Anaconda (1997)

The Story: A group of documentary filmmakers pick up a snake poacher hitchhiking on the Amazon River.

The early and mid-90s saw a resurgence in classic horror film characters given new life by "A-list" filmmakers. Shakespearean actor/director Kenneth Brannagh tackled the Frankenstein mythos, Francis Ford Coppola did Bram Stoker's Dracula more justice to its source novel than just about any other Drac film had done before, Jack Nicholson tipped his hat to Lon Chaney, Jr. with Wolf, and a few years later, Stephen Sommers "re-imagined" Boris Karloff's The Mummy. In the interim, they even remade The Creature From the Black Lagoon - but this time, they called it Anaconda.

Okay, so I'm being sarcastic. However, there is some truth to my bitterness. For many years, An American Werewolf in London director John Landis plotted a Black Lagoon updating which terminally lingered in development hell. Finally, due to the success of those films mentioned above in the mid-90s, the project seemed as though it might actually happen. Unfortunately, someone else tweaked the concept and rather than a return of everyone's favorite Gill Man, we were given instead this attempt at a horror thriller. Does a gigantic African snake make a good replacement for Rico Browning in a gill suit? Let's proceed and find out.

Dr. Steven Cale (Eric Stoltz) has brought along a documentary film crew in his efforts to locate a long-hidden tribe along the Amazon River. We're not give a lot of info on these folks - we know Cale has a romantic history with (not very) sexy and rump-heavy producer Terri (Jennifer Lopez), we know the camera man-slash-Token Black Guy (Ice Cube) is a stereotypical "brother from the hood", we know the soundman (Owen Wilson) and his sexy girlfriend (Kari Wuhrer) are destined to become Anaconda-food and we know the also stereotypical Pompous Brit (Jonathan Hyde) will look down his nose at the intellectually inferior 'Mericans until he, too, winds up snake chow. But what we don't know is how much fun the hitchhiking snake poacher Paul Sarone will be, as portrayed by cinematic legend John Voight. But I'll get to that in a few.

Basically, here's how the story goes; the documentary crew takes off down the river. They pick up stranded Sarone. Sarone tricks them into going off course so he can capture a B.A.S. (a big, fat no-prize to anyone who knows what those initials represent) to sell "for meellions" to a zoo. The crew catches on, but the wiley Sarone gets the upper hand. Eventually the crew is whittled down to just a few survivors (one of whom spends almost the entire film in a coma after a river mosquito flies down his throat, and then turns up quite conveniently when the shit hits the fan). Come the finale, it's two of the survivors (I won't say which survivors, as you'll know way ahead of time when you watch the flick) vs. Sarone and a second B.A.S. Who will win? Again, you already know.

As directed by Luis Lossa, Anaconda holds no surprises save for one - a gleefully malevolent and enjoyably tongue-in-cheek performance by John "Midnight Cowboy" Voight as the villainous Paul Sarone. Excellent character actor Eric Stoltz is given very little screentime to ply his trade, Jennifer Lopez (pre-media saturation) and her co-star (I'm talking about her voluminous ghetto-bootie) are merely acceptable, laconic Owen Wilson is miscast, sexy Kari Wuhrer doesn't shed any skin and Ice Cube must have thought he was in Boyz 'N the Hood 2, because if he's not recycling his performance as Dough Boy then I'm a three foot tall albino midget with a wooden leg named Willie (don't ask me what the other leg's name is - ba dum bum). To say these actors are merely going through the motions would be apropos but you know to expect more from old pro Voight, and he delivers.

I have to be honest here; Steve Johnson's anaconda FX puppets are about as jokey as they come. I can't say I've ever seen an Anaconda in real life (well, I could but I'd by lying) but I find it hard to believe that a snake so massive can move as quickly and gracefully as the titular creature does. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm fairly certain anacondas don't screech like harpies. I'm also pretty sure that if an anaconda were to swallow a person whole, you wouldn't be able to see that person's facial features as lumps on the snake's belly - though I do admit that the scene which features this does give me a chuckle.

But for all the bad points - the bland acting, the gimmicky CGI and practical snake FX, the weak plot, etc. - I have to say that I did enjoy this movie. It's just one of those flicks, you know the type - dumb as a bag of hammers but brain-dead fun nonetheless. I wish the film hadn't killed the interest in Landis' much ballyhooed Lagoon updating, and I also wish it hadn't breathed new life into the "nature run amok" sub-genre which has given us a slew of giant snake movies ever since, but I suppose it could have been much worse. For instance, I don't think Vanilla Ice (who rocks the mic like a vandal, in case you didn't know) would have made as convincing a Token Black Guy as Ice Cube. Though, that does sound damned funny when I think about it.

Summing up - pretty silly movie with loads of flaws but which still manages to entertain, mostly due to a memorable performance by a legendary actor who knows he's in a B-Movie and makes the most of it. Still, I would have loved a Black Lagoon remake.