ANACONDA
I want snakey! SNAKEY'S HERE!!!
What a misunderstood movie this is. Jennifer Lopez's line "This film was supposed to be my big break, but it turned out to be a big disaster" was used against it in review after review. Raking in widespread internet mockery, a fistful of Razzie nominations and accumulating a hefty dose of critical disrespect, you'd think that Anaconda was expected to be some sort of stark terror experience like Alien, but with a big snake.
The written prologue at the film's outset makes clear what kind of movie one SHOULD expect, when it tells us that the anaconda "will regurgitate its prey in order to kill and eat again". If you're anything like me, that had you bouncing up and down in your seat with glee, thinking "Oh boy!!! We're gonna see Ice Cube get vomited up by a big snake!" This movie is firmly in the Tremors/Deep Rising vein of monster movies. The acting is terrific for what's being aimed at, the situations are fun, and if the FX don't always seem up to par, well, that's part of the fun, isn't it?
One has to keep in mind, however, that much of what this movie tries to teach us about the anaconda is made up. Anacondas might be big, but nobody's ever seen (much less caught or killed) one that got to forty feet. I don't even know whether or not to believe that bit about it regurgitating its prey.
Lopez stars as Tina Flores, a video documentarian who packs up with anthropologist Dr. Kale (Eric Stoltz), her crew, and a snobby Brit narrator (Jonathan Hyde) onto a boat to sail down the Amazon in hopes of finding some lost tribe. They don't get far before they pick up a new passenger - a sneering, sinister fella named Sarone (Jon Voight). He tells them that he can lead them to the tribe, and when Kale makes it clear that he'll be sticking to the original plan, the good doctor falls ill with a sting from a wasp that somehow found its way into his scuba gear. (Stoltz spends most of the rest of the film in a coma. In other words, his performance here is not noticeably different from his waking work.) Sarone then tells him that the nearest hospital is exactly where he originally wanted them to go. How convenient. Then they're attacked by a forty-foot anaconda.
If the movie lacks anything in its human elements, it's got to be the lack of any compelling, sympathetic characters. We'd be just as happy to see any of these people get eaten by the anaconda as we would any other - for that matter, even though he's not sympathetic in the least, the character of Sarone is entertaining and compelling enough that he becomes as close as the movie has to anyone to cheer for.
Voight is really, really good in this role. Right up until his last scene, where he continues to leer at and hit on Flores despite what might be called difficult circumstances, he drips with the lecherous and seedy. Every sleazy guy you didn't want your sister to date, every revolting creep who hit on you at the bar (or you saw hitting on your girlfriend), every sleazebag who groped you (or your girlfriend) in a packed concert crowd - they're all here, rolled into one guy. It's so nice to see an actor like this (that is, respected, though not always deservedly) take such a chance by not only taking such a role in such a movie but relishing it. You don't see a lot of that.
The effects are a little bit of a mixed bag, and enjoyably so. To have its reptilian villain seem too real would be distracting in its own way, and would likely take away from the fun of such a film. To create the anaconda, there's a mixture of animatronics (quite good), and CGI (mostly pretty good, but some of it's a little iffy). (there might be shots of real snakes for the anaconda, but I really don't know) Though it might not always seem "realistic", there's much to enjoy about the effects anyway - particularly, with how the snake moves; coiling around victims, swallowing them, rapidly sidewinding after them like a rattlesnake (I very much doubt real anacondas move like this), not to mention when we see its skin stretched taut over a devoured victim's tortured face. Realistic? Not really, but it's still a hell of a lot of fun to watch.
Some of the plot is a mess - in particular, the arrival of a second anaconda near the film's conclusion after the one we've seen so much of appears to have been removed from the action. It's hard to believe that a boatful of otherwise intelligent people wouldn't spot Sarone as being the creep he is earlier, and you've gotta love the magic never-needs-chambering bolt-action rifle.
But does it matter? We're deliciously plunged into the murk and isolation of the South American jungle, and the screenwriters give us more than a giant snake and one great human character; like the scene where the sky is literally raining snakes of all kinds, sure to make the skin of ophidiophobes like myself crawl. Note also a really splendid three-way fistfight between Lopez, Ice Cube and Voight which is masterfully done - not only excitingly photographed and performed, but screw-tightening tense in motivation. This isn't your standard old "when good and evil cross paths they must do battle!" fight scene; they're REALLY fighting over something, and fighting over something that needs to be fought over. Every time I see this scene, I always rewind and watch it again.
I can't sit here and tell you that Anaconda is some sort of great, important movie with far-reaching artistic merit and is possessed of a Citizen Kane-like genius that will change cinema foreverafter. But it's a LOT of fun, and sits in very sparse company (with Exorcist III and nothing else that comes to mind at the moment) as a movie, however imperfect, that once watched makes me want to watch it again immediately, every single time. Why a movie like this would do that for me and obviously superior films would not, I don?t know. I'd look inside myself for the answer, but Im afraid of what I might find.
Despite the critical barbs (and trailers which produced groans and mystified murmurs of "That's one fast snake!"), Anaconda went on to become a big hit, earning also the enthusiastic, lonely praise of Siskel & Ebert. You never knew what out-of-left-field movie those two would get behind, but I guess for each time they embrace a Con-Air, they just might also embrace an Anaconda. How much longer can it be until we get a sequel? I hope it's called Anacondas.