Wolff rating: FAIR
Plot summary: Big snake terrorizes documetary crew on the Amazon.
Biased, pithy comments: For a movie called ``Anaconda,'' I expected a lot of snakes. I expected vein-popping squeezing action, blood spurting in great gouts, and lots of sickening, bone-crunching fun. Instead, we get a lot of vamping by Voight as a Creole-accented (yes, it sounds Creole rather than Latino) nutball and many scenes of Lopez and Mr. Cube looking worried or suspicious AND NO DARN SNAKES! I might also add that the snake doesn't eat anyone in the entire first hour (outside of some guy in the teaser and a scruffy-looking jaguar and who probably deserved it). With its PG-13 rating, the adolescent male set won't even get their fix of sex (although Ms. Wuhrer picked the most non-skin-covering outfit she could find, meaning she would come back from this trip with 90\% coverage of mosquito bites). The animatronic snake looked really good; the computer-generated snake looked really fake and unnatural. The stop-and-go (and mostly stop) script would have been made up for by the rich scenery and lush photography (I must say, I liked the *look* of the film) except that the characters had little or no on-screen chemistry which is really too bad, because I generally liked the entire cast (outside of Voight) and want them to succeed. Llosa, however, is responsible for the dog ``The Specialist,'' so I shouldn't have been surprised that this was a pretty bland production overall. Two scenes worth watching for, though, are the snake-projectile-vomiting-the-monkey moment and one underwater swim-by with a bellyful of supporting actor.
Other Notes: Randy Edelman's score is fun, if overdone for a B-movie like this.
How many times I have seen it: x1
Starring: Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Jon Voight, Eric Stoltz, Jonathan Hyde, Kari Wuhrer, Owen Wilson.
Directed by: Luis Llosa