Since going into in-house production over a year ago, The Asylum have taken to ripping-off Hollywood movies even going as far as trying to cash-in by releasing similarly titled films with a mild resemblance to their big studio counterparts on DVD mere days before that film hits theatres. King Of The Lost World is such a film. Taking elements of King Kong, Jurassic Park, and the hit TV series Lost this has to be one of the more obvious, and uninspired, carbon copies from The Asylum yet.

Citing its inspiration as Arthur Conan Doyle's classic The Lost World (which I'm assuming is public domain and an attempt to make you think its not a complete clone), King Of The Lost World starts off decently as a plane crashes on a lush tropical island. The survivors of the wreck try to get their bearings and deal with the injured, but some of them decide to head-off and look for help as the communication systems from the plane seem to have broken off and landed elsewhere on the island.

Led by all-around adventurer Rhett Giles, the group soon find themselves under attack from a slew creatures as one of them is whisked away by a giant gorilla (shown with some poor, blurry as Hell CGI) never to be seen again, another falls prey to a giant spider, and various other incidental characters fall victim to similar fates. Up to this point the movie plays out like a fairly mediocre, if bearable, action-thriller but things soon change for the worse as scripters Leigh Scott (who also directed), David Michael Latt, and Carlos De Los Rios decide to throw in a loose riff on Lord Of The Flies as everyone is taken hostage by a group of savages who it turns out were the survivors of another plane that has crashed on the island. They also try to add a bit of intrigue by having Bruce Boxleitner's character carting around a mysterious metal briefcase and do such things are threaten his co-survivors with a gun and smoke cigars.

Surprisingly dull, despite all the makers toss at the screen, King Of The Lost World keeps your interest for about half its running time in spite of the sloppy plotting, but it starts to slide downhill from there and suffers from a particularly weak finale despite the fact it's loaded with flying dragons (it beats me why the Hell they're on the island in the first place) and the return of our giant ape (who isn't in the movie nearly as much as the box art would like you to believe).

Trying to be more than its budget allows, this isn't a complete waste of time as the set-up works okay, the acting is generally solid (Boxleitner is the best thing here, but Jeff Denton does well also as the stories "hero"), and the direction is steady if uninspired. The problem is that the movie is just too poorly plotted and cheap looking that it plays out like a weak episode of a syndicated television show like the Tia Carrere starring Relic Hunter. And I don't know about you, but I have a hard time stomaching even a few minutes of that show...

Visit The Asylum for more info. (Chris Hartley, 2/1/06)

Directed By: Leigh Scott (Leigh Slawner).
Written By: David Michael Latt, Carlos De Los Rios, Leigh Scott (Leigh Slawner).

Starring: Bruce Boxleitner, Jeff Denton, Rhett Giles, Sarah Lieving.

Picture Ratio: 1.85:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: Free of the encoding problems that have plagued other Asylum releases, the picture here is pretty crisp and handles the bright colours of the tropical jungles well. Although there are a few moments where characters seem bathed in an odd neon blue light, which I'm assuming was intentional.

Extras: Before I get onto the special features here I must inform you that the sound clarity is iffy at times and I had to adjust the volume to hear some of the dialogue.

Apart from that however we get the standard Asylum extras as there's a trailer (plus trailers for 4 other Asylum releases), a brief "behind-the-scenes" featurette, a visual effects featurette, some outtakes, and the expect "group" commentary that tosses way too many people in a room to babble which only succeeds in making the conversation go all over the place and make it virtually unlistenable (less is more, Asylum, less is more...).