Anaconda

I read a lot of the review on this 23 year old flick. It's not as bad as people are saying. It is a well made finely acted unbelievable adventure flick. Anyone that expected this to be an Oscar award winning movie are delusional. I mean really, it's Jay Lo, Ice Cube , Voight, and Owen. It's mindless entertainment and nothing else. Enjoy.

Anaconda is often looked at as cinematic trash. And it is but it's also wonderfully entertaining. Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Eric Stoltz, Kari Wuhrer, Owen Wilson and Jon Voight star. Jennifer Lopez is really fierce as the lead and Jon Voight is so bonkers and over the top it's just comically absurd and wonderful. The effects leave something to be desired. The digital doesn't hold up but the practical is still pretty cool. The movie is creepy and funny and it's opening kill features a somewhat young I think Danny Trejo. Sometimes you just need to trash it up.

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.

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.

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.