“King Kong Escapes” Review

King Kong was such an inspiration for Toho’s Godzilla that they wanted to make a series of movies involving the giant ape. However, Toho’s license ran out after this film and, thus, Toho was unable to make anymore Kong films. But with the help of Rankin-Bass, Toho made one solo film: King Kong Escapes.

I was always intrigued by this movie because, for years, I wasn’t able to track down a legitimate copy. That all changed in 2005 when Universal released this film along with King Kong Vs. Godzilla in a double DVD set.

The movie is goofy and down-right laughable at moments. But what will the final rating be and how will that rating affect its standing with the other films in the genre?

Story: King Kong Escapes, I believe, presents us with a story that is designed to be family friendly. That said, there are still areas in the story that don’t make a whole lot of sense…

One is why have Dr. Who construct a mechanical King Kong when a drill or other vehicle would have probably been more efficient? Another issue is that Wuu changes his allegiance between his Mechani Kong and King Kong three times in the movie without any explanation as to why and without any legitimate reason. Out of nowhere, too, Sue is able to communicate very effectively with Kong. How? What was the process of this accomplishment?

Either way, let’s face it, very rarely are we going to get a story in this genre that even remotely makes sense. This isn’t the most nonsensical story I’ve seen in the genre (Super Monster Gamera is up there, but probably not the worst).

I will say, though, it is a lot of fun. The movie gets going right off the bat and hardly lets up. But I still can’t overlook some of the goofiness nor a few moments when the movie lags.

Special Effects: The effects work is hit and miss. Some of the miniatures are really great especially the buildings in Tokyo towards the end of the movie. The use of an actual car for the hover vehicle is a nice touch but too obvious that the vehicle is, indeed, a car.

The Mechani Kong and Gorosaurus suits look fantastic here and are well executed.

The Kong suit still isn’t spectacular, but I find that the newer head works so much better than the tiny head presented in King Kong Vs. Godzilla. While this head still isn’t perfect, it looks more gorilla-like and proportionate…except for when the suit is wet. Speaking of the suit being wet, the suit’s zipper can be seen easily much of the time. This is an annoyance, but I have to admit it adds some charm to the film.

I wonder if this was a film that was either on a shoe string budget and/or the filming schedule was very tight. Just about everything with this movie suffers which is a bit unusual for these films throughout the 60s.

Mr. Tsuburaya’s work, sadly, isn’t great here. There are flashes of brilliance, but they are few and far between.

Acting: The acting suffers here also especially with Linda Miller. The sad thing with her is that she was re-dubbed by Julie Bennet. Why? No clue. Ms. Miller spoke perfect English, but Bennet’s re-dub made her character sound like nails on a chalk board. It’s awful and it makes her physical acting look atrocious.

Akira Takarada turns in a great performance here and Rhodes Reason does a passable job as Commander Nelson. Mie Hama plays the mysterious spy girl type very well and she doesn’t disappoint here.

The person who really steals the show is Hideyo Amamoto as Dr. Wuu. Amamoto, I have always believed, puts more into his characters than he really needs to, but that shows the dedication he has to his roles. His Dr. Wuu is fun to watch and is completely over the top.

Acting is better than the effects, but it, too, has its moments where it’s goofy and ridiculous.

Battles: This movie doesn’t let up. Early on, we get Kong battling Gorosaurus followed by his (brief) battle with a sea serpent and then Dr. Wuu coming after him.

The battles are fairly well choreographed, but the Kong-Gorosaurus battle has a moment where Gorosaurus kicks Kong down three consecutive times. Either Kong is not so bright, or it could be some laziness on the part of the choreographers. It’s hard to tell.

The Kong-Mechani Kong battle is fun to watch, but Mechani Kong does dominate much of the fight. The Tokyo Tower battle in the finale is well executed and makes sense for our ape hero in terms of a venue for him to battle his mechanical counterpart.

Mechani Kong proved to be a decent foe, but it’s no Mechagodzilla. The robot, throughout the film, showed to be fairly incompetent until this final battle. Even then, once it fell on the ground, it was done for. Dr. Wuu really needs to do a better job of constructing his giant mechs…

Nevertheless, the battles are fun, but underwhelming at points. But the whole purpose of a movie is to entertain and I think this movie did that fairly well.

Human Drama: There is an attempt to build on a Dr. Wuu-Carl Nelson relationship from the past, but it doesn’t go very far. Once again, this is part of the story and may have something to do with shooting time. Nevertheless, the interaction between these two is pretty dull and I find myself doing something else much of the time.

Our characters don’t have much of an arc here except to save the day. Jiro seems to have a thing for Sue, but that is never fully explored. This was a missed opportunity to dig deeper into those two characters.

This just may be the weakest part of the movie here. Our characters are halfway interesting, but not enough time is invested in them to warrant our full time and attention.

Overall: King Kong Escapes is an old-fashioned family daikaiju film…which there isn’t a whole lot of those. Rankin-Bass, though, I’m sure had a huge hand in having a say what the theme of this movie would be.

The battles are fairly fun if not short and not the best choreographed. The effects work is subpar, but not the worst we’ve seen either. The story has quite a few plot holes and moments that make you wonder why did the story/our characters go a particular route, because said route makes no sense. The human drama is lackluster and, to be honest, fairly boring despite having Akira Takarada and Hideyo Amamoto on screen.

When I recently watched the movie, I could see beyond many of the flaws in this film and could see the charm. It is an entertaining movie, but it does have quite a few issues.

Personally, it’s a great way to spend an afternoon if you’re into a fun monster romp and a side of silly story. I can accept it for what it is: A daikaiju film that is a whole lot of fun, but suffers from many problems. Thankfully, none of them are so bad that they’re fatal.