There is nothing about this movie that can be taken seriously but unlike the ugly mess "King Kong Lives" this movie is bright, colorful fun that adults will enjoy as a comedy while the kids will get a blast out of the crazy mayhem.

Just thinking about the plot makes me laugh and watching it is never dull, it has such a no holds barred silliness about it and the new DVD release is stunning. I had no idea just how impressive the look of the film was.

The complaints about the film are rather misguided in many ways and there is some serious confusion about it. The female lead Linda Miller was dubbed by another actress, so the complaints about her performance are a bit moot (though the combination of nutty dialog and weird delivery actually help the film for most since it is so funny).

Also this is not a sequel to King Kong Vs Godzilla, Kong in this film is a myth found to be real (and utilized to dig out a cavern for bizarre reasons that just get funnier the more you think about it).

As a last note for anyone interested in King Kong in any of his incarnations seek out Ray Mortons book "King Kong The History of a Movie Icon" released recently. He actually set aside a chapter of the book detailing this film.

As it states under 'Trivia', 'King Kong Escapes' was a tie-in to the Rankin-Bass 'King Kong' cartoon series, and to be honest, this film is very much a children's movie, featuring a cartoonish super-villain, a faintly ridiculous plot and comical fight scenes. This shouldn't be taken to mean that I hate the film, however. While it's not as good as Toho's previous Kong outing, 'King Kong VS Godzilla', it's still okay if you're in the mood for that kind of thing. I've never seen the cartoon, but the plot of this film is straightforward enough that you don't need to.

The film does have a number of flaws, the most notable being King Kong himself. I personally thought the ape suit from KKVG looked pretty impressive, but KKE's version is more than a little silly, particularly the face, with its wide, staring eyes and permanently open mouth, which makes Kong look like he's high. Also, the fights with the other monsters aren't overly impressive; the battle on Mondo Island (Kong had obviously moved from Skull Island after it was destroyed at the end of Son of Kong) with Gorosaurus is actually quite funny, particularly when Kong gets repeatedly drop-kicked, but the showdown with Mecha-Kong is a bit anticlimactic, particularly compared to the city-destroying smackdowns of KKVG and the best of the Godzilla series.

The plot is some silly gubbins about mining a radioactive element, and King Kong comes into the story after the evil Dr Who (not the time-travelling character from the long-running British T.V series) builds a robot ape, only for it to fail. He then kidnaps the real Kong, but he escapes (hence the title) and the usual Kaiju action ensues. The human element is rather bland, although this is probably the fault of the script rather than the actors. Linda Miller is the ersatz Fay Wray of this picture, her role generally consisting of being picked up by Kong and trying to save the big ape from getting into trouble. Rhodes Reason is solid if unspectacular, and Dr. Who makes a good, over-the-top villain.

Having said that, I do think it's a shame Toho never made any more Kong movies. Personally, I would have loved to have seen Mecha-Kong come back, perhaps in a Godzilla movie. Given that Godzilla battled so many monsters over the years, it might have been interesting if he had come up against King Kong again, maybe in a scenario that forced them to work together against one or more of the many monster that big G faced.

Dastardly no-goodnik mad scientist Dr. Who (deliciously voiced with lip-smacking plummy panache by Paul Frees) makes a gigantic robot replica of King Kong to dig for rare and precious radioactive ore that's located in the bowels of the earth in the frigid Artic. (You can tell Dr. Who is essentially evil incarnate because he has precisely arched eyebrows and wears a flowing black cape.) When the robot Kong short circuits from exposure to the radiation, Dr. Who abducts the Great Ape and forces him to dig for the ore. Boy, does this entertainingly inane Japanese creature feature possess all the right winningly dopey ingredients which make these sort of movies such ideal delightfully dumb diversions: we've got choice ridiculous dialogue ("You would steal Niagara Falls for a drink of water"), crisp widescreen photography, lovably lousy dubbing, a totally absurd plot, a lush and stirring orchestral score, exciting monster fights (Kong mixes it up with both a towering Tyrannosaures Rex and a huge snake-like sea serpent before engaging in a lively no-holds-barred ape-to-automaton confrontation with robot Kong in Japan), and endearingly chintzy (markedly less than) special effects (I especially dug the Tonka toy miniature tanks and the ratty Kong costume). The cast play the sublimely stupid material with admirably straight faces: Rhodes Reason as a stalwart navy submarine captain, the cute Linda Miller as Kong's spunky human love interest, and the lovely Mie ("You Only Live Twice") Hama as a seductively wicked villainess in cahoots with Dr. Who. Overall, this honey sizes up as a great deal of infectiously asinine fun.