A team of scientists head off on an expedition to Borneo in
search of a rare orchid that could mean a breakthrough in modern medicine: the
ability to prolong the live of cells and thus, make humans live longer. Whilst
the venture gets off to a shaky start in that the group have to hire a
rough-handed captain who is brave enough to travel upriver in the rainy season,
it takes a turn none of them expected when they realise that they have
unwittingly entered a breeding ground of unnaturally giant and vicious anacondas.
To be honest I have never seen the original Anaconda
movie. This was the movie of choice this afternoon for the simple reason that
it was pitched to me as being a fantastically dumb sequel riddled with
predictability and massive factual inaccuracies that make it quite hard to
suspend your believe in anything that’s happening with the plot. What can I
say? Sometimes you’re in a mood that only absolute crap and dumbness can
satisfy.
A team of scientists head off on an expedition to Borneo in search of
a rare orchid that could mean a breakthrough in modern medicine: the ability to
prolong the live of cells and thus, make humans live longer. Whilst the venture
gets off to a shaky start in that the group have to hire a rough-handed captain
who is brave enough to travel upriver in the rainy season, it takes a turn none
of them expected when they realise that they have unwittingly entered a
breeding ground of unnaturally giant and vicious anacondas.
For a start, the
plot is pretty damned flimsy. Essentially these guys are braving the jungles of
Borneo, where one does not find
anacondas, to find a bloody flower! Right from the off the plot is too simple
and thus mind-numbingly predictable. Then we have the inaccuracy that I
mentioned before of anacondas being native in the Amazon, not Borneo, as well
as the fact that these guys arrive in Borneo during the rainy season and (for
whatever bizarre reason) there is no rain from the moment they set sail! It
seems that very, very, very little
research was done for this film!
With no big names to boast of, the number of
character clichés that are rammed into this flick are on an epic scale! Every
single action movie group cliché is here, chiefly in the ethic mix of
characters (white captain, white villain, white underestimated cunning female,
black comic relief, black engineer of the venture, mixed-race uptight bitch,
and Asian guy with knowledge of the jungle) oh and guess how many and which
ones make it to the last reel.
We then have a screenplay that borrows shots and
dialogue from a myriad of popular movies, putting you in mind of them the
entire way through and numbing the mind even further regarding the film. I
spotted snippets from Predator, Aliens,
and to a lesser extent, Star Wars.
Starring Johnny Messner, KaDee Strickland, Matthew Marsden, Nicholas Gonzalez,
Eugene Byrd Karl Yun, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Morris Chestnut, Andy
Anderson, Nicholas Hope, and Denis Arndt, Anacondas:
The Hunt for the Blood Orchid is a laughable and incredibly dumb sequel
filled with action, suspense, death, drama, and comedy. It’s a good one to
satisfy those certain moods where you don’t want to think, but further numb
your brain.
No comments:
Post a Comment