Jump to content

Let's talk about 1997's "Anaconda"


C2MC

Recommended Posts

***MANDATORY SPOILER WARNING***

 

Good people of the internet, I come before you because I re-watched the not-so-classic movie "Anaconda" last night.

I have no idea how exactly it happened, but I suddenly got the urge to see this movie again. It had been years since I'd watched it, and I wasn't sure how well I remembered it... .

 

For those of you who don't know this movie, Anaconda was made in 1997 and was one of the first (well known) movies featuring Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube in leading roles. It's very noticeable throughout the film that these people are musicians (I'm using that term loosely) and not actors. I also don't know if they dragged everyone else's performance down with them, but John Voight is incredibly strange in this movie.

 

If you look at the Rotten Tomatoes Score for this film, you'll notice it's not very good. But I'd have to disagree with that. Sure, it's not an Oscar winner and the main characters aren't even real actors. But in spite of all those things, this movie is legitimately entertaining for an hour and a half. Remember when movie were 90 minutes? God, I miss those days.

 

A quick overview of the actors, because I'll be naming them and stuff:

Jennifer Lopez - Documentary woman. Her actual role is Director, I suppose? It's never very clear to me.
Ice Cube - Camera man for J-Lo.
Jon Voight - Extremely evil snake-man.
Eric Stoltz - Leader of the expedition in this movie, but always the son of Brundlefly in my heart.
Jonathan Hyde - Posh, British man. Documentary narrator.
Owen Wilson - Documentary sound-man.
Kari Wuhrer - Producer and love interest of Owen Wilson.
Vincent Castellanos - South American boat captain.

 

So, here we go.

 

The first half hour is the buildup you'd expect for any monster movie. We have a setup where a film crew travels the Amazon river in search for a native tribe, the Shimishama, never before recorded by men. Introductions to the characters are fairly straightforward and I don't want to waste a lot of time talking about them as the setup is actually well done in my eyes. We get to know the characters, there's some obvious hints for later on in the movie and so on.

Eventually, the team picks up John Voight, who got stranded halfway up the Amazon and his boat broke down. Now, from the moment he gets picked up by our protagonists, it is INCREDIBLY OBVIOUS that this man is probably Satan himself. I have no clue if this was a personal decision, or if he was directed to do it, but John Voight has this rape-face that he constantly makes to every single crewmember throughout the film. It's a mystery to me that nobody decided to immediately throw this hellspawn overboard, the moment they saw his face.

 

r0rYxcJ.jpg

 

This picture is not some weird face he makes if you pause the movie at a specific time, no. This is actually his face for 90% of his screentime.

Now, after we got all the buildup out of the way,... something really strange happens. We get an incredibly early and uncalled for reveal of the monster. I have no idea why this is in the movie. There's a scene where J-Lo and Eric Stoltz are setting up a romantic subplot and all of a sudden we cut to the outside of their barge, followed by this:

 

giphy.gif

 

We all know how important it is to NEVER reveal your monster too soon! Unfortunately, this isn't just too soon, it's also completely unnecessary. You're already building up the Anaconda to be this fearsome creature, you've already used on-screen text to establish that they regurgitate prey and kill again, why do you reveal your monster in the middle of (a very lame) romantic subplot? I think this is the part of the movie that bothers me the most, because all the tension that's been building about (surrounding the snake, anyway) is pretty much destroyed with this odd monster-reveal.

 

Some things happen and our crew sails further along the river, until a rope gets stuck in their boat's propeller. Eric Stoltz talks about tiny catfish that swim into your penis for a bit, right before he jumps down and removes the crap that's blocking the propeller. BUT SUDDENLY he starts thrashing about, something is obviously wrong. The crew drags him back on board and it's revealed that there's a wasp in his mouth.

A wasp.

This man got stung by a wasp.

Under water.

Later on in the movie, it's revealed that this is somehow John Voight's doing (don't even get me started on how he could have possibly set this up), but right now nobody is questioning how this man got stung by a wasp UNDER FREAKING WATER?! Even if it was hidden in his mask, it would've stung him when he put it on. And even if it didn't sting him right after he put on his divers' mask, he would've probably noticed a HUGE wasp poking into his lip.

 

Whatever, this is all a setup for the "urgency" portion of the film. Now we have a reason for our characters to make rushed decisions and things of that nature. It's implied multiple times that they have to bring Eric Stoltz to a hospital as fast as possible, or he will surely die! John Voight convinces the crew to take a shortcut to a nearby village but some more things happen and they lose all of their fuel. Once again, this is another setup, and it's a pretty good one. The crew is now stuck on the Amazon, with no additional fuel and they have someone on board who needs to get to a hospital or he will die. Just like with the character introductions, the setup is well done but as soon as the movie has to get to the "execution" part of the screenplay, it falls apart once more.

 

The crew stops when they spot a nearby wreck and John Voight, Ice Cube and Vincent Castellanos decide to check the broken down boat to see if there's any fuel on board. While we're on board we get some more character revelations for John Voight, which we didn't need because we already know he's the root of all evil. The crew doesn't find anything and we get another monster reveal that we didn't need to get.

 

giphy.gif

 

Vincent Castellanos has gotten very little screen time, he is only here to be "the captain of the barge" and that's it. It would've been perfectly acceptable to kill him off screen, or at least show part of the Anaconda but not the monster in it's entirety. I know I'm being an asshole about this, because the kill in itself is pretty neat, but I just feel like this is yet another reveal of the monster that we didn't need yet. I didn't even mention this, but after the first reveal and before this one, we even get a "false scare" (where they move the camera as if it's the monster's point of view) where a wild boar attacks a few of the crewmembers. Why would you do a false scare after we've already seen the monster?

 

Oh well, the captain is dead and the crew moves on. It turns out that other people knew how to "drive" the boat all along, so we never really needed that guy in the first place. Now comes the part where John Voight starts to manipulate Owen Wilson into hunting and catching a live Anaconda. The movie seems to forget that they're running out of fuel and that THERE'S A DYING MAN ON BOARD! Seriously. It takes about 7 seconds for Owen Wilson to support evil snake-man's idea, and not only that, he even holds a gun to the rest of the crew because they oppose this stupid notion.

 

And then we get the third monster reveal.

 

giphy.gif

 

This is a good reveal! Why was it not the first and only one? The snake comes out of the water, there's an attack on the crew and we (the audience) would've seen the monster for the first time AT THE SAME MOMENT AS THE CREW IN THE MOVIE. That would've been boss... .

Of course, this film has to dumb down this moment a little, so it MAKES THE ANACONDA SCREAM! Throughout this entire movie, the snake won't stop screaming and screeching. It's really weird. It reminded me of "Jaws: The Revenge" where the shark bobs on top of the water surface and roars like a lion. After a while, you get used to it but in the back of your head you'll always wonder why they made the decision to have an anaconda screech, especially because it goes on and on throughout the rest of the runtime.

Capturing the beast doesn't work, because we're only an hour into the movie. Owen Wilson dies and we get a pretty cool shot of him being digested by a giant snake.

 

giphy.gif

 

The crew gathers their courage and ganks John Voight. Now, after knocking John Voight out with a golf-club, Jonathan Hyde exclaims "Asshole in one!". This is a hilarious one-liner, of course, but it feels incredibly out of place. If you're watching Arnold Schwarzenegger or some other cheesy action movie, than sure. But in a creepy, monster-snake flick? Really? Once again I'm being very nitpicky about this, but it feels like such a stupid line that doesn't go with the tone the whole movie is trying to set and it pisses me off.

 

By the way, you guys remember that Eric Stoltz was about to die if he didn't get to a hospital, right?

Just throwing it out there, because we occasionally see him on his bed inside the barge, but his condition sure as hell seems stable. He even seems to be improving with every scene, this is what I meant when I said the movie had proper setup, but poor execution. The audience is reminded of the urgency every now and then, but the characters don't seem to care. So why bother even setting it up?

 

Anyways.

John Voight gets all tied up but some more stuff happens and the boat gets stuck on some rocks. The crew decides to tie some rope to nearby trees and yank the boat back into deeper water. For this reason, they split up into two teams... .

Ice Cube and J-Lo on one side and Jonathan Hyde on the other. I WONDER WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO JONATHAN HYDE, GUYS?! Things "go down" pretty much right after the three stooges leave the barge. John Voight escapes his bindings, and Jonathan Hyde gets the boot.

 

giphy.gif

 

There's some fighting and tossing around and J-Lo shoots the snake.

However, apparently they ran out of money for effects because you can clearly hear her shoot the gun three times but there's never any muzzle flash or anything of that nature, indicating that a bullet has actually been fired.

 

giphy.gif

 

Here's my second most hated part of the film. They kill the anaconda, but later on another one shows up.

Congratulations movie, you just made your monster a whole lot less special because apparently there's more of them out there. Not only did this film "big reveal" it's monster three times instead of just once, it turns out that that particular specimen isn't even that special because they kill it off and then another one just shows up.

It bothers me even more because this is easily fixable by just having J-Lo shoot the damn thing, wounding it instead of killing it. PROBLEM SOLVED!

 

*Sigh*

 

John Voight shows up again, somehow takes out J-Lo and Ice Cube and ties them up. He is using them as bait to lure in another anaconda, so he can capture it and have sex with it or something.

Just when you though that J-Lo firing a gun without actually firing a gun was pretty hilarious, check out this gem of a scene.

 

giphy.gif

 

HE THROWS BLOOD ON HER AND THEY MADE IT CGI BLOOD SO SHE DIDN'T HAVE TO ACTUALLY GET DIRTY FOR THIS MOVIE.

I don't know about you guys, but I laughed out loud when I noticed this. I rewound the movie and thought to myself; "Why would they do this... ?". Then I realised that J-Lo probably got her agent to put some kind of clause in her contract where her face always has to look pristine or some crap of that nature. In the very next shot they even add some bloodsplatter to her neck and clothes that obviously wasn't there before and the whole ordeal is EXTREMELY funny.

 

John Voight pisses off and another anaconda shows up immediately after he leaves (this new anaconda also screams, by the way). There's no more buildup of tension, the film has completely given up at this point. There's a bit of a struggle, the anaconda tries to eat J-Lo and Ice Cube but eventually it manages to get a hold of John Voight and eats him.

Now, once again there's some very cool ideas here that get ruined by lazy filmmaking.

 

giphy.gif

 

The snake wraps around John Voight and eats him, and we get a cool shot from the "inside" of the snake. But once we get that shot, there's obviously no more snake wrapped around him. Really, movie? They couldn't be bothered CGI-ing a fake snake around John Voight to make the shot look better, but they use CGI to throw fake-blood on J-Lo?

Shame on you, movie. Shame on you!

There's more running around and J-Lo and ice Cube hatch a plan to kill the snake.

 

As a sidenote, the fact that they're hatching a plan to kill this particular snake feels way less important because the film has already established that there's more than one. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

 

Our musicians turned actors trap the beast and Ice Cube sets it on fire with some matches he has in his pockets.

In his pants.

The same pants he's had on for the entire movie. The same pants he wore when he jumped into the Amazon five times before.

HOW ARE THESE MATCHES NOT SOAKING WET DUDS BY NOW? God damnit, movie. In the last half hour they've screwed up SO MUCH. Once again this could be resolved by having a quick shot of Ice Cube finding some matches, but no... . Let's just move on before I pop a blood-vessel.

 

Ice Cube lights the snake on fire and things happen and both J-Lo and the anaconda are now in the river.

BUT THE ANACONDA IS STILL ALIVE AND CHASES J-LO WHILE IT'S ON FIRE!

 

giphy.gif

 

I love and hate this sequence at the same time.

I hate that this snake, who lives in the Amazon river, suddenly forgets to submerge itself just so we can get a shot of a screaming snake chasing Jennifer Lopez around in a body of water.

I love that someone in the writer's room said "What if we set the snake on fire and have it chase Jennifer Lopez?".

It's so stupid, but so brilliant at the same time.

 

Unfortunately, the snake eventually bites the dust and both J-Lo and Ice Cube survive, together with Eric Stoltz, who has miraculously recovered form his underwater wasp-sting that was the cause for all the urgency in the middle of the movie. And obviously, the last great idea was the on-fire snakechase so the movie decides to have one of the strangest endings I've ever seen.

Our three survivors are drifting on their barge (that has fuel left, apparently) and out of the blue the natives they were there to document just show up.

Ice Cube says "I'll get the camera" and the movie ends, implying that these three survivors just filmed their documentary on the Shimishama tribe just as they'd originally intended.

 

WHAT?

 

I am 100 percent sure that nobody had A SINGLE CLUE as to how to end this movie. These people just survived a boat ride with a psychopath who was trying to feed them to an anaconda. All of the other crewmembers were killed in horrible, gruesome ways. And now they're like "Oh, the natives they're so beautiful... . Let's film them for science!". Screw that!

Once again, a simple fix is in order.

Have the anaconda destroy their boat near the end of the movie, and then have the natives save them and help them get back to civilisation. It's still not a great ending, but it incorporates the natives (which is apparently a necessity) and it's a lot more satisfying/believable compared to the half-baked crap you guys came up with. 

 

Jezus Christ.

It's hard to convey just how out of nowhere this ending comes but hopefully I've at least given you an idea.

 

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

 

And that's "Anaconda".

I know that, from my horrible dismemberment, you'd think that I hated every second of this movie, but I didn't. Anaconda is a movie that has some good ideas that are poorly executed.

It makes the mistake of hiring two leads that are not yet proper actors and the script becomes noticeably lazier as the movie goes on.

But even through all of that, the movie is 90 minutes of entertainment. A simple plot, some very cool shots of the snake eating people and besides J-Lo, the acting isn't all that bad. Even John Voight's extremely over-the-top villainy and scumbaggery is worth a watch.

 

Should you see this movie at least once?

Definitely.

Edited by C2MC
Link to comment
Share on other sites


Great breakdown. I feel like you're the kind of guy I would have spent hours having useless discussions about movies :DNot that I remember that much about that one since I saw it in 2000.

 

On the topic of weirdly screaming monsters, Eight Legged Freaks was up there with the best.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...