[year/rating] 1997 PG-13 [genre] Horror Adventure [director] Luis Llosa [starring] Jennifer Lopez Ice Cube Jon Voight Kari Wuhrer

Tagline

You can't scream if you can't breathe.

Summary Capsule

Documentarians hook up with psycho snake hunter who's hunting his sanity

Mutant Meter

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Justin's Rating: Hey, it's WAY better than Gigli!
Justin's Review: I may not have made this perfectly clear before, but I have a fairly strict "No Swimming In The Amazon River" policy. Even schoolchildren failing algebra know darn well never to set one toe into the Amazon, or else a platoon of piranha will skeletonize you in three seconds flat. A pleasant thought, thousands of little teeth serving up Justin horse-dirves, but one I'm happy to supplant with the eight new reasons that the movie Anaconda warns about the dangers of river dipping:

"He arrives at levels of such manic overacting that you just can't help but fall in love with evil all over again."

1. Poisonous river-wasps that swim into your mouth and sting you
2. Some little critter that swims up into your urethra and hooks its spines into you there, requiring it to be cut out
3. Hundreds of ravenous baby snakes just looking for a finger or ten to dine on
4. Eric Stoltz, Scuba Man
5. Dead monkeys being used as bait
6. Crazy British guys whacking golf balls into the river at 50 mph
7. Leeches. "On my scrotum," as one character eloquently puts it.
8. And of course, 40-foot-long anacondas who subscribe to the Corset Method of murder.

It goes without saying that the entire cast of this movie spends the majority of their time willingly going into the river as if it was a YMCA kid's pool. Thus, enjoy the first forty minutes or so of Anaconda, as the actors stand waist- or neck-deep in the most treacherous river in the world, their calm expressions communicating the level of concern about, perhaps, whether their co-star peed in the river and that's what's causing the warm currents. No, if Justin was in this movie, Justin would be screaming like a girl getting a noogie if he touched water, clawing his way up the highest (and no doubt, most poisonous) tree in the region. No penis fish for Justin, no sirree.

Naturally, you can't expect Anaconda to be a good movie. After all, it's about a big, sometimes-computerized snake. Yet it turns out that Anaconda is a bad movie with good credentials, and that starts to make it worth your pretty penny.

You'd be absolutely amazed at the casting here. No one in the $20 million payday range, to be sure, but there are quite a few famous actors -- who were either on the rise or fall from stardom -- that managed to be roped into this year's Big Snake Flick. Jennifer Lopez is the spunky girl in the tank top, and Eric Stoltz is The Professor to her Mary Ann. They go on an Amazonian expedition to film a documentary about stupid career moves of Hollywood stars, and bring along Ice Cube, Owen Wilson, and cult frequent flyer Kari Wuhrer for the fun of it.

The best of this here cast definitely has to be Jon Voight, an already mentally off-kilter individual, as the Crazy Snake Hunter they pick up for fits and sniggles. Voight sneers as he smiles, his eyes bug out on command, and he talks in the most ridiculous Spanish accent while hissing threats and words of wisdom to those around. He arrives at levels of such manic overacting that you just can't help but fall in love with evil all over again.

Anaconda very much reminded me of Congo, another "so bad for you it's got to be fattening" epic of animals gone wild. Both these films compromise between playing the ridiculous plot for laughs and striving for straight-up horror, and that creates a rather palpable mix. Hey, I'd rather digest a campy snake flick that shows a shot from inside the snake of someone being swallowed than a dozen stock teenagers in peril from Mr. Vague Slasher movies. Wouldn't you?

Well, I guess that's why I'm me, and you're you.

"Never thought I'd see YOU in here!" The sneer that launched a thousand ships Snake and monkey no get along

Didja Notice? [some sources: IMDb]

• The oh-so-serious and scary opening crawl
• Slow-mo nails flying through the air
• Eric Stoltz? Is he, like, still alive?
• Jungles make people sexually... intense
• Jon Voight... that accent... and he even looks evil when he's smiling
• How to woo a girl: know a lot about fireflies
• "Wait! Do you hear that?" Oh, sheesh. Are they even paying royalties to the scriptwriter who first wrote that line?
• The anaconda is "voiced" by Frank Welker
• Why I'll never be swimming in the Amazon -- penis fish
• No! Don't blow up the artificially made wall in the river! It could upset the ecological balance... of, you know... okay, I'm talking out of my butt.
• Voight talking to the baby snakes in a baby voice
• He IS evil! He shot a monkey!
• Snakes can scream. Apparently.
• The "Vertigo cam" on J.Lo

Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... no.

Anaconda Facts! [some sources: http://www.nashvillezoo.org/anaconda.htm]

The Anaconda is considered the biggest snake in the world. These snakes may reach lengths of over 29 feet. There are many exaggerated stories about anacondas being much longer, but they cannot be confirmed (the movie claims they grow to be 40 feet). The Anaconda can weigh 550 pounds or more, but will usually top out at a few hundred pounds. These snakes can measure more than 12 inches in diameter. The female typically outweighs the males.

The Anaconda come equipped with a large head and a thick neck. Its eyes and nostrils are positioned on the top of the head, enabling the Anaconda to breathe and to see its prey while its stocky body lays submerged under water. The extremely muscular Anaconda is a constrictor and is not poisonous; however, it still has teeth and powerful jaws that it utilizes to clench onto its prey.

They typically feed on large rodents, tapirs, capybaras, deer, peccaries, fish, turtles, birds, sheep, dogs and aquatic reptiles. They have been known to occasionally prey on jaguars and attacks on humans can be confirmed, although this is rare.

Anacondas are usually coiled up in a murky, shallow pool or at the river's edge. They wait to ambush their unsuspecting prey when they come down for a drink. Anacondas bite their prey with their sharp teeth, hold on with their powerful jaws and pull them under water. The victim may drown first or it may be squeezed to death in the Anaconda's muscular coils. Anacondas, true to the Boa family, constrict their hapless victims to death. The snake squeezes tighter each time its prey breathes out, so the prey cannot breath in again. Suffocation does not take long. Anacondas swallow their prey whole, starting with the head. This is so the legs fold up and the prey goes down smoothly. The Anaconda can swallow prey much bigger than the size of its mouth since its jaw can unhinge and the jawbones are loosely connected to the skull. while the snake eats, its muscles have wave-like contractions, crushing the prey even further and surging it downward with each bite.

Intermission! [some sources: IMDb]

The Amazonian film shoot was occasionally disrupted by the fact that a number of the cast were incredibly afraid of snakes.

Groovy Quotes

Sarone: Never look into the eyes of someone you kill, they will haunt you forever. I know!

Gary: Is it just me or does the jungle make you really, really horny?

Westridge: The last time I was in water like this I had to stay up all night picking leeches off of my scrotum.

Sarone: This river can kill you, in a thousand ways.

Gary: There's something down there.
Sarone: I know.
Gary: No, I really MEAN it!
Sarone: I really mean it, too.

If you liked this movie, try these:

• Congo
• Jaws