Roll up; it’s time for the second of three reviews intended for my very first write/off. You really should have the gist of things by now, but to those of you who’ve had their heads up their sphincters, here’s the buzz:

The gist of this W/O is that we, the reviewer, pick a film to review that features an appearance from a now A-list actor, from a time when they were struggling to get even the most demeaning of parts OR a film that features a previous household name, who now takes whatever roles they can get in order to pay the rent. Could be because of the intrigue of seeing how talented some of today’s A-listers were back in their heyday, or it could be because you want to see a bunch of people now regarded as the future of cinema hamming it up big style in the crappest of the crap. Whatever the reason, it’s always fun to judge with 20/20 hindsight, don’tcha think?

While my first offering in this write/off dealt focused on a film in which a Hollywood star made an early appearance, this second contribution centres on the acting exploits of a once-great star. The film? Anaconda. Why? Well, not only because it features an eminently camp performance from the wannabe-legend that is Jon Voight but also – cheekily enough – an earlyish appearance from a pre-diva Jennifer Lopez (before she changed her name to ‘Jello’, or whatever the hell it is), and a certain member of the Wilson family, thus making it more qualified for this write/off than a plethora of other films. And also, it’s kinda interesting to devote an editorial to a film's acting talent when the film itself can’t even be bothered to give them more than a second thought.

THE PLOT
Snakes are pretty crap, we all know that. Second only to the sloth as far as God’s redundant creations go, snakes slither along all day without any real intentions, stopping only to munch on anything they can fit in their gobs, and hiss at anything they can’t. And when they’re not doing that, they’re coiling around trees, like a weird spin-off of the children’s play swing. What good are they, I ask, if they can’t amuse you whilst under the influence of shedloads of alcohol (monkeys are capable of this, and much more), or even be bothered to stay awake half of the time? Plus, for all of their fangy menace, they’re about as deadly as a 5-year-old kid pumped with to their eyeballs on valium. Except, of course, for the really nasty son’s of bitches, the ones that tend to reside on the deepest jungles and take a bite out of anyone dumb enough to cross their paths. Now they’re quite cool, and anybody who messes with ‘em really have only themselves to blame when they’re taught what’s up.

So, really, when you first see documentary filmmaker Terri Flores (Lopez) you instantly want her to die. Not only is her ass too big, but she’s also under the impression that it’s a good idea to take a camera crew on a small boat to tour the Amazon in order to film a documentary detailing an ancient Indian tribe. Pfff. And is if that wasn’t bad enough, her cinematographer is none other than gangsta rap sell-out Ice Cube, a man who would later go on to star in Ghosts Of Mars. Double pfff. Taking along a ragabond of clichéd bit parts the whole documentary set-up serves as little more than a tenuous reason for its shallow characters to seek a dramatic premise.

Sure enough, their humdrum excursion takes a dramatic turn towards Shitsville when they encounter creepy snake trapper Paul Sarone (Jon Voight), whose boat propeller has conveniently snuffed it during a ‘routine’ entrapment of a bloody great big anaconda. Rather than showing his rescuers the gratitude they deserve Sarone, who is quite blatantly a beer short of a six-pack, takes over the boat quicker than you can say “nutjob”. And as if having Angelina Jolie’s barmy dad on board wasn’t bad enough, Lopez and company soon discover the eponymous reptile turning up for a bit of a rumble.

THE VERDICT
Churlish as it is to say, but the main flaw with Anaconda is that the story is about as obvious as the outcome of a no-holds barred fight between Vin Diesel and Pee-Wee Herman. A variety of well-cast characters are briskly introduced, more or less in the order they are picked off by the hungry CGI creature, while a series of sub-plots serve only to complicate their bid for survival. Audiences have seen this material many times before, but it still can be successful if constructed with the proper conditions. The problem is the characters are as gullible and mechanical as puppets, blandly submitting to the movie’s many predictable circumstances, and while Anaconda may very well provoke a fair number of laughs, you can't help wondering how many of them were actually intentional.

Peruvian director Luis Llosa, one of the few South American directors to get a shot in Hollywood, was obviously smitten by the script’s potential for gut-wrenching gratuity. Anacondas are, after all, a right vicious set of gits, widely regarded as the most vicious snakes on the planet, one’s who like to swallow their victims whole before regurgitating them - still just alive - for a leisurely snack. Thing is, this is only an occasional trait, not something these things choose to do with the lightest of snacks. But why let the truth get in the way of gorey details when it allows you to take this digestive habit to the nth degree?

The screenplay owes a lot to the films sheer stupidity. Don’t get me wrong, it genuinely attempts to be clever, what with having Eric Stoltz playing a character who spends the whole movie lecturing his co-stars on the natural dangers of the Amazon, and in a way it’s kind of fun when he blabs on about “little catfish that swims up through your urethra, finds a nice warm spot, and spreads its thorny little spines’’. Plus there’s a real crowd-pleaser of a moment when an emergency tracheotomy is performed with a nothing more than a pocketknife.

But then it all goes and starts taking itself seriously and trying to explain it’s own concept. Why don’t they just turn the boat around and go back the way they came? Because, for some reason, there’s a bloody great big wall expanding across the whole river. But, would you believe it, turns out that they can get through it thanks to a large supply of dynamite Sarone has brought with him, because as we all know, the number one weapon of choice for snake hunters are explosives, right? And while it’s possible to believe that a snake really can disobey certain laws of physics by growing some forty feet long, without being discovered by man (I said it’s possible, not guaranteed), nobody ever mentioned that snakes were able to flaunt said laws in terms of defying the likes of gravity. And, for future reference, anacondas don't scream. Not ever. No, not even when someone is trying to kill them.

The film also contains some extremely horrible dialogue. "Ever notice how the jungle makes you really, really horny?" asks surreal soundman Gary (Owen Wilson). Erm, yeah because that giant snake is one big phallic metaphor, don’tcha know? In fact, as crap as the snake here is, when push comes to shove, you’d sooner be stuck in an enclosed space with it over the cretinous no-marks that pass for the majority of characters.

Now as for the snake itself, well you’d think when a film’s sole triumph relied on its main selling point being believable, the FX guys would have gone all out in order to convince us that 40ft snakes really do exist and are seriously out to get you. Llosa employs a mix of special effects to capture the realism, but only the most gullible viewers will be convinced. It’s abundantly clear, whether the snake is swallowing another poor crewmember whole (during which we see the snake's belly skin stretching rigidly over the body and face of one of its victims), or paddling through the river, that this baby just ain’t the real deal. It fails to interact properly with its human counterparts, and moves far too slickly and fluently for it to be anything other than a computer effect, coming across as more showy than scary. Not even the animatronics work, as numerous close-ups reveal the damn thing as being a blatant robotic creation. Spielberg managed it all those years ago with Jaws so why is it so hard in these days of supposedly superior technology?

Anaconda is a film that does exactly what it says on the tin, but doesn’t feel the need in attempting anything new. It sets out to be a pic about a great big snake devouring on disposable humans, and it succeeds in going no further than that. Creature features have never been known for their astonishing intelligence, but since when do they have to be this dumb? And when it comes down to it, why should you given two rotten figs about a film when the only things worth rooting for are the two baddies you’re meant to spend the whole of the time booing?

THE NAME DROPPING:
Okay, so that’s the film put to rest, what about those all-important stars then? Well, Jon Voight is by far the high point, but for all the wrong reasons, as he hams it up to such an extent that there’s a good chance his role would have vegetarians suffering allergic reactions. Possessed with a bizarre accent and extravagant facial tics he’s no doubt aiming for a Brando-esque performance, but instead comes across as though he spends the entire movie needing an enema. "This river can kill you in a thousand ways" he intones, but nowhere near as much as starring in a film like this can kill your career, Jon. It’s as if Midnight Cowboy never happened.

Owen Wilson, who nowadays is proving himself to be a pretty good leading man, if a little box-offices short of an A-list star, ostensibly plays Gary the weird loser, and actually shows early signs of his trademark ‘gullible blonde who has good looks but little brains’. Any evidence from this that he’d go on to star in, and also pen, the works of art that are Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums? Nope, but you can sure as hell see why he was a shoe-in for The Haunting. In other words, the boy’s a bit crap here.

As for Lopez, well, we all know how she turned out. She hooked up with a couple of music producers, sold her ass to the masses and bored us all to death with her anaemic talents. Not progressed much from this film then.

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This is part of my “Expunged From Their CV write/off”, which also boasts the sizeable scrawlings of arjita, artbyjude, BigJack, brodieman, d_fienberg, jankp, lemon_lime, Lynus, Macresarf1, mfunk75, MrsNormanMaine, skbreese, susidee34, tjmackey, Vormancian, Weirdo_87 and xxxxer.


Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age