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or reasons ranging from eternal glory and money to respectability and humanitarianism, a group of scientists—along with overseers and assistants—ventures deep into the primitive Borneo jungle in search of the rare blood orchid, which just may hold the secret to extending life. Time is of the essence: The plant blooms only for two weeks every seven years. Worse: It's monsoon season, and no local captains are willing to risk their lives or boats riding the rough waters. And, oh yeah, it's mating season for the many anacondas slithering all over the place.
Undeterred, the group—which includes Dr. Jack Byron (Marsden), the pompous British lead scientist; Gordon (Chestnut), the money man; Gail (Richardson-Whitfield), the skeptical top scientist at the company funding Dr. Byron's quest; Sam (Strickland), Dr. Byron's assistant; Dr. Ben Douglas (Gonzalez), the necessary tag-along medic; and Cole (Byrd), the group's tech pro—turns to Bill Johnson (Messner), a gruff, tattooed loner who, when offered enough money, agrees to ferry everyone to their destination aboard his ugly but rugged boat, the Bloody Mary.
Bill has his sidekicks, too, namely a pet monkey and a guy named Tran (Yune), who helps him run the boat. It's not long, however, before the rain falls precipitously and before jumbo anacondas start picking everybody off one by one and before tempers flare and before ...
The PG-13 rating bites
What can you say about a PG-13 horror movie with giant killer snakes? Let's start with this: It's got no connection, none whatsoever, to Anaconda. It's neither a sequel nor a prequel, but rather a transparent effort to cash in on the, er, Anaconda brand name.
And let's keep going: It's utterly predictable. Picture the pitch session: "Hmm, let's throw a bunch of people, some we like and some we dislike, into a hostile environment and see what happens. And let's make every character a stereotype and give the actors really lame dialogue. Hmm, snake movie. OK, right. We gotta toss in a bunch of oversized computer-generated anacondas and watch them do their thing, but the movie's PG-13, so we'll keep the bloodletting, bone crushing, screaming and cursing to a bare minimum. Check, check, check, check. And may we hope and pray no one out there realizes that, in reality, there are no anacondas in Borneo."
Giving credit where it's due, everyone gives Anacondas his or her best shot. Little stages his action scenes effectively, favoring wide shots for scale and tight shots for emphasis. The Bloody Mary's inevitable, calamitous tumble over a waterfall is about the best bit in the whole movie. And, wisely, Little never allows the pace to drag too much or too long. Anacondas, credits included, runs a lean 93 minutes. The cast does what it can to humanize the cardboard characters, with Strickland and Chestnut making the most memorable impressions; she's physical and resilient, he's got something going on behind the eyes. And, shot entirely on location in Fiji, the film is nothing if not atmospheric. As for the CG, it's pretty cutting-edge, and an anaconda mating party is particularly convincing.
Still, it never adds up to much; Anacondas hardly sucks one in, never truly terrifies, and it rarely scores with its gallows humor one-liners.
This whole PG-13 thing is really starting to piss me off. We're getting watered-down flicks aimed at teens looking for a cheap night out. If I'm going to plunk down nine dollars for a horror film about giant snakes in the jungle, give me what I'm after: lots of cursing, flashes of gratuitous nudity and snakes squishing, squishing, squishing people until their eyes pop out of their heads. — Ian
Also in this issue: Suspect Zero and Hero
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