King Kong Lives
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 King Kong didn't live, and the franchise has never been killed.
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King Kong Lives is a 1986 American monster adventure film directed by John Guillermin. Produced by the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group and featuring special effects by Carlo Rambaldi, the film stars Linda Hamilton and Brian Kerwin. It's a sequel to the 1976 remake set ten years later. This was the final Kong film in which the title character was portrayed using suits and practical effects; further films would utilize computer animation. It is the sixth entry in the King Kong franchise.
Plot
After being shot down from the World Trade Center, it's revealed that Kong is still alive and is kept in a coma for about 10 years at the Atlantic Institute. However, he has lost so much blood that a transfusion is badly needed, and to complicate matters, Franklin says there is no species of ape or other animal whose blood type matches Kong's.
Hank "Mitch" Mitchell travels to Borneo as he captures a giant female ape who is dubbed "Lady Kong". Mitchell brings her to the institute to use her blood for King Kong's operation. The transfusion and the heart transplant are a success, but Kong escapes along with Lady Kong.
Archie Nevitt is then called in with his men to hunt down and kill the two apes as Lady Kong is eventually captured alive by Nevitt's troops and imprisoned, which Kong then falls from a cliff and is presumed dead.
They soon discover that Kong's artificial heart is beginning to give out, forcing them to attempt a jailbreak. They discover that Lady Kong is pregnant with Kong's offspring. The jailbreak is then successful as Kong has survived the fall, leading him to break his mate out.
After being followed, attacked, and shot by the military, Kong kills Lt. Col Nevitt as he dies slowly while nearby a military base on a farm where Lady Kong gives birth to his infant son as Kong reaches out to touch his son just before dying. Having returned to Borneo, Lady Kong lives peacefully with her son in the jungle.
Why King Kong Can't Live
- False advertising for two reasons:
- The poster depicts King Kong in Godzilla-size, battling a bunch of tanks and helicopters that are way smaller than he is, but he isn't that big in the actual movie and is nearly about the size of the tanks themselves.
- Despite being called King Kong Lives, King Kong dies at the end of the film. Presumably, it's meant to refer to King Kong having survived his apparent death at the end of the 1976 film, but that just opens up a whole other can of worms about how he survived being shot up and then falling from the top of the World Trade Center. This is what makes the title misleading.
- A lot of the portion of the film is just King Kong and the female ape just making grunt noises and body language stuff, but not in a very clever way, making the movie increasingly boring to watch.
- There is no explanation as to why the scientists are trying to keep King Kong alive, making it extremely forced.
- The film is nothing but just some romantic comedy that features the King Kong character with some female ape that comes out of nowhere.
- Some of the effects feel very rushed and off-putting, such as the scene of King Kong climbing up a mountain during the rain time which looks like he's climbing around a literal painting of a mountain.
- It wasted the talents of Brian Kerwin, Linda Hamilton, and John Ashton.
- The characters are extremely uninteresting and are worse than the previous film.
- This is mainly because, aside from archive footage from the previous film, it mainly features completely new characters making it feel like the characters from the previous film didn't exist in a way.
- A lot of the comedy in the film feels extremely forced and unfunny.
- Every single time the suits of the apes smile at the camera, which looks very frightening to look at.
- A lot of the dialogue in the film is abysmal.
- The pacing is terrible.
- There's a scene that features Amy and Hank, where Amy nearly falls over a waterfall while she and Hank are walking across a rickety wooden bridge, as the scene partially rips off Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
- There's a scene in which King Kong gets hit by a golf ball.
- It's one of those awful It's love at first sight cliches.
- The film permanently ended John Guillermin's directing career.
Redeeming Qualities
- The scene of King Kong ripping apart and eating the alligators as it then cuts to a shot of a frog watching the whole thing is pretty clever.
- The scene of the military yelling YOU SON OF A B*TCH! at King Kong is remotely the only funny scene of the movie.
- The soundtrack is very beautiful to listen to.
- The suits are mostly sub-par at best.
- As bad as it was, thankfully didn't kill the King Kong franchise. If so, the 2005 King Kong remake would have never been made.