Anaconda
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Movie Reviews of Anaconda
Movie Review: Satisfied Customer
Summary: 5 Stars
I received my purchased in adequate time in good satisfactory condition. Thanks so much for your service.Movie Review: see this
Summary: 5 Stars
this is an awsomeeeee movie a must seee 1000000 starz see this its cool. the snake is so scary.Movie Review: "That's it, man. I'm gettin' the hell back to L.A."
Summary: 4 Stars
"This film was supposed to be my big break... but it turned out to be a big disaster." Back in 1997, when this film came out, you just had to chuckle when Jennifer Lopez's character said this so plaintively. JLo was still fairly new to the film industry at the time, you see, and there were doubts... Now, looking back, it turns out Jennifer's had a pretty good run at a Hollywood career.
ANACONDA follows the spoor of ARACHNOPHOBIA but predates SNAKES ON A PLANE, but all three of these creature features exude that same sense of camp and cheese, and they are all of them a lot of fun. The plot to ANACONDA revolves around an American expedition wending its creaky way down the Amazon river, this decrepit river boat ferrying a documentary crew intent on capturing on film this mysterious lost tribe. What are the odds that these folks get sidetracked?
The anaconda is the most terrifying predator in the Amazon jungle, or so this film proclaims. Anacondas can grow up to forty feet long and they "will regurgitate their prey in order to kill and eat again" - which is just really messed up. Except that when I read that bit at the start of the movie, I couldn't wait to see it happen (oh, it happens). And yet the horror show starts even before the anaconda monster slithers on camera and cracks the bones of its first victim. The real villain of this piece is this diabolical Paraguayan by name of Paul Sarone (Jon Voight, really slimy), and the worst thing the river boat crew does is to pick up this sneery stranded hombre. You want to talk about a snake in the grass, you talk about Sarone, failed priest and current reptile wrangler. Raise your hand if you think he's harboring a hidden nasty agenda?
Jennifer Lopez heads up the cast as documentary film director Terri Flores, and, for me, part of the draw is in watching her and Ice Cube - two hip denizens of the urban sprawl - trying to cope in this deadly fish-out-of-water setting. The movie, shot in Brazil and demonstrating excellent cinematography, does well in evoking that sense of peril just lurking out of sight, in the steamy jungles, in the dank waters... and then there's "the little catfish that swims up through your urethra, finds a nice warm spot, and spreads its thorny little spines.'' Oh hell no.
Ice Cube, by the way, plays Danny the cinematographer, and he is likable from the get-go. I even enjoyed that bit of self-indulgence in which we catch Cube's character chillin' to an Ice Cube song. ANACONDA is peopled with a cast diverse enough that I never did get bored watching whomever was on screen. I'm not a big fan of Eric Stoltz, so it's probably for the best that he spends most of the film in a coma with a hole in his throat. Other familiar faces backing up our newbie actors are Owen Wilson and a Danny Trejo surprisingly without facial hair.
What this is is a throwback to those fun old B-movie adventures. ANACONDA bubbles over with high spirits and a tongue-in-cheek sensibility, or that's the sense I get, anyway. There are several spiffy kill scenes and visual effects that aren't that shabby, the anaconda itself either computer generated or rendered in animatronics, and looking mostly believable. There's even a cool anaconda's POV shot as one victim slides down its gullet. Acting-wise, it's not surprising that Jon Voight overshadows everyone. It's just fun watching him preach his sinister gospel of the jungle. A masterful scene stealer to the very end, Voight makes the most of his memorable death scene. He even gets to conduct a wicked piece of emergency on-site tracheotomy. Because when you mess around in the Amazon, not only can you get crushed by anacondas, or have parasitic candiru swim up your wang, or get a hole punched into your throat by a crazy Paraguayan... um, I don't really know where I'm going with this. But I like this movie which is bad and campy and, well, quite terrific.
Movie Review: Anaconda: The Original Giant Snake Movie
Summary: 4 Stars
I remember watching this back in the day when it first came out. I really enjoyed it then and I think my enjoyment when I bought the DVD was just the same. This movie, imo, is like I say the original giant snake movie. It should have set the standards for other snake movies. Though as I have seen a couple others such as 'Boa' all I see is terribly written stories and horrific graphics. As opposed to this. 'Anaconda' showcases something no other giant snake movie has been able to produce. That something is the feeling of a story that could really happen, in a setting that makes it entirly possible. When you watch a movie such as 'boa' or any other giant snake movie these days with the exception of 'Anacondas: Hunt for the blood orchid' you see these stories taking place in rural areas. Happening right out in the open highways and towns and unfortunetly garages. I guess I can see what they were trying to do with that. Bringing the huge snakes to a home or in a big populated human area might let you connect more with the film because thinking they can just come out of the wild at any time and find you at your doorstep is a bit frightening. However, as I said, taking the big snakes out of the Amazon was a big mistake. Though it may scare you more, (which the awful graphics sort of stop that from happening in the first place so why bother?) by taking them out of that setting I believe they branded snake movies, for me at least, as stupid and cheesey and overdone from now on. But back to it. I rather enjoyed the snake effects in 'Anaconda'. Only a couple times did you actually feel that the snake was fake. At one point, when it was constricting 'Gary' played by Owen Wilson, it didn't look that great. With this movie I'm pretty sure they had like a mechanical snake at times with real texture and everything so it didn't all have to be computer animated and thats what made it a great watch compared to recent reincarnations. They went the extra mile to please the audience and imo it payed off. This movie also carried a good supporting cast. They each seemed to fit like a glove in their respective spots in the film. Made you really believe they were who they were acting. All the way from the boat's captain to the camera man. There was also some comedy mixed in along with some of its fierce snake scenes which really put it over for me. I saw another reviewer wrote that he just didn't like the camera man. I would have to disagree. Ice Cube had an important role and pretty much imo came through. His comedic side mixed with this 'Don't mess with me' attitude shined through. And even when they did have computer effects at points, it still looked pretty good. I mean you will always know that its not real but it doesn't look fake at all except at maybe two scenes. Which are Gary & Mataeo dying. The rest look plenty real for me. Add to all of this the suprising acting skills voight contributed as a poacher underminding a boat full of people so that he may get his pay day along with the scenes of knowledge of the great creature just totally caputres the atmosphere it needed. Really well written, directed and acted out by its respected cast. This has to be one of my favorites in my collection. A definite buy for anyone who wants to see an intising giant snake movie that actually seems like it could happen and actually seems real. Or, if you have yet to watch one of these because of maybe bad opinions toward them but you honestly wanna see or whatever then watch this first. Or just watch this lol, though I haven't seen hunt for blood orchid, it seems to be like the rest these days in graphics and it was rated 6/10 by someone I trust so the first and original will probably be all you want to see but hey whatever floats your boat. Some people don't even care about graphics they just think its cool and thats totally understandable, whatever you like. But with me I would just go with this right here. Its the best.Movie Review: Freshly Squeezed
Summary: 4 Stars
The brilliant thing about most creature features is that you can always count on them to give you a few surprises that make you jump out of your seat for a second, and then laugh at yourself and everyone else who fell for the "jump at you" action onscreen. "Anaconda" is chock full of such surprises, and a pretty decent looking creature as well. It also has a host of actors with solid(although not necessarily commercially successful)movie careers such as Jon Voight and Eric Stoltz and it shows us three actors(Owen Wilson, Jennifer Lopez and, to a lesser extent, Kari Wuhrer)on the edge of future brilliant careers. It also has a rapper(Ice-Cube), which gives it street-cred(Actually, Ice-Cube does a good job in this film).I won't bore you with a synopsis of the story, because it's a monster movie, it's either going to eat everything or destroy everything. That's the beautiful thing about this movie. It plays out in front of you with no intentions to scare you senseless or make you afraid to swim in a river. Instead, it gives you a good time and some no-brainer fun.
The story is decent, although not original, and the action moves along at a decent rate. A couple of parts are slow, but they are made up for with the climactic ending, in monster movie terms at least.
This movie also gives you the option to make a game out of it. Be sure to invite a few good, preferably intoxicated, friends over and take a shot of your favorite poison every time someone falls in the water, gets squeezed, or every time they show J-Lo's bulbous backside. Before you know it, you'll think this is the greatest motion picture ever made and you'll want to see it again and again.
But seriously folks, watch this film for what it is, a creature feature that isn't as slick or big-time as Devlin and Emmerich's "Godzilla," but ten times as cool as "Lake Placid." Highly recommended if you're looking for a good time.