Meet our hero, Burt (Brad Harris). He's a mercenary working in Africa and at the beginning of the movie (which won't feature Kong nor an island) he and a few mercenary friends are just assaulting a money transport. One of Burt's friends, Albert (Marc Lawrence) seems a little overzealous. At least killing the guards and his partners seems a little bit much even for Burt. But don't worry Burt, he's shooting you, too!
Unfortunately, Burt survives and we find him a year later in Kenya, visiting his "friend" Theodore (Aldo Cecconi), who is the sugar daddy of Burt's ex-girlfriend Ursula (Adriana Alben) and father to shooting mad Diana (Ursula Davis) and Robert (Mark Farran). For a friend Theodore shows a lot of antipathy for hero Burt, and the more we see of him, the more we can empathize.
While Burt is living the wild nightlife (and causing the viewer temporary blindness by way of dancing...I still can't forget those terrible handclaps.), he meets Turk (Paolo Magalotti) an old associate of Albert who promptly tries to kill him. Alas without success.
I suppose Burt would still be searching for something to do today, if Diana and Robert wouldn't go on a hunting trip into the deepest Kenyan jungle. They want to shoot the famed "Holy Monkey" of some tribe or another, because nothing says "We are imperialist douches" better than this. After pointing for minutes and minutes and minutes at the most blurred animal stock footage I have ever set my eyes on (alright, I admit it, I went and brewed myself some tea, just to see more stock footage afterwards), their camp is finally attacked by the product of some weird experiments Albert conducts there: two mind controlled men in bad gorilla costumes. The shaggy ones kill all the men except Robert and kidnap Diana (as a good gorilla is supposed to do). Soon, Turk enters the camp to tell Robert he will only get Diana back if he lures Burt (whom Albert secretly lusts for) into Turk's and Albert's hand.
Back in the city, Robert does his best to appeal to Burt's better nature. But no real hero would lift a finger to rescue the daughter of an old friend, especially not a daughter who permanently throws googly eyes at him. Since Robert is at least partially clever, he mentions two words Burt understands, "Albert" and "money", and promptly has his very own arsehole-mercenary.
What follows are further hours of bad jungle and worse archive footage with small interludes for the death of Robert and the arrival of the real "Holy Monkey" - the local jungle goddess Eva (Esmeralda Barros), who shows an inexplicable interest in Burt. If we are still awake at this point, we also learn that Albert's gorillas were once upon a time Eva's, until the Evil One implanted his mind control devices.
After more leisurely strolling through the jungle, we finally arrive at the grand finale. Albert's devious plan is to make Burt his first human slave. Keeping in mind that his earlier experiments on humans were meant to create his own private sex slaves, I can't help but ask myself what exactly his relationship to Burt is.
There is some pointless sub-plottery featuring Theodore, then finally the moment we have all been waiting for: Burt vs ape. Which turns out to be Burt vs. ape controlling device. Albert probably shouldn't have explained the details of its placement and function to Diana. Oh well, the apes will be happy with their own private Albert toy, I suppose.
I have seen enough jungle movies to know what I have to expect from the genre. That is to say, not much. Kong Island (also known as King of Kong Island, which makes even less sense) doesn't disappoint. It has everything that makes the genre so irritating - the casual racism, the hours and hours of abysmal stock footage, bad gorilla costumes (do good gorilla costumes actually exist?) and for something that is supposed to be an adventure movie very little adventure.
"White goddess and jerk mercenary against mad scientist and his killer gorillas" sounds like an idea that should guarantee lots of silly fun. Kong Island's problem here is that its focal point lies on stock footage and pointless sub plots, the best ways to kill any kind of forward momentum (the word pacing doesn't even apply).
It's doesn't do the movie much good that all actors look as bored as the viewer, not even our local mad scientist tries to act. To think what Karloff or Lugosi or even John Carradine (yes, Lawrence is that apathetic) in their worst moments could have done here...
Bored and tired are the words that come to my mind for all technical aspects of the film, too. Most bad and cheap movies at least try to look interesting, or less cheap than they truly are. Here, nobody seems to have bothered.
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