Back Shelf Beauties
by Willie Waffle
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Anacondas
Screen Gems is trying to make a movie franchise out of
Anaconda, the 1997 stinker that starred
J. Lo when she was known as Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube when he was known as
a rapper, and Jon Voight when he was known as talented and respectable.
Shockingly, Anacondas: The Hunt For The Blood
Orchid is campy fun in a twisted way. It's not very good, but
you can get some laughs out of it.
In Anacondas, a diverse, rag tag crew
of scientists, capitalists and ship's crew head off into the jungles of Borneo
to find a rare flower, the blood orchid, which only blooms every seven years,
and will go dormant in about two weeks (and you know that it can't be good
when BLOOD is in the name, these things have names like that for a reason!).
Led by pharmaceutical developer Gordon (Morris Chestnut) and his co-leader
Gail (Salli Richardson), the group of 8 (plus one monkey, who might be the
best actor of the group) boards a rickety old boat (uh-oh) to harvest fields
full of the flower, which could provide a fountain of youth-type medicine
that will make them all rich. Of course, the rickety old boat doesn't hold
up (darn!), and the gang needs to hike through the jungle to get to safety.
Oh, and the jungle is full of hungry, horny anaconda snakes who are chasing
a female in heat during mating season, and growing larger than they ever
should because they might be eating the flower. These are some big snakes.
Huge. Think King Kong as a snake. Yeah, that's big.
Who will survive? Who will be anaconda food?
Anacondas: The Hunt For The Blood Orchid
is a stereotypical campy horror film with some thrills and plenty
of laughs (half of which are intentional). All of the formula elements are
present like sexual tension between women in clingy, wet tank tops and men
in sweaty, form-fitting t-shirts that show off their abs of steel (as opposed
to my abs of Krispy Kreme); constant outbursts from the comic relief character,
Cole (Eugene Byrd); our Crocodile Dundee-like outdoorsman/ship's captain,
Bill (Johnny Messner); the one guy who will do anything to satisfy his greed;
characters fighting for lives against evil snakes and crocodiles; and basic,
meaningless dialogue that only exists to move the story along instead of
exciting us or getting us involved emotionally.
Anacondas doesn't bring anything new
to the franchise, but almost lost me with its devotion to the worst elements
of the genre.
Our four writers and director Dwight Little go to the comic relief well too
much. Cole spends almost the entire movie ranting and raving about how scared
he is and cracking more one-liners than David Chappelle or Rodney Dangerfield.
It starts to grate on you after a while. His performance is eclipsed by the
mascot monkey's performance, which is full of dramatic close-ups of him reacting
to the people being eaten, warning others of impending doom and dismissing
Cole's constant comedic rants. Give this monkey the Oscar! He's funnier and
handles the drama with more aplomb.
Also, I was disappointed with the computer-generated snakes, who have too
much personality. I know it's a movie, but snakes don't look as devious and
devilishly happy when attacking their prey as these do.
Jaws was scary because the shark moved
in with reckless, nonchalant abandon. The most chilling part of the movie
is when Quint tells us about their cold, dead eyes, and we get it. Snakes
are the same way if you watch them on Animal Planet. By giving the snakes
personality, our creative team takes us a bit further out of reality, which
we don't need when they want to wrap us up in the drama of our gang's plight.
Anacondas: The Hunt For The Blood Orchid
is good for a laugh and a mindless Saturday night out and about with your
buddies.
2 Waffles (Out Of
4)
Copyright 2004 - WaffleMovies.com
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