terrywatt375
Feb. 2007 ist beigetreten
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I suppose I should say at the outset of the review that Anaconda (2025) was intentionally a low-brow, silly film with no aspirations beyond that from the get-go. As such, in a way the flick is to a degree review-proof in terms of a critical assessment. I mean, the whole premise of it is ridiculous, so pointing out plot holes, leaps in logic and the like is sort of futile.
As a movie, Anaconda (2025) is at more than a few times confused as to what kind of film it was trying to be. There's a secondary, supposedly serious subplot involving gold poachers that was woven into the main storyline which I found more distracting than anything else. I found the main plot involving the four lifetime friends now in middle age trying to recapture the failed dreams of their teenage years was a decent-enough premise.
I would agree with other reviewers that as a viewer thinking too heavily about what you are seeing when you watch Anaconda (2025) undoubtedly inhibits enjoying it, so definitely turn your brain off and laugh as one reviewer wisely said.
Even with all that, for myself I didn't find the laughs exactly coming at me hard and fast, comedy being subjective. Part of that may have to do with going way back never having quite purchased a ticket on the Jack Black train in terms of my perception of his comedic ability, and Anaconda (2025) has a LOT of Jack Black front and center. Another part of that may have to do with the many jarring tonal shifts Anaconda (2025) takes throughout, trying to be this sort of wistful, sweet, silly yet at times serious, scary, thrilling Comedy/Action/Adventure hybrid. Anaconda (2025) really doesn't pull this blending of elements off particularly well.
However, I will also say that there were several scenes that did make me laugh out loud and a few sudden scare shots that made me jump. None of which were gut-bustingly funny or on-the-edge-of-my-seat thrilling, but effective enough. In truth, I hadn't wanted to see this flick and as such went into it with very low expectations. By all the criterion I listed above, Anaconda (2025) basically made it over the lowered bar. I saw it yesterday, so I figured I'd write this review today because doubtless come tomorrow I won't even remember having seen it, such is the disposable nature of it. It is what it is and overall a semi-decent one of those.
As a movie, Anaconda (2025) is at more than a few times confused as to what kind of film it was trying to be. There's a secondary, supposedly serious subplot involving gold poachers that was woven into the main storyline which I found more distracting than anything else. I found the main plot involving the four lifetime friends now in middle age trying to recapture the failed dreams of their teenage years was a decent-enough premise.
I would agree with other reviewers that as a viewer thinking too heavily about what you are seeing when you watch Anaconda (2025) undoubtedly inhibits enjoying it, so definitely turn your brain off and laugh as one reviewer wisely said.
Even with all that, for myself I didn't find the laughs exactly coming at me hard and fast, comedy being subjective. Part of that may have to do with going way back never having quite purchased a ticket on the Jack Black train in terms of my perception of his comedic ability, and Anaconda (2025) has a LOT of Jack Black front and center. Another part of that may have to do with the many jarring tonal shifts Anaconda (2025) takes throughout, trying to be this sort of wistful, sweet, silly yet at times serious, scary, thrilling Comedy/Action/Adventure hybrid. Anaconda (2025) really doesn't pull this blending of elements off particularly well.
However, I will also say that there were several scenes that did make me laugh out loud and a few sudden scare shots that made me jump. None of which were gut-bustingly funny or on-the-edge-of-my-seat thrilling, but effective enough. In truth, I hadn't wanted to see this flick and as such went into it with very low expectations. By all the criterion I listed above, Anaconda (2025) basically made it over the lowered bar. I saw it yesterday, so I figured I'd write this review today because doubtless come tomorrow I won't even remember having seen it, such is the disposable nature of it. It is what it is and overall a semi-decent one of those.
Late 1980's B-movie cheese that ...er, 'stars' Stallone and Mitchum. Frank Stallone and Christopher Mitchum, that is.
The plot. Stallone and Mitchum play merchant seamen who after six months at sea pull into port in ...San Francisco? Long Beach? I dunno. The end credits say the movie was shot in San Pedro, so in the Los Angeles area. Stallone encounters a Hooker With A Heart Of Gold who has escaped the clutches of her pimp, a rather unsavory character who owns a sleazy motel which he runs his pimping business from. Stallone and the prostitute (who is also a junkie) quickly - ridiculously quickly - fall in love. Stallone and Mitchum ship back out to sea. While they're gone, the hooker is abducted by the pimp and put back to work on her back. 6 months later, Stallone and Mitchum return to port. Stallone tries to find his junkie hooker girlfriend.
Also released under the title Death Feud, Savage Harbor has multiple hallmarks of laughably inept low-grade exploitation movie fare. From various shootout scenes where the prop guns don't fire the blanks and fail to produce muzzle flash, to bad guys being shot where the blood squibs fail to detonate, to fistfight scenes where the pulled punches visibly fail to connect. Clunky editing and bad audio looping, where during the fistfight scenes punching sounds are omitted along with the looped spoken dialogue failing to match up to the actors mouth movements. The same topless bar and sleazy motel location interiors and exteriors used over and over and over and over again.
Pretty much the entire flick appears to have been shot at various public locations around San Pedro and also (according to the end credits) the neighboring town of Wilmington, Los Angeles. Much of the filming from the looks of it happening late at night guerilla-style, meaning the characters and scenes were quickly shot with the camera either at a distance or super close to the actors. Especially charming were the brief inserts of Stallone strolling down sidewalks in the main business districts during daytime hours among the general public via that run and gun filming technique.
If your fetish involves watching Frank Stallone walk around in bleached acid wash jeans and a leather jacket smoking Lucky Strike cigarettes while hammily overacting, well, you've hit the motherlode with this movie. Although in fairness, at least Stallone is trying, the same of which can't be said for Christopher Mitchum who turns in a performance so stilted and wooden that if you threw him in the water he'd float.
After a brief, laugh-inducing opening action sequence, most of Savage Harbor is comprised of scenes featuring bad actors acting badly while talking in bars, talking in cars, talking in motel rooms, sitting on couches in motel rooms. Eventually, the last 15 minutes sees an increase in action featuring a mild degree of competency via a semi-exciting car chase and final shootout sequence where the production got the bloody squib shots more or less consistently right.
On the plus side, Karen Mayo-Chandler as the junkie hooker and Greta Blackburn as the non-junkie hooker aren't half bad, acting-wise. Lots of topless women wandering around in lingerie and garter belts (I guess writer/director Carl Monson had a thing for women's underwear). At around 85 minutes running time, Savage Harbor isn't as much of an endurance test to get through as it could have been.
So, 7 out of 10 stars, all of which are awarded for the cheesy, giggle-producing effect Savage Harbor elicited from me whilst viewing. Can't go any higher because outside of the opening and closing ten minutes, the middle bulk of the flick is stuffed with a LOT of slow-moving, dialogue-heavy filler scenes, the majority of which involve Mitchum's dead-on-arrival attempts at acting. Hey, even as a bad movie enthusiast, my tolerance has its limits.
The plot. Stallone and Mitchum play merchant seamen who after six months at sea pull into port in ...San Francisco? Long Beach? I dunno. The end credits say the movie was shot in San Pedro, so in the Los Angeles area. Stallone encounters a Hooker With A Heart Of Gold who has escaped the clutches of her pimp, a rather unsavory character who owns a sleazy motel which he runs his pimping business from. Stallone and the prostitute (who is also a junkie) quickly - ridiculously quickly - fall in love. Stallone and Mitchum ship back out to sea. While they're gone, the hooker is abducted by the pimp and put back to work on her back. 6 months later, Stallone and Mitchum return to port. Stallone tries to find his junkie hooker girlfriend.
Also released under the title Death Feud, Savage Harbor has multiple hallmarks of laughably inept low-grade exploitation movie fare. From various shootout scenes where the prop guns don't fire the blanks and fail to produce muzzle flash, to bad guys being shot where the blood squibs fail to detonate, to fistfight scenes where the pulled punches visibly fail to connect. Clunky editing and bad audio looping, where during the fistfight scenes punching sounds are omitted along with the looped spoken dialogue failing to match up to the actors mouth movements. The same topless bar and sleazy motel location interiors and exteriors used over and over and over and over again.
Pretty much the entire flick appears to have been shot at various public locations around San Pedro and also (according to the end credits) the neighboring town of Wilmington, Los Angeles. Much of the filming from the looks of it happening late at night guerilla-style, meaning the characters and scenes were quickly shot with the camera either at a distance or super close to the actors. Especially charming were the brief inserts of Stallone strolling down sidewalks in the main business districts during daytime hours among the general public via that run and gun filming technique.
If your fetish involves watching Frank Stallone walk around in bleached acid wash jeans and a leather jacket smoking Lucky Strike cigarettes while hammily overacting, well, you've hit the motherlode with this movie. Although in fairness, at least Stallone is trying, the same of which can't be said for Christopher Mitchum who turns in a performance so stilted and wooden that if you threw him in the water he'd float.
After a brief, laugh-inducing opening action sequence, most of Savage Harbor is comprised of scenes featuring bad actors acting badly while talking in bars, talking in cars, talking in motel rooms, sitting on couches in motel rooms. Eventually, the last 15 minutes sees an increase in action featuring a mild degree of competency via a semi-exciting car chase and final shootout sequence where the production got the bloody squib shots more or less consistently right.
On the plus side, Karen Mayo-Chandler as the junkie hooker and Greta Blackburn as the non-junkie hooker aren't half bad, acting-wise. Lots of topless women wandering around in lingerie and garter belts (I guess writer/director Carl Monson had a thing for women's underwear). At around 85 minutes running time, Savage Harbor isn't as much of an endurance test to get through as it could have been.
So, 7 out of 10 stars, all of which are awarded for the cheesy, giggle-producing effect Savage Harbor elicited from me whilst viewing. Can't go any higher because outside of the opening and closing ten minutes, the middle bulk of the flick is stuffed with a LOT of slow-moving, dialogue-heavy filler scenes, the majority of which involve Mitchum's dead-on-arrival attempts at acting. Hey, even as a bad movie enthusiast, my tolerance has its limits.
Being born the year The Beatles broke up, I was raised in the 1970's as a kid listening to my mother's Beatles albums and 45's on vinyl. The Beatles, as far back as I can remember, were always just ...there.
Other cultural touchstones of the times circa mid-to-late 1970's that as a kid I loved were The Bee Gees via the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. George Burns via the 1977 movie Oh, God! Peter Frampton was all OVER the radio back in 1976 and 1977.
Right around 1978 or so, there was this nostalgic wave of Beatlemania in the United States, spearheaded by the Broadway musical of the same name. This was during a period where John Lennon and George Harrison had both retreated from the public eye, Ringo Starr's post-Beatles solo and film career was for all intents and purposes defunct and only Paul McCartney had an active musical career as a solo artist that was of any note. Seemingly everybody was hot for a Beatles Reunion, and short of that were willing to take what they could get.
Into this time frame wandered the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band movie.
I dunno if it was cocaine-fueled hubris or what, but apparently RSO records founder and producer Robert Stigwood - following the massive success of his producing both the 1977 Saturday Night Fever movie and the 1978 movie adaptation of the stage musical Grease - felt he had his finger on the pop culture pulse of the late 1970's and could do no wrong. The logic, I suppose, being that everybody in 1977 loves The Bee Gees, loves Peter Frampton and still loves The Beatles. Thus, let's get The Bee Gees and Frampton to star in a movie musical featuring them covering songs from two of The Beatles most popular albums, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road. What could possibly go wrong?
Just about everything.
Trying to cobble together various Beatle tunes from records that were never made with the intent to be concept albums to begin with, the plot goes something like this: In the small, wholesome town of Heartland, Billy Shears (Frampton) and his three best friends, the Brothers Henderson (the Bee Gees), form a rock band. The town has possession of these magical musical instruments which as long as they remain in the town of Heartland will ensure that the residents of Heartland will live happily ever after. A greedy Hollywood music producer wants to sign up Shears and The Hendersons to his record label. Simultaneously, a villain by way of Mean Mister Mustard steals the magic instruments from Heartland, after which Heartland descends into a sleazy town of ugly commercialization and vice-ridden decay. Will Billy and the Brothers Henderson be able to steal back the magic instruments and save Heartland?
Yeesh.
Truth be told, though, as gaudy and overblown as the flick is ...I love it. Probably precisely because it all is so tacky and gloriously unaware of how bad it is. Additionally, the whole biz is just ...silly. Along with Frampton and The Bee Gees doing their takes on a slew of Beatles tunes (and I will say the Frampton/Bee Gee covers aren't in and of themselves terrible, but rather nothing anybody anywhere was asking for), Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band has a bunch of late 1970's pop rock stars and actors doing their takes on Beatles tunes. Some of these are actually pretty good (Earth Wind & Fire, Aerosmith). A lot are pretty terrible (comedian Steve Martin, actors Paul Nicholas and Dianne Steinberg, actor Frankie Howard, actor Donald Pleasence, actors John Wheeler and Jay W. MacIntosh ...a LOT of actors in this flick who can't sing well at all get screentime to sing a Beatles tune). Alice Cooper proffers a spellbindingly bizarre version of 'Because'. Singer/actress Sandy Farina, who plays Frampton's Heartland girlfriend Strawberry Fields, provides a mildly pleasant elevator muzak version of (of course) Strawberry Fields Forever. Aged vaudevillian George Burns, as the Heartland Mayor Mr. Kite, churns out a charmingly doddering rendition of 'Fixing A Hole'.
Gaudy, overblown, silly ...and tacky. Bright, tacky colored costumes and set dressings. Amateurish acting by the professional musicians coupled with amateurish, off-key singing by the professional actors. The urban legend lore was that John Lennon, returning via airplane to New York from a trip abroad in early 1979, was subjected to a showing of this movie as the in-flight entertainment in the first-class cabin ...twice. As part of the films theatrical release public relations blitz, Bee Gee Robin Gibb revealed part of the rationale for making the musical being that the Sgt. Pepper album had been released ten years prior, nobody in 1978 remembered The Beatles anymore and that the films versions of these Beatles tunes would go onto be the versions people would remember.
Suffice to say, it didn't work out that way. Although the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band movie musical DID end up severely downsizing (if not QUITE killing off) the careers of more than a few people involved. Just ask Robert Stigwood. Or The Bee Gees. Or Peter Frampton. For me, though, it remains a nostalgic curio and a portal to that late 1970's time of my youth re: pop culture. Ridiculous, campy kitsch made all the more enjoyable because all those involved were trying hard and, in their nose candy quaalude haze, clearly thought they were succeeding.
Bring it on in Ultra 4k High Def blu ray. I'm ready for it.
Other cultural touchstones of the times circa mid-to-late 1970's that as a kid I loved were The Bee Gees via the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. George Burns via the 1977 movie Oh, God! Peter Frampton was all OVER the radio back in 1976 and 1977.
Right around 1978 or so, there was this nostalgic wave of Beatlemania in the United States, spearheaded by the Broadway musical of the same name. This was during a period where John Lennon and George Harrison had both retreated from the public eye, Ringo Starr's post-Beatles solo and film career was for all intents and purposes defunct and only Paul McCartney had an active musical career as a solo artist that was of any note. Seemingly everybody was hot for a Beatles Reunion, and short of that were willing to take what they could get.
Into this time frame wandered the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band movie.
I dunno if it was cocaine-fueled hubris or what, but apparently RSO records founder and producer Robert Stigwood - following the massive success of his producing both the 1977 Saturday Night Fever movie and the 1978 movie adaptation of the stage musical Grease - felt he had his finger on the pop culture pulse of the late 1970's and could do no wrong. The logic, I suppose, being that everybody in 1977 loves The Bee Gees, loves Peter Frampton and still loves The Beatles. Thus, let's get The Bee Gees and Frampton to star in a movie musical featuring them covering songs from two of The Beatles most popular albums, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road. What could possibly go wrong?
Just about everything.
Trying to cobble together various Beatle tunes from records that were never made with the intent to be concept albums to begin with, the plot goes something like this: In the small, wholesome town of Heartland, Billy Shears (Frampton) and his three best friends, the Brothers Henderson (the Bee Gees), form a rock band. The town has possession of these magical musical instruments which as long as they remain in the town of Heartland will ensure that the residents of Heartland will live happily ever after. A greedy Hollywood music producer wants to sign up Shears and The Hendersons to his record label. Simultaneously, a villain by way of Mean Mister Mustard steals the magic instruments from Heartland, after which Heartland descends into a sleazy town of ugly commercialization and vice-ridden decay. Will Billy and the Brothers Henderson be able to steal back the magic instruments and save Heartland?
Yeesh.
Truth be told, though, as gaudy and overblown as the flick is ...I love it. Probably precisely because it all is so tacky and gloriously unaware of how bad it is. Additionally, the whole biz is just ...silly. Along with Frampton and The Bee Gees doing their takes on a slew of Beatles tunes (and I will say the Frampton/Bee Gee covers aren't in and of themselves terrible, but rather nothing anybody anywhere was asking for), Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band has a bunch of late 1970's pop rock stars and actors doing their takes on Beatles tunes. Some of these are actually pretty good (Earth Wind & Fire, Aerosmith). A lot are pretty terrible (comedian Steve Martin, actors Paul Nicholas and Dianne Steinberg, actor Frankie Howard, actor Donald Pleasence, actors John Wheeler and Jay W. MacIntosh ...a LOT of actors in this flick who can't sing well at all get screentime to sing a Beatles tune). Alice Cooper proffers a spellbindingly bizarre version of 'Because'. Singer/actress Sandy Farina, who plays Frampton's Heartland girlfriend Strawberry Fields, provides a mildly pleasant elevator muzak version of (of course) Strawberry Fields Forever. Aged vaudevillian George Burns, as the Heartland Mayor Mr. Kite, churns out a charmingly doddering rendition of 'Fixing A Hole'.
Gaudy, overblown, silly ...and tacky. Bright, tacky colored costumes and set dressings. Amateurish acting by the professional musicians coupled with amateurish, off-key singing by the professional actors. The urban legend lore was that John Lennon, returning via airplane to New York from a trip abroad in early 1979, was subjected to a showing of this movie as the in-flight entertainment in the first-class cabin ...twice. As part of the films theatrical release public relations blitz, Bee Gee Robin Gibb revealed part of the rationale for making the musical being that the Sgt. Pepper album had been released ten years prior, nobody in 1978 remembered The Beatles anymore and that the films versions of these Beatles tunes would go onto be the versions people would remember.
Suffice to say, it didn't work out that way. Although the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band movie musical DID end up severely downsizing (if not QUITE killing off) the careers of more than a few people involved. Just ask Robert Stigwood. Or The Bee Gees. Or Peter Frampton. For me, though, it remains a nostalgic curio and a portal to that late 1970's time of my youth re: pop culture. Ridiculous, campy kitsch made all the more enjoyable because all those involved were trying hard and, in their nose candy quaalude haze, clearly thought they were succeeding.
Bring it on in Ultra 4k High Def blu ray. I'm ready for it.