ANACONDAS
Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Screen Gems
Grade: B-
Directed by: Dwight Little
Written by: John Clafin, Daniel Zelman, Michael Miner, Ed
Neumeier, story by Hans Bauer, Jim Cash, Jack Epps Jr.
Cast: Johnny Messner, KaDee Strickland, Matthew Marsden,
Eugene Byrd, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Morris Chestnut,
Nicholas Gonzalez
Screened at: Loews Kips Bay, 8/27/04
Some films will never be shown on airplanes: "Castaway" and
"Final Destination" for example. Then there are films that would
not be shown by travel agents dealing with exotic jungle trips:
"Anacondas," for example. With this last movie, director Dwight
Little, working with a script by John Clafin, Daniel Zelman,
Michael Miner and Ed Neumeier from a story by Hans Bauer, Jim
Cash and Jack Epps Jr. (whew) takes us to the jungles of the
Indonesian island of Borneo (actually filmed in Fiji) where such
wild animals can be found as a monkey, human beings, and
snakes. If you're ophidiophobic, you'll get an extra charge out of
the scares, most of which occur like a fireworks display toward
the conclusion of the endeavor.
In yet another example of corporate-bashing–which would be
taken as anti-Bush for those who like to make the stretch from
satires like "Fahrenheit 9/11"–the evil folks are executives with a
big, bad pharmaceutical company expecting to make billions
from extracting a chemical from a plant called the blood orchid.
The plant is found only in the densest jungles of Borneo and
must be harvested within three weeks. Failing that, the company
would have to wait seven years for a product that is said to be a
fountain of youth better than Botox. This drug would extend your
life while ‘keeping your health, though fetching the orchids would
ironically threaten the lives of the suits who go to Indonesia, the
captain of the boat hired for fifty large, and the drunken skipper of
yet another jerry-built rig who is called upon to help when the
original sad excuse for a ship is torn apart by a trip down a steep
waterfall.
Happily, "Anacondas" is not a video game spending most of its
time with swiftly-edited takes of the forty foot long snakes, one of
which devours part of the travel group by direct ingestion while
another comes close to the kill by wrapping itself around the
hapless traveler.
The movie features Johnny Messner as skipper Bill Johnson,
who milks the Americans for $50,000 simply for taking them on a
ferry ride–and has the chutpah to demand an addition fifty for
taking them on the most dangerous segment of the trip.
The only romance aboard occurs among the snakes, the males
of which have discovered a female in heat and have what the
one tripper calls a snake orgy. Director Little, eliciting some
crackerjack photography in the Fijian jungle from Stephen F.
Windon, does a reasonably good job considering that the
material is same ol', same ol'.
Rated PG-13. 93 minutes. © 2004 by Harvey Karten
at harveycritic@cs.com
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