Long Live the King (2016)

Long Live the King: Directed by Frank Dietz, Trish Geiger. With Brent Armstrong, Mark F. Berry, Bob Burns, David Colton. A feature documentary about the enduring appeal of the character King Kong, and how he has inspired so many of the great filmmakers and artists since 1933.

“Long Live the King (2016) u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003e*** 1/2 (out of 4)u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eHighly-entertaining documentary that takes a look at the mighty character King Kong and the various times that he has been on the screen. Joe Dante, Bob Burns, Greg Nicotero, Doug Jones, Felissa Rose and Emma Jacobs are just a few of the faces here who discuss how they discovered the ape and what impact that had on their lives.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAt just 66-minutes thereu0026#39;s certainly not a lot of detail to this documentary but at the same time if youu0026#39;re a fan of the character and the various films then thereu0026#39;s no question that youu0026#39;re going to love this. The majority of the running time is devoted to the original film and we hear stories from the people on how they discovered the movie. The majority of them saw it on television and they talk about how it was binge watched and especially around Thanksgiving. From here we get into SON OF KONG, MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, KING KONG VS GODZILLA, KING KONG ESCAPE, the 1976 version, KING KONG LIVES and finally the Peter Jackson film.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIf you grew up watching KING KONG as a child I think youu0026#39;re really going to love the early stories because everyone interviewed are obviously very happy and often times excited and emotional as they talk about gathering around their television as children to watch the monster double-features. There are some wonderful stories told about having to catch movies when there wasnu0026#39;t a VCR to record them. If you missed them you missed it for who knows how long.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThereu0026#39;s a lot of really good stuff here but I must say that I found the over-whelming love of the Jackson film to be somewhat questionable. It seems a lot of people have turned sour on the film yet thereu0026#39;s not really anything negative said here about it but I can assure you both KING KONG ESCAPES and KING KONG LIVES take a beating.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIf youu0026#39;re a fan of the character then this here is certainly a fun time.”