King of the Lost World (2005)

Sorry, this movie sucks

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

OK, currently I'm living in China, and I bought what I thought was Jurrasic Park 4...which I didn't think there was. Well, there isn't...at least not yet, Steven Spielberg is about to produce it in 2009 or 2010. So when I put this DVD in, to my surprise, the only dinosaurs I saw was stolen stock footage from Jurrasic Park 3 which they continued to play over and over again but without any real relevance to the story/plot.Now I noticed that the other comments on this page didn't mention anything about this stolen stock footage, so I guess I should feel lucky that the Chinese steal everything and sell it cheap too. Awesomely bad movie!

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.

Nothing about this movie is exciting or clear; not the scenes, the characters, the plot line even. There is no characterization, no buy in to the folks who are a part of the "lost world". I can enjoy most any movie but this was difficult to even look at for the duration. Even for fans of b-grade fantasies or science fiction this movie does not provide entertainment. It was difficult to understand who the characters were or what was transpiring. The acting was flat or actually nonexistent as really 'acting' per se was absent. Additionally the special effects were cheesy and limited to say the least, reminding me of 1950's Japanese horror flicks.

The first thing I always tell myself before I watch a low-budget Sci-Fi film is: "be prepared: it's bound to be bad to at least some noticeable degree." Occasionally, there's a film that passes by that is decent enough to be watchable and those films get my praise for their results on such a low budget. However, very few of them get to that level. Most of them are what they are: bad films. And "King of the Lost World" is about as bad as they get.The film is said to be based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novel "The Lost World". I personally have never read it, but based on the previous film adaptations of the story, I can assume that it is nothing like the novel. Pretty much there are only two possible similarities that I see from them. One: a lost world with monsters. Two: the names of some of the characters. Speaking of the characters, they are about as bland and irritating as ever. They are just what I expected, or worse. There's the tough guy wanting to be a leader, his assistant who will take over some point during the film, girls who are just there to scream and be love interests for our leading characters, and characters that are just simply annoying to the other characters and even more so annoying to the audience. The new plot is very dull and it just takes odd twists and turns and adds unnecessary and extremely underdeveloped subplots that lead up to keys in the climax. A climax which we don't really care about.Special effects on the film are even worse that I expected. The CGI graphics used in "King of the Lost World" are absolutely horrendous. We see giant insects and other creatures that look so incredibly cheap, they aren't even laughable. And the way they are incorporated in with the sound effects and the action is inexcusable. I remember this one sequence where Bruce Boxleitner's character shoots his gun at a giant scorpion or something like that. We hear a gunshot that is so quiet it's like a dull thump, and then the scorpion just simply whips away from sight, so quickly it almost just disappears. Other graphics are so horrible they seem to be blurry. That mostly revolves around the so-called "King" of this Lost World, who I assume is the giant gorilla whom we see next to nothing of for a long time. Good thing, too. Because the graphics used on the giant ape made it almost difficult to see what it was. And that's not all that was blurry. Scenes of our bland human characters and oftentimes in scenes so dark that the camera doesn't even focus very well. It's almost as if somebody filmed it in their back yard using a cheap camcorder.Is there anything positive about "King of the Lost World"? Yes. A few things. It had good set designs and a fairly good music score. But that's just about it. Overall, it was just a very bland and mind-numbingly boring excuse for an adventure story. And it's not a patch on the original 1925 version of "The Lost World" or the so-so 1960 version.Bottom line: don't bother with it. You can find better even on a long, dark rainy day.