Matt_Layden Let me tell you about a little film called Anaconda. I watched this film a dozen times as a kid, I loved monster flicks. Anaconda was bad, it was utterly bad, yet I've seen it more times than I want to admit. Now we visit it again, years later, so we can laugh at how ridiculous this film is. We open with Danny Trejo, for some reason they dubbed his lines. He doesn't speak English, but the voice the use is so much higher than what we all know to be the gravel voice of Trejo. Just something that I found funny.The monster effects are laughably bad at times and worse at others. When the snake is animatronic, the obviousness of it all makes it seems like a bad ride at universal. Then we have the CGI effects, which make the snake seem like it doesn't even belong on the screen. The first attack on a human, the entire thing looks like one giant blur. The first time we see the snake in general isn't with some Jaws like reveal, it's simply the thing slithering around in the jungle before it attacks a puma. No big reveal, no slow reveal...just the damn snake out in the open. In Ebert's review of the film, which is enthusiastically gave a thumbs up, he claims Jon Voight delivers a brave and slimy performance. That I can agree with, but I wouldn't necessarily call it a great performance. It's without a doubt, memorable, but in the campy way. He glares at almost everyone on the screen, his skin is slimy like a snake and immediately untrustworthy. No one else seems to think they are in a bad movie here. Voight seems to know this from the get go. Watch this film and then watch The Room and tell me the performances from them are not almost identical. Is he doing DeNiro? Is he doing Brando? Who the hell knows. It's one wacky performance, that much is a guarantee. This was one of the early Jennifer Lopez films that probably helped launch her career. Why? I don't know, she doesn't offer anything interesting here. Ice Cube and Owen Wilson play against their usual type, I don't think we've seen either of them in a monster flick since this one, Suffice to say, Anaconda is a bad film that boarders on being highly enjoyable. Sit back, laugh and enjoy the absurdity of Anaconda. If you take this film seriously...at all, even for one second, then you will utterly hate it.

Python Hyena Anaconda (1997): Dir: Luis Llosa / Cast: Jennifer Lopez, Jon Voight, Ice Cube, Eric Stoltz, Kari Wuhrer: Interesting camera angle transcends from the snake's mouth as it devours a victim whom will give a sadistic wink as he is regurgitation. Snakes are a common fear and that occurs to a group of researchers scouting for a lost tribe. After assisting Jon Voight from a boat wreckage Eric Stoltz is injured and laid up and in need of medical attention. Voight is out to capture the large reptile alive. Director Luis Llosa creates an ominous atmosphere. He previously made Sniper as well as the action flop The Specialist. Voight steals the film as the icy villain who at one point, breaks someone's neck using only his legs. He will come to learn that anacondas are a creature that is best left alone. The rest of the cast are introduced quickly and are mainly issued as menu items for the snake. Jennifer Lopez does display a smart and resourceful heroine. Ice Cube is featured in fine form among the crew. Stoltz is wasted in a role where he mainly catches up on sleep. Kari Wuhrer has a tense scene where Voight chokes her out using only his legs. The snake itself is effective but real anacondas cannot move that swift on land. Film argues the power of such creatures as the structure of a face is visible within its body as it swims past the camera. It is an often exciting thriller that puts the squeeze on the audience. Score: 8 ½ / 10

Uriah43 This movie begins with a film crew heading out on a large boat up the Amazon River in search of a lost Indian tribe known in legend as the Shirishamas. Along the way they pick up a man named "Paul Serone" whose boat has broken down and needs assistance. They agree to take him with them and are delighted when he tells them that he has actually seen the Shirishamas and he then proceeds to give them directions to their village. Unfortunately, the directions he gives them turn out to be somewhat misleading and it's then that they realize that he has a hidden agenda which almost immediately imperils all of them. Now as far as this movie is concerned I have mixed feelings about it. I liked the scenery and the presence of Jennifer Lopez who was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Actress. On the other hand I didn't care so much for the second-rate Al Pacino impression of Scarface given by Jon Voight. Apparently, I am not the only one who was less-than-impressed as he was nominated for a Golden Razeberry Award as Worst Actor. Deservedly so. Be that as it may this wasn't necessarily a total waste of time and as a result I have rated it as just slightly below average.

MisterWhiplash At one time Werner Herzog tried to bring opera/commerce to the jungles of the Amazon with his film Fitzcarraldo, which featured as its primary set piece a boat being dragged over a mountain side. Gone are those days; indeed fifteen years after that in 1997 audiences got just a quick scene of opera being blared in the jungle - this comes after Ice Cube's "hippity hop" has played, which actually isn't that bad - while Jon Voight hijacks a small boat of documentary filmmakers (through stealth) to hunt after giant snakes. So it goes.Anaconda was a movie I watched many times when it was on HBO. I probably recognized then it was trash, but it was highly watchable trash, with convincing performances (for what they're asked to do) and some high-grade cheesy lines and mannerisms. Seeing it again today, it holds up as a B-movie blow-out, and is dated mostly by its bad CGI of snakes and has one too many climaxes for comfort. It's one thing when Fatal Attraction does it, but this...It's highly mockable (i.e. Rifftrax took it on live this year), but perhaps the filmmakers knew it? The actors don't seem to, certainly not hapless Owen Wilson - or maybe Voight does, and in his way it's one of the few times, albeit in a total cartoonish performance where he has practically the same grimacing facial expression with Paraguaian accent from start to finish - and maybe that helps elevate it. It's still watchable... which is about the best to say about it, with some competent direction helping along the way - along with some befuddling choices like a Snake-POV camera.Maybe it's best today as a party movie: turn it on, have some brews, and laugh at how that snake just seems to keep coming back and back again (and if it's more than one giant snake, why is it such a big deal?) Oh well... sequels came of this as well.