Anaconda

Rating:
Summary: Who is the more MALIGNIANT ? In this STUPFFYING MOVIE...
Review: ANACONDA or JOHN VOIGHT ? THIS ACTOR WHO HAS MANY MOVIES IN HIS active has said this: "I like play the malignants !"
And he carry off many good as that ! With this movie witch narrate an horrible story of colossal enemy SNAKE a titanic animal ! THERE IS STILL AGAIN NOT DEAD TIME IN THIS MOVIE
JOHN VOIGHT ( RUNNAWAY TRAIN - HEAT ) IS A VERY GOOD TRUE MAN witch give chills of fear just with his look, even the snake reject him of his stomach and JOHN make A JIFFY ! AH ! Good !

Rating:
Summary: The snake is stupid......
Review: Like so much of what Hollywood puts out these days, they will comission a script, hire a bad director and film crew, a team of high name stars who can't act, throw a ton of fake cgi effects at you and disguise it as a movie, even if they never really belive in the project. It is made solely for the DVD and cable rights in the money department and that's it. Thus you have this movie where it shows that Jennifer Lopez can not act and John Voight needs to get better film parts. Save your money, stay home and watch PBS.

Rating:
Summary: FantasticDan and Bugster say "J Lo is hot, movie is not"
Review: At long last Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube team up to make one of the greatest thrillers of all time. Ok, that is an overstatement, a tremendous overstatement. In fact the only reason it got two stars is because we found it to be so bad its good. Plus J Lo's not bad looking. Jon Voights overacts and speaks with a very strong fake-sounding acent in the irritating role of the villian/snake hunter. As far as giant snake movies go Anacondas at the top but its a really short list. All it beats is made for video [junk] like Python. If you need to see a movie in which Jon Voights is regurgitated out of a giant snake rent it, otherwise stay clear.

Rating:
Summary: Freshly Squeezed
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Incredibly cool movie!
Review: I really enjoyed this movie. It kept me on the edge of my seat, and the grahics were amazing. The cast in this movie all did a great job, especially Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube. I think that they made a great team at the end trying to save each other from the snake. The action was suspenseful, and it's overall a really good movie. The plot is kinda wierd, but it does help a little bit. If you like any of the people cast in this movie, snakes, or action overall, then you should probably see this movie. If you don't like snakes, don't even go near it. The graphics for the snakes made them look pretty freaky, although it kind off looks fake after you see it a couple of times. Overall, this is a pretty cool movie to watch.

Rating:
Summary: This Snake is a Turkey!
Review: Well, maybe not quite that abysmal. After all, admit it, you do watch this when you come upon it while channel-surfing on your cable TV. I do, just for laughs.

I'm not really sure what the producers had in mind when they started work on this project. Indications are that it was meant to be a serious adventure/thriler film. But the cast, particularly Jon Voight, doesn't seem to take the whole thing very seriously. Voight, as the poacher out to capture the monstrous snake alive at all costs, hams it up big time, as if to graciously adjust his performance to B-movie level. Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, and Kari Wuhrer are pretty much what you would expect -- adequate at best, awful at worst. And we get more of the latter. Owen Wilson and Jonathon Hyde rise slightly above that range, but not by much. As for Eric Stoltz, he raises it up a notch too, but spends half the movie asleep. Rumor has it that when he realized what he was getting into, he requested a change in the script, which would make him appear briefly at the start, then hit the sickbed, then reappear near the end. I don't know if that's true, but it sure is believable.

Oh yes, there's that mean snake. What we have here is a bargain-basement computer-generated beast that made the world realize that CGI is not that great a technology after all. It is so laughably bad that I couldn't help thinking they should have pulled Ray Harryhausen out of retirement to do the special effects. At least a stop-motion 50-foot reptile would have fit in nicely with the whole idea of mindless fun.

But in the end, it's still mindless fun, a 1990's entry to the so-bad-it's-good category, the type of movie that serves up a mix of masochistic enjoyment and guilty pleasure. Of course, Ed Wood's fans aren't going to lose sleep over this. Sure, it's so-bad-it's-good, but it tips the scales more heavily on the bad side.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent _Fiction_ Film
Review: Version Reviewed: Columbia Tristar Home Video DVD, 1997, 90 minutes, widescreen

My personal enjoyment rating: 10 out of 10

My recommendation rating: 10 out of 10. Explanation of recommendation rating: "A must see for everyone with a serious or casual interest in film and anyone else who is not averse to or doesn't otherwise philosophically object to the genre."

_Anaconda_ is a brilliant, genre-bending film, with just the right blend of beautiful cinematography (some of the sunset shots are breathtaking, and there are a lot of creative and effective point-of-view shots), quick-cut thrills, a compelling, scary monster (and an unexpected one in addition), and a great ensemble cast.

A documentary team heads into the Amazon with the intention of finding, studying and filming a little-observed tribe, the Shirishama Indians. On the way, they encounter an mysterious man, Paul Sarone (Jon Voight), who appears to be stranded and grateful that the documentary team saved his life. However, strange things quickly begin happening, such as the anthropologist on the team, Dr. Steven Cale (Eric Stoltz), being stung by a paralyzing wasp while diving, and Sarone gradually takes control, with ulterior motives.

Of course, as a film named _Anaconda_, the plot has something to do with snakes, as well, but telling you what that involvement is, exactly, would count as a spoiler, in my view. However, I can say something about the anacondas in the film, which are a very effective combination of animatronics and CGI. Two animatronic anacondas were made, at an estimated cost of $10 million, one 25 feet long and 1800 pounds, one 40 feet long and 2500 pounds. Animatronics and CGI might not sound like something that would come across as provoking realism and scares to an audience, but thanks to the deftness of the effects crew, and the skill of the actors, the snake scenes provoke just those emotions (note that I'm saying "realism" as an _emotion_, and not claiming that I would mistake the film for a documentary on anacondas or their behavior, which, in lieu of, some people, in a muddled way, seem to subtract points for--fiction, and especially horror fiction, is _fantasy_, folks; get with the program). Of course, the performances were aided by the fact that the snakes, although animatronic, really _were_ dangerous to the actors--a wrong move (or one computer glitch) could result in being crushed by what amounts to a medium-sized truck.

In fact, putting the cast in unusual, often uneasy situations was a decision by the production crew, including director Luis Llosa (a Roger Corman alumnus), that worked to the film's advantage. Aside from the threat of injury or death with the mechanical anacondas, which were filmed at the Los Angeles Arboretum, most of _Anaconda_ was shot on location, on the Amazon, and there are scenes in which tens of real snakes were used, which subsequently got lost in the set. This contributes to a palpable emotional tension that is present throughout the film and that turns out to be the crux of it.

Although the anacondas are thrilling and welcome, the real star of the film, and the real villain, is Sarone. Voight may have won an Oscar for _Coming Home_, but in my opinion, he should have won an Oscar for his performance here, as well. Everything about him is enigmatic, charismatic and threatening--all at the same time, even including his mannerisms and strange accent. Although technically, _Anaconda_ could count as a monster movie (although it has some action leanings, as well), Llosa and crew made an excellent film because they stuck with the basics--telling a great story with great actors who have chemistry together, and showing them working through a series of conflicts and manipulations, with often-tragic results.

Rating:
Summary: Felt like an anaconda squeezing my eyelids shut
Review: Has anyone yet told Ice Cube he can't act? How about Jennifer Lopez? Yeah, um, someone wanna get on that ASAP?

As for the snake, I figured all the old Charlie Brown animators would've retired by now.

Put this DVD on 'Repeat' for coma patients you never want awakened.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Saturday Afternoon Creature Feature Classic!
Review: Growing up in the late '60s, I was a bit too young to enjoy the 1950s Saturday afternoon double-feature matinee experience down at the neighborhood theatre. The '50s double-features were mostly low budget sci-fi/horror epics with thin plots, lovely damsels in distress (Julia Adams), square-jawed heroes ( Richard Carlson) and low budget monsters from Mars, the jungle or atomic fallout. The monsters were usually guys in rubber suits (CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE) or questionable trick photography (MONSTER FROM GREEN HELL, EARTH VS. THE SPIDER). Luckily, I was able to see these films on the 1960s-70s equivalent -- the Saturday afternoon 'Creature Feature' on TV.

These thrillers weren't great cinema, but they were great fun. Scary? No. Did you have the need for everything to be fact-based and believable? Again, no. You were simply entertained, and let your imagination merge with the tinny black-and-white sounds and images -- and travel along for the ride!

With today's post-STAR WARS filmgoers -- people weaned on ILM-esque special effects, the MTVers and video viewers who've had their imaginations and attention spans kidnapped -- I pity them. They missed a modern day, Grade-B sci-fi/horror classic called ANACONDA. There hasn't been seen this good since ALIEN (though PREDATOR is a close second).

ANACONDA is a brilliant re-creation of the lost art of the 1950s double-feature horror genre; not really a homage to, more the real thing. It's CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON with a cheesy computer animated snake in place of a guy in a cheesy rubber suit. It's a Saturday afternoon 'Creature Feature' for people who remember -- and understand -- them. The script is servicable, the cinematography is beautiful, direction is adequate, acting is fun-spirited, the women beautiful and endangered, the heroes machismo and handsome, the monster phantasmagorical -- and we get a bonus surprise by one of the greatest American actors, Jon Voight, doing a magnificent over-the-top, slimy, nasty, reprehensibly heartless villain, complete with a sly wink to the audience. His endearing performance is the key to the film. He understood the film's intent and translated it to the screen for you. If it's in your realm of understanding and experience, you get it and are able to partake in this little slice of cinema heaven.

This film follows the successful thriller sub-genre of The Crew Against The Monster, which first began with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Lost World" and carried on with the film of the same name, then through THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, JAWS, ALIEN, THE THING(remake), PREDATOR, and now ANACONDA. Each one of these films was a box office hit (and either have several sequels or remakes to prove it) and are either considered a classic, or well on their way.

In 20 years, they'll be calling ANACONDA a classic. Why wait that long? -- it's one today!

Rating:
Summary: This movie bites.
Review: Ok, it's not all that bad. In truth, it's probably exactly what you would expect. Jon Voight takes a stab at playing the snake hunting scum-bag, while pretending to help out. Eric Stoltz is fine, but not around much. Jennifer Lopez does the same job as any non-actor could. Ice Cube more or less plays himself. Owen Wilson who normally is hilarious, never really even cracks a joke in this one. Kari Wuhrer I like, but she never shows any skin, which she normally does in movies. Another let down. As for the snake, it's part rubber, and part computer graphics, but never that realistic. The whole group is in the jungle to shoot a documentary before they get into snake trouble. In short, if you enjoy movies with giant spiders, rats, crocodiles, or bats, you should like this one too.