Konga is one of those films that ended up failing because it forgot the very premise it was supposed to execute. Why are you watching a film called Konga? Well…odds are that it’s because based on the title you want to see a really good giant creature film right? that makes the most sense but a super large chunk of this is about a super annoying scientist trying to have an affair with his student and this plot drags the whole film down. We don’t actually get the large Konga until the final minutes and it’s way too late by then.

The movie starts with the legendary researcher Charles finally getting back to the country after being presumed dead for a while. He has been living in the wilderness with a tribe learning more about animals and manipulating DNA. He figures that he finally has a way to turn Gorillas into giant monsters and this has a lot of possibilities for human evolution. His assistant Margaret was hoping he would finally be ready to settle down with her and they could start a family but it looks like that isn’t in the cards anymore. No, instead he is completely obsessed with only two things, his experiments and his student Sandra. Can Margaret put a stop to this guy?

I’ve got so many problems with this film but lets start off with Charles. He’s the main character but he’s such an unlikable villain that you are hoping he will be taken out soon. The guy wants to revolutionize science and yet he sets it back by murdering everyone else who were coming up with similar ideas. He claims to be completely focused on the job but then he tries to get with Sandra and makes that a priority. This guy doesn’t actually seem super serious/focused on his work so he becomes all talk by that point and it’s why you can’t respect him as a character. Even if he was a jerk you could at least understand what was going on if he was serious about his scientific advancements.

The instant he lost sight of that the guy was too far gone. Meanwhile I didn’t care for Margaret as the heroine either. For starters she didn’t jump in to protect Sandra when she was being attacked. Additionally Margaret allows herself to just be verbally attacked and ignored all the time. She likes Charles for some reason but you still have to stand up for yourself. She kept all of his affairs in order while he was gone and the guy never shows any gratitude. Instead he keeps making empty promises about how they will still get married some day and she believes them. She seems very naïve here throughout the movie.

Additionally Sandra is also rather oblivious the whole time. Charles isn’t very subtle about his flirting here and how he keeps trying to get her by herself. At first I figured she noticed and just didn’t mind but by the end we see that she hadn’t really considered this. Instead she thought her friend Bob was just being jealous when he tried to warn her multiple times. I don’t get how nobody sees the red flags on this character.

Bob at least decides to fight Charles and even has the upper hand during their skirmish. You can’t blame him as much for sparing Charles’ life because murdering someone is an absolute last resort and Bob wasn’t trying to go down that dark path. He was just put in a really dicey spot the whole time. He gets props for at least roughing the guy up a bit though. The other students were being too busy making fun of the guy to do anything productive.

All right, so what about Konga then? Well he’s stuck in the cage for over 90% of the film as Charles runs experiments on him and keeps saying how expendable the creature is. Naturally once Konga does break free he quickly makes sure to murder as many people as possible before being shot down but of course the issue here is that at the end of the day he’s an innocent animal being gunned down due to being put in the wrong place at the wrong time. It makes for a very somber ending right there and you really wonder what the point of the film really was. It fails as a creature feature film and the character cast was really weak.

The writing can be okay at times. I do still enjoy the old writing style and everyone sounds very polite and proper but you still can’t help but be annoyed. The film’s pacing is solid so it goes by quickly either way. There is definitely no reason to actually go ahead and watch this movie though. There are way better ones out there and there just isn’t anything in particular that would make this movie a must watch compared to others.

Overall, Konga may be a cool name for a film but this is not going to be the next Godzilla. Konga is a film that will likely be lost to the mysteries of time and that’s for the best. Definitely stay away from this film and remember that the main takeaway is to always be wary of announcing your secret research until it is ready. Otherwise you may get bumped off by a rival like what happened in this film and then that definitely would be a tragic way to go out.

Overall 3/10