Anaconda. 1997. Directed by Luis Llosa. Written by Hans Bauer, Jim Cash, and Jack Epps, Jr.
Here it is, folks. The movie that don't want none unless you got buns, hon.
And since
Anaconda stars J-Lo, and features Kari Wuhrer significantly, there's plenty of buns for the titular snake to chase after.
Let's meet our cast of victims, all of whom are about to set sail along the Amazon:
We've got Terri, played by Jennifer Lopez. She's the filmmaker whose occasional boyfriend has hired her to make a documentary. That man is Professor Cale, played by Eric Stoltz. There's Danny the cameraman, played by Ice Cube, and Gary the sound tech, played by Owen Wilson. There's obnoxious Warren (Jonathan Hyde), the documentary's host, and there's Denise, the production manager*. Finally, there's native guide Mateo (VIncent Castellanos) to kick off a little boat's three-hour tour to film a Lost Tribe of the Amazon.
Things get off to a rocky start right away, as Warren proves to be a prima donna and an asshole. Of course, it's hard not to wonder why, exactly, they brought the narrator onto the shoot. I mean, sure, it's a documentary, but given the limited budget they've already acknowledged, why not just do a voice-over in the studio? Does the insurance for the documentary cover him? It's not like even wants to be there. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he was just in this movie to die.
As the expedition gets underway, they find a random survivor of some accident, played by John Voight. He's a former priest who has been on a sacred mission to bring overacting to the Amazon, and he's succeeded. He's also a snake hunter, and he has the worst accent evar. He's like Ren (of Ren and Stimpy fame), only much more sincere. The boat drifts down the river for a while as the characters chatter on and annoy us. Annoying events include at least one stupid fake scare (Voight swimming up with a dead boar and surprising Danny and Denise as they were trying to get busy), one ludicrous scene featuring Warren practicing golf on the boat (I won't go into the scene involving him bringing the golf clubs on board the tiny boat), and a few scenes featuring Mateo and Voight looking all suspicious.
Finally, things happen, but not in the happy fun eaten-by-a-snake way. Instead, Cale, while diving down to fix the boat's rudder, goes into some sort of seizure. They pull him up, only to find that a wasp got into his scuba gear, and only a quick tracheotomy saves him. But he's now in a coma, which means that Voight's in charge! Um, wait. That makes no sense. But everyone else still defers to him as the expert, so he guides them to "medical help" up a small tributary.
When this path leads to a blocked area on the river, Voight naturally suggests they dynamite it**, but when they do it, they screw up and do it while they're still too close. This leads to all the conveniently-stacked fuel drums falling off the boat, thus giving Warren more room on the deck to practice his golf game (but the boat less ability to, you know, go anywhere). The explosion also leads to a rain of snakes, proving that the apocalypse is at hand! Alas, none of the snakes are giant anacondas, and none of the crew get eaten at this time.
We're now about sixteen hours into the movie****, and no one has died yet.
Fortunately, the titular snake, or a bad CG rendition of him, has finally made it to the set. When the boat comes across another, broken-down boat, Voight, Mateo, and Danny investigate it for fuel. They instead find a big chest (which Danny and Voight lug back), and a newspaper article making it clear that Voight and Mateo are in cahoots, and that they're snake poachers! Danny doesn't see this last one, and while he and Voight are headed back to the ship, Mateo trips, falls in the water, and gets wrapped up by an anaconda! The snake is kind enough to break his neck before dragging him underwater and eating him.
The rest of the crew go looking for Mateo, but they can't find him. Voight opens the trunk he grabbed, and reveals the world's largest snakeskin. When he suggests that this snake grabbed Mateo, Terri says, "snakes don't eat people*****." Things muddle along for a bit until the next morning, where, after a series of bad scriptwriting decisions, Voight pulls a gun and shifts from guide to dictator! He has some help from Gary, who pretty much dooms himself by siding with the pragmatic bad guy.
Sure enough, when Voight starts to go snake-fishing (which involves a monkey, of course), he catches a giant anaconda, which attacks the boat, nearly killing Terri in the process (because we all think that Jennifer Lopez is going to die in the second reel, right?). In the hullabaloo, Denise falls into the water, and Gary dives in to rescue her. He does so by becoming snake food, and we get a great shot of the snake swimming away with an Owen Wilson outline showing through the snake's belly.
Terri, Danny, and Warren hatch a cunning plan. Terri attempts to seduce Voight, while the others sneak up on him. Even though Voight catches on, he still gets beaten into unconsciousness with a golf club.
At this point, the characters do not do the smart thing and dump Voight's body into the river, to become a part of the circle of life. Instead, they tie him up using some of the weakest knots I've ever seen. They also don't secure his legs, presumably because they're complete and utter fucking morons, although there could surely be another reason. Voight, on waking up, confesses that he's been using them all along, even admitting that he planted the wasp in the scuba gear.
Yes, he used the world famous "wasp in scuba gear" trap. And it worked.
Anyway, the boat approaches a waterfall, and Danny (who is a cameraman, not a navigator, dammit!) hits a sand reef. While Terri, Danny, and Warren are off looking at the reef, Denise decides that she needs to kill Voight, and goes to stab him with a knife. He manages to trip her and crush her head between his thighs. Getting my head crushed by Jon Voight's thighs has to be one of the top ten worst ways to die.
While Denise is being killed, an anaconda threatens Danny and Terri, and Warren, on the other side, manages to distract it, because snakes will always go after loud, obnoxious Brits over easier prey. Warren climbs down the side of the waterfall, where he eventually is surprised by a snake, and falls. In a moment of complete bad filmmaking beauty, the anaconda (which is wrapped around a tree) reaches down and snags Warren out of thin air. It's like the filmmakers discovered a whole new realm of physics and biology!
Back on top. we get a struggle between Voight and the two remaining heroes, and Danny almost gets killed until Terri wounds the anaconda that has him in its coils. However, in the struggle, Voight gets ahold of the gun, and he's about to kill our two heroes when, suddenly and without warning . . .
It's an unexpected Eric Stoltz!
Yes, Professor Cale, last seen in a coma about eighty minutes ago, reappears on deck to attack Voight with a tranq dart. The latter falls into the river, and the former falls back into his coma.
Through the magic powers of the filmmakers forgetting about earlier plot points, the boat is no longer stuck on the reef, and Danny and Terri steer it away from the waterfall. They soon find yet another abandoned boat, and they board it, looking for more fuel. Instead, they find Voight, who, in spite of injuries, tranquilizers in his blood, and the fact that he doesn't have a boat, is waiting for them. Yes, it's Magical Teleporting Jon Voight! He knocks them out, and then ties them up, throws blood on them, and sets a snake trap. Sure enough, along comes an anaconda, and as it goes for the tasty human treats, it gets caught in a net. Alas, Voight's trap sucks, and the beam holding the net crumbles, causing the snake to get free. It grabs Voight (with an assist from Danny) and crushes him before swallowing the villain.
Now, of course, in spite of the fact that it's just eaten and snakes don't go after prey when they're full and bloated, the anaconda goes after Danny and Terri. During the chase, we see A) some baby anacondas, looking decidedly less fake than their elders, and B) Voight's body barfed up by the adult anaconda, who should have taken that advice about waiting half an hour after eating before chasing new victims. Voight is still alive for a few brief moments, just to up the "ick" factor.
Now, we get the big final trap. Danny pours gasoline on the snake (presumably counting on a miracle of Maccabean proportions to save them enough fuel to take the ship back to safety), and Terri lures it into a smoke stack, where it goes inside and goes boom. But wait! There's more! Remember how the snake attacks happened so often that it seemed like there were too many victims for one snake? And remember the baby snakes, presumably not provided by the stork? And remember Scream? Well, there were two snakes all along! The second one crashes into the room before Danny simply buries his handy pick-axe in its head, ending the movie.
It probably sounds like I hate this movie. I should. I mean, aside from Kari Wuhrer dying between Jon Voight's thighs, it features bad writing, bad directing, lame acting, and the fakest looking reptiles this side of an early Godzilla movie.
But somehow, this movie is fun in spite of itself. Part of that, of course, is the
MST3K-ability of it. Nothing can get a room of folks laughing like watching a fake-ass snake uncoil itself to catch a man falling ten feet below it. But it also has some surprisingly fun performances by Ice Cube and J-Lo, as well as Kari Wuhrer, who has made many worse movies worth watching. It's also that rarest of movies (especially in the pre-irony days of horror), one in which the minorities live (not counting Mateo, who's a native guide and in league with the villain), and the white folks die (not counting Cale, who simply stays in a coma).
That's not to say that director Luis Llosa deserves any real props. He drags the pace to a crawl at times, and clearly let the actors (Voight in particular) have too much freedom in interpreting their roles. And the trio of irrelevant screenwriters only turn in one (unintentionally) great line, the wonderful complaint by Terri that, "this film was supposed to be my big break, and it turned out to be a big disaster!" But
Anaconda is still a blast to watch, and one of my favorite guilty pleasures. Just don't expect anything with any sort of redeeming value.
Bonus note:
Anaconda was the first DVD I ever rented from Netflix, way back in 1998.
*Her job, as far as I can tell, is to look like Kari Wuhrer. I'm pleased to say that she succeeds admirably.
**All documentary film crews travel with dynamite. They might not use bug repellent***, but dynamite's a must.
***Seriously. They're on the Amazon, but I don't recall seeing anyone with any Off or Deet.
****My time sense might be a tad off. For a film I enjoy, the first half of this movie is incredibly slow.
*****People with snakes eat people. ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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