Congo

Rating:
Summary: CONGO
Review: I love this film almost as much as I like King Kong and Mighty Joe Young. Pretty exciting and fun movie.

Rating:
Summary: Not quite the same as Crichton's book, but....
Review: Some people like watching car races, others golf tournaments. For me, there's nothing like the simple joy of a monkey knife fight. Enough said.

Rating:
Summary: this movie rules
Review: this movie is the best movie in the world. the monkeys are very scary. amy is a good monkey that saves peter in the end.

Rating:
Summary: "Stop eating my sesame cake!"
Review: Hoping to catch a ride on the success of "Jurassic Park," Paramount released "Congo" to critical and box office bashings. Nobody liked the film at all, saying the plot was filled with enough holes to put the Grand Canyon to shame. Also, Amy, the talking gorilla, was the most hated creation to hit the silver screen until Jar Jar Binks came along four years later in "Phantom Menace."

A movie like "Congo" is all the more reason not to listen to your peers and to make up your own mind about films. It provides us with something rare: a fun, bonafide jungle adventure with (not to sound cliche) thrills, chills and spills. For pure ecapist cinema, I think "Congo" ranks up along with more well-recieved classics like "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "Star Wars" and "Back to the Future." While not as sophisticated or well-executed as those three, nobody can say that they watch these types of movies to feed their brains with knowledge. All things considered, what it all boils down to is that an underrated film like "Congo" delivers a rolicking good time at the movies in spades.

I think my favorite part of the film comes in Delroy Lindo's show-stopping performance as a military captain with volatile hospitality problems. One minute, he insists that his guests indulge in coffee and sesame cake. The next minute, he's yelling at Tim Curry for honoring his "request." A classic, campy performance. I also love Ernie Hudson's bad British accent, which in a weird way makes you respect his performance even more. I mean, at least he gave it a shot. And then there's the aforementioned Amy the talking gorilla, who is admittedly annoying sometimes, but nonetheless lovable. Oh, and did I mention Bruce Campbell makes a brief appearance as an ill-fated expedition leader? Groovy.

The DVD is your standard Paramount fare - bare bones. All you get is two theatrical trailers. But at least it sports an anamorphic transfer and comes complete with a 5.1 audio track. And thankfully, the image presentation here is one of the best Paramount's ever offered. The green of the jungle is truly GREEN and the blacks are unmistakably BLACK. A really beautiful transfer.

If you've seen "Congo" already and didn't like it, I suggest giving it another try. It's a heck of a lot better than what Hollywood dishes out these days. Like a fine wine, it seems to get better with age.

Rating:
Summary: Congo and Jelly Donuts
Review: I know this movie went over budget, but I can't believe how low the producers and director stooped to bring it to the big screen. If it had been up to me, I would have called it a day before humiliating myself in front of the entire Hollywood film industry.
I understand that they ran out of cash to pay the gorilla trainers, and therefore had to outfit a man in a monkey costume in order to finish production.
At the very least, they could have asked the guy to wear gorilla feet instead of the Nike cross trainers that were hanging out of the bottom of the costume for the entire time.
In addition, the scene where you can actually hear the director yell, "Action" and the guy playing the gorilla has to literally throw a cup of coffee and donut on the ground, put his mask back on and run into the action, really cheapens the film. As if that weren't bad enough, the guy proceeds to start growling and flailing his arms (which are covered in confectionary powder) around, but his growls are completely muffled by the reminants of jelly donut still in his mouth.
Pathetic!

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing Movie After Reading the Book.
Review: This movie could have been so much better if they had taken a little more from the book.

I enjoyed the idea of the 'glove' that allows the gorilla who can sign, to speak. I didn't enjoy the ex CIA operative who, "put's them on the endangered species list". When I saw this movie at the theater, I was quite annoyed that I had spent so much money to watch what must have been a slap in the face for Crichton.

Crichton is well known for using science to make his stories believable, but all the science in the world couldn't take care of what they did to his book. Try renting this one before you buy, and if you like it, by all means read the book. You won't be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Horror Movie with a touch of tenderness.
Review: The horror genere containing "far-out" monsters give the viewer a true break from "reality" movie and daily news breaks. This movie inhances that much needed break. It'll make you jump. scream, laugh and cry. It may not be "KING KONG," but will give the viewer a full range of emotions. We loved every minute of it in our home, and stll watch it once every ten, or so days, sometimes for the music as well as the "jumps." Well written and well-directed, we wish a "part two" was in the offering.

Rating:
Summary: Congo goes absolutely Wrongo
Review: A lot of talented people went wrong with this movie. The director is Frank Marshall,who directed Arachnophobia. That movie had genuine suspense and lots of laughs. Congo has neither, except for a few unintentional ones(Tim Curry's accent is unbelievably bad.) The effects person, Stan Winston, is one of the most talented in Hollywood, but his gorillas look just like what they are-men in monkey suits. It takes forever to get to them, and their first appearance is done with one of the most poorly shot and laughable slo-mo scenes ever done for a movie. The composer, Jerry Goldsmith, is one of my favorite movie musicians, but his bongo drums and African chant score is distracting and annoying. The violence is very bloody and brutal for a PG-13
movie. In fact, the only reason I'm giving this two stars is the beautiful African setting. Avoid Congo.

Rating:
Summary: A good-old fashioned Saturday matinee jungle movie
Review: Talk about things on the endangered species list, what about the good old-fashioned "B" movie? You remember, the type of movie you would go see on a Saturday afternoon where the faces of the actors are more memorable than their names, nobody seems overly concerned about the gapping holes in the plot, and there is a thrilling climax. It is hard to find a good "B" movie nowadays ("good" being a relative if not totally ironic term), but "Congo" sure fits the bill.

First, look at the cast. Laura Linney as Dr. Karen Ross has the most impressive body of work in film, but she is certainly the most atypical "heroine" to be seen in an action film for a while (Her secret? The good doctor knows how to pack for every occasion). I am sure I have seen Dylan Walsh, who plays Dr. Peter Elliot, in something else, but I cannot name you the film. Ernie Hudson as "great white hunter" Monroe Kelly is still probably best known as the non-comedian Ghostbuster, and Tim Curry gets to engage in monumental exaggerated acting as Herkermer Homolka the fortune hunter. Actually, it is Curry's performance alone that should key you in to the fact you are not supposed to take this film seriously (although I am sure Michael Crichton's novel was probably not this comic).

The plot has to try and keep up with the four different agendas of these main characters. Dr. Ross wants to find out what happened to her ex-fiancé, who disappeared in the jungle. Dr. Elliot wants to return Amy, a domesticated gorilla he has talk to "speak" using sign language and sophisticated technology, to her home in the jungle. Homolka is looking for the lost diamond mine of King Solomon, which is located somewhere in the jungle. Meanwhile, Mr. Kelly just wants to get everybody out of the jungle alive. The payoff for all these plot lines is a climax in which about a half-dozen independently unbelievable things happen within the space of about five minutes to allow some of our heroes to survive. At that point, plot holes seem the least of your problems as a viewer.

"Congo" is also one of those movies where you can have fun recognizing bits and pieces of your favorite movies crammed here and there into this one (e.g., the sentinel guns from "Aliens"). There is even one of those scenes where everybody starts singing a song together that has been popping up in so many films lately. This is a movie where that thing on top of your shoulder is there for the sole purpose of having a place to put your popcorn, because this is not a thinking person's film. Every once in a while you need to see a "B" movie and "Congo" fits the bill by that standard. If you were expecting a great film, then you are just going to be bitterly disappointed. But if you are sitting in bed going through one box of tissues after another, a film like this is just what the doctor ordered.

Rating:
Summary: For the Gorillas and the Birds
Review: Given that this movie seems to be appearing on cable tv a lot lately, I figured it would be a fitting time to review it. I originally saw "Congo" when it was released in the theater. I consider the fact that I didn't walk out in the middle of it as a show of courage.

The story is based around the research of Dr. Peter Elliot (Dylan Walsh). Dr. Elliot has adapted a mechanical device that allows a mute to speak to allow a gorilla named Amy to speak using sign language. Amy signs her words and the device interprets the motions and transfers them into digital sound. Why the thing doesn't make any noise when Amy is just moving her hands around is beyond me.

Anyway, Amy begins to develop a severe case of nightmares. Dr. Elliot is afraid that she is going to go crazy in captivity and have to be destroyed; so, he puts together an expedition to the Congo to return Amy to her original habitat.

That's about as coherent as this movie stays. Of course Dr. Elliot runs into trouble along the way and has to get help from several odd characters including two established actors (Tim Curry and Ernie Hudson) both displaying their total lack of an ability to do a good accent. Also included on the expedition is Dr. Karen Ross (Laura Linney), a communications expert whose company funds the trip and who has been sent to the area to retrieve a diamond needed for a communications satellite.

The main mark against this movie is the dearth of action but for the final 15 minutes. The plot of the movie is certainly not strong enough to sustain one's interest for an entire sitting; and, if the characters were any more one-dimensional, they'd be invisible. Even the final 15 minutes of action is (for lack of a better word) stupid. It's a battle between the gorillas and the humans and, quite frankly, I found myself rooting for the gorillas. It's like Betty White's character said in the movie "Lake Placid", "I'm rooting for the crocodile. I hope he swallows your friends whole."