Anaconda

Before there was "Snakes on a Plane," there was "Anaconda," a Hollywood B-movie from the late 90's that is as notorious for its mixed bag of actors as it is for the gruesome snakes that populate its plot. In the film, a group of documentary film-makers traveling through the Amazon jungle picks up a mysterious man who inadvertently becomes their tour-guide on an unexpected detour. It seems the man is totally crazy and intends to capture one of the Amazon's most notorious and deadliest inhabitants: The Anaconda.

Despite some bad looking CGI-snakes (not bad in a good way) and a horribly mis-matched cast (J-Lo and Eric Stolz? Really?) "Anaconda" is simply a good, dumb time. Without a doubt, it's an utterly ridiculous film that can be insulting to your intelligence, but thankfully it knows not to overstay its welcome and the 90 minutes it takes up makes for a harmless and amusing ride. Ice Cube plays Ice Cube as he always does, while J-Lo turns in one of her more likable roles. You'll also catch Owen Wilson in one of his earliest roles, and John Voight is a pleasure to watch as he eats up the scenery. But face it, this movie is about snakes, and the titular character is the true star here. Surely, the actors on hand have done much worse, and as far as horror/b-movies about snakes, you could pick up much worse yourself. If you enjoy watching giant snakes (who inexplicably scream) stalk rappers, pop-stars and Angelina Jolie's dad, this is the flick for you. Those seeking genuine thrills, however, may find the film coming up a bit short.

This stirring picture concerns about a documentary film crew from National Geographic constituted by a motley group: Jennifer Lopez Ice Cube, Eric Stolz, Jonathan Hyde, Owen Wilson, Kari Wuhrer traveling the Amazon river looking for a legendary Indian tribe and guided by Jon Voigh, playing a nutty, snake-obsessed hunter.But a great creature terrorizing the river, it turns to be a very large Anaconda with more 50-foot long. Meanwhile the bunch relationship each other till appearance the enormous snake. A poisonous and giant snake,attack at random and slither down the river, forest, jungle and slither around the boat ready to attack anyone on its path.

The picture provides stirring and exciting amusement with hair-raising chills and creepy scares. The Anacandas, themselves , of course, are the real star stars and they are astounding terrifyingly and almost totally convincing.The snakes are made by animatronics and computer generator, as usual. Middling performances though the players reacting appropriately to becoming snake food. Rather sympathetic and exaggerated acting by Jon Voight as crazy and nasty snakes hunter. The picture displays atmospheric music score by Randy Edelman and colorful cinematography by Bill Butler, cameraman of ¨Jaws¨film. The movie is professionally directed by Luis Llosa, an expert action movies director (The sniper, The specialist) and habitual shooting on river Amazonas(Fire on the Amazon, eight hundred leagues down the Amazon). It's followed by inferior sequel : The hunt for the blood orchid(2004) by Dwight H. Little and created an authentic exploitation snakes sub-genre, such as : ¨Python I and II, Boa, Rattler, King Cobra , among others.

This underrated monster movie came out around the same time as THE RELIC and both films got poor reviews. I happened to see this at the cinema back in '97 and I remember being distinctly underwhelmed by the film. After catching it on television again last night, my opinion has radically changed. While it may be a cheesy film with bad acting and poor special effects, the makers of this film obviously have an affection for B movies and, as one reviewer on the IMDb noted, there is definitely an old-fashioned feel to it, it's a bit like a '50s giant monster movie updated to the present day. On retrospect, I enjoyed this far more than the disappointing and hugely generic film that was THE RELIC, and after watching many of the recent so-called "horror" films on release, I've come to appreciate this for what it is : a fun, shallow and fast-paced little film that delivers the goods on the gore front.

While it's not a particularly bloody film, many of the deaths by snake are gooey and gruesome in the extreme. We watch the victims as they get slowly crushed and their bones break out, and then watch as their blubbery bodies are digested by the snake. In the film's big moment, Jon Voight is eaten, only to be regurgitated as a half-eaten mess moments later. Just when you thought it couldn't get any better, his corpse winks! The plot is a typically contrived and generic one, but as I mentioned it's fast paced so you don't have time to dwell on the holes. The acting is pretty bad, but again that's typical for a film of this variety - what's not typical is that most of the actors here are famous, or have become famous since.

Jennifer Lopez takes the lead and frankly I can't see what all the fuss is about, to me she's unattractive and a bad actress to boot. Joining her are Eric Stoltz in a nothing role, and he spends most of the film in a coma after eating a deadly wasp (strangely, though, he doesn't die!). Ice Cube is the likable, gruff and unlikely hero, a feat he pulled off again in '99s THREE KINGS. Jonathan Hyde plays an Englishman in a role that borders on the offensively stereotypical - if we British aren't depicted as bad guys, then must we all have stupid accents and be figures of ridicule with our silly "stiff upper lip" type characters? Bad acting awards go to Jon Voight for his supremely hammy portrayal of the film's villain, a lip-curling, eye-winking performance which I found to be hilarious - he's great, having a laugh, and miles away from the boringly serious characters he played in films like Deliverance. A pre-stardom Owen Wilson is pretty bland, and Kari Wuhrer is all glamour and no intelligence. Eagle-eyed viewers may spot FROM DUSK TILL DAWN's vampire bartender Danny Trejo as a snake victim whose suicide kicks the film off.

Now, for the special effects, which are a mixture of CGI and animatronics. The animatronics are great, and very lifelike. The CGI is not so, but at least it looks pretty as we watch the snake swirl through the air and stuff. I've seen a lot worse in more recent films, and at least you can see the effort that's gone into this creation to try and make it look as spectacular as possible. Speaking of spectacular, there is the requisite explosive finale which manages to be quite exciting as things go. ANACONDA is, to me, a welcome monster movie from a time when most horror films were slashers squarely aimed at a teenage audience. Thankfully, this film has no teenagers and no masked killers. That, the fun monster and the change of location (an authentic-looking Amazon jungle) make this one to watch again and again for me.

Let me tell you about a little film called Anaconda.

I watched this film a dozen times as a kid, I loved monster flicks. Anaconda was bad, it was utterly bad, yet I've seen it more times than I want to admit. Now we visit it again, years later, so we can laugh at how ridiculous this film is.

We open with Danny Trejo, for some reason they dubbed his lines. He doesn't speak English, but the voice the use is so much higher than what we all know to be the gravel voice of Trejo. Just something that I found funny.

The monster effects are laughably bad at times and worse at others. When the snake is animatronic, the obviousness of it all makes it seems like a bad ride at universal. Then we have the CGI effects, which make the snake seem like it doesn't even belong on the screen. The first attack on a human, the entire thing looks like one giant blur. The first time we see the snake in general isn't with some Jaws like reveal, it's simply the thing slithering around in the jungle before it attacks a puma. No big reveal, no slow reveal...just the damn snake out in the open.

In Ebert's review of the film, which is enthusiastically gave a thumbs up, he claims Jon Voight delivers a brave and slimy performance. That I can agree with, but I wouldn't necessarily call it a great performance. It's without a doubt, memorable, but in the campy way. He glares at almost everyone on the screen, his skin is slimy like a snake and immediately untrustworthy. No one else seems to think they are in a bad movie here. Voight seems to know this from the get go. Watch this film and then watch The Room and tell me the performances from them are not almost identical. Is he doing DeNiro? Is he doing Brando? Who the hell knows. It's one wacky performance, that much is a guarantee.

This was one of the early Jennifer Lopez films that probably helped launch her career. Why? I don't know, she doesn't offer anything interesting here. Ice Cube and Owen Wilson play against their usual type, I don't think we've seen either of them in a monster flick since this one,

Suffice to say, Anaconda is a bad film that boarders on being highly enjoyable. Sit back, laugh and enjoy the absurdity of Anaconda. If you take this film seriously...at all, even for one second, then you will utterly hate it.

If you want to watch a movie on a blazing, hot evening and have no options (and missed this one back in the day), then this is going to entertain you. Action? Yes. Fun? Yes. Acting? Oh hell yes! Just pay attention to Jon Voight and his over-the-top performance and prepare to be amazed. On top of that, one thing to consider: the writing for J-Lo's character, her lines, are totally out there making her sound useless and fragile, helpless side-hero for at least 45 minutes. Luckily this will change slightly towards the 2nd half, but...really, Mr Writer? Good thing that the anaconda steals the show. Finally, the overall rating here is unfair. This should be around 6.5 and is a much better monster-munch film than many others in the 00's and 10's...8/10, pure fun.