movie fails. It's pretty obvious that this was rushed through in order to get it on the shelves in time to coincide with the release of King Kong (with a cover prominently featuring a giant gorilla).

As far as monsters it's CGI all the way. And not good CGI. We get a big spider, some big scorpions, some flying dragons (???), and of course the giant gorilla. The cgi critters are all pretty unconvincing and detract from the film. Also, there's just not much monster action, and most of what little there is takes place in the third act. The cgi gorilla, which we don't see much of at all, doesn't so much look like a cgi gorilla as it does a cgi man in a gorilla costume.

While the actors were commendable, they weren't enough to carry a film with a mediocre script and sparse yet unsatisfactory effects. For the scope of what they were attempting with this one the fact that it was really rushed is painfully obvious. Also, The Asylum, which usually comes through with some gratuitous nudity, let me down this time with just a couple of seconds of toplessness. There was a tiny bit of gore, but again, not enough to satisfy. I'll be generous and give it a 6/10 because the acting was good and I wasn't bored, but I wouldn't really recommend this.

As bad as it gets.

[jerekra · 1/10 · 16 February 2014]

King of the Lost World is one of those movies where I kinda knew what it would be like. I figured it would just be a cheesy adventure/survival film that is often on the SYFY channel. But this was way worse and did not entertain me at all.

The story is pretty old. People get stranded on an island and have to survive. There are also tribes of savages there and giant spiders, gorillas, and dragons. Yeah you read me right, there are actually dragons in this movie.

None of the human characters are interesting. Some of the girls in this film are sort of hot, but not hot enough to justify watching this movie. The acting is horrible, even the bloopers that they show for this movie seemed like they were acted out horribly.

The giant spider is lame, the dragons are stupid, and the giant gorilla is poorly done since his mouth usually does not move when he roars.

Do not watch this movie. I saw nothing redeeming in it.