Are You With Us?
Anaconda
By Ryan Mazie
April 11, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
This might be the first time I’ve been excited for two films in the same week, let alone in the same month, in this lackluster year. I’ve been counting down the days for the animated Rio and the way-more-excited-than-I-should-be-for Scre4m (yes, this is the only way I recognize the title being spelled and it might be the most ingenious play on words…or numbers, since Alvin & the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel). Hitting two birds (Rio reference #1!) with one stone, the film I’m going to write about is also set in beautiful Brazil and likewise creeped out audiences much like Ghostface a mere 14 years ago. Can you guess what it is?
In a continuation of what scares me, this week I reveal to you that I hate snakes. I have much empathy for Indiana Jones. Even though I am currently in Boston for college, I was still checking my surroundings for the escaped Bronx Zoo Cobra. So naturally, watching the movie Anaconda was no easy task for me and probably freaked me out more so than the average viewer.
Playing like the Jungle Cruise ride in Disney, Anaconda is a rip-roaring adventure down the Amazon River with a few scares here and there. Starring a cast probably working for peanuts that now command eight-figure paychecks like Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, and Owen Wilson. Anaconda, if released today, is why I believe 3D has a place in cinema and why older 2D films should be converted (screw the artistry reasons, I want to see monkeys, J.Lo and snakes on fire lunging at me through the screen!).
With surprisingly believable exposition, Jennifer Lopez plays a documentarian finally nabbing her big break, chronicling an anthropologist’s (Eric Stoltz) search for the long lost Shirishama tribe on the Amazon River with fellow snake food, I mean crew: Ice Cube as Lopez’s fellow USC-er school cameraman friend; Owen Wilson as the sound engineer who is constantly horny for the production manager (Kari Wuhrer); and Jonathan Hyde as the project’s creative force.
Traveling along the river on a jalopy of a boat, the crew makes the mistake of rescuing a shipwrecked Paraguayan snake hunter (Jon Voight). Psychologically hijacking the boat, the vicious serpent seeker uses the crew as bait to capture the largest Anaconda in the world for millions of dollars (although I really don’t know who would want something like that).
Remember when movies had cool taglines at the end of the trailers? Nowadays you are lucky if the poster has a few words slapped onto it. Anaconda was so thrilling that it had two catchphrases! "When You Can’t Breathe You Can’t Scream" and "It Will Take Your Breath Away" (Get it? Because anacondas constrict you to death?) were what the movie was pretty much sold on. Well, that and Jennifer Lopez’s derriere, which is seen more times in the trailer than the snake itself. And guess what? Audiences bought it.
Anaconda opened in first place with $16.6 million against a reported $45 million budget. The surprisingly costly production was due to the film’s titular star, costing $100,000 per second for the serpent to be rendered. It’s amazing how the price of computer graphics has plummeted. Perched (Rio bird reference #2!) on top for two weeks, Anaconda slithered away with an almost $66 million total ($115 million adjusted) with an additional $71 million from overseas venues. It wasn’t until the third week that Anaconda was booted from its top spot by the action-disaster flop, Volcano. Ironically, at the amusement park Kings Dominion in Virginia, the park houses roller coasters named Volcano (which is based off of the film) and Anaconda (not based off of the movie, opening six years prior).
Released less than a month after Selena, Lopez began her assent to superstardom. I have to admit that I highly like Lopez’s acting abilities. Will she ever win an Oscar? No. Is she a star? Yes. Lopez brings a certain charisma to the screen that makes drivel like The Wedding Planner, Enough, and Monster-in-Law more than bearable to watch (The Back-Up Plan is another story, but still, can’t you imagine how much worse that movie would be if it were Kate Hudson or Katherine Heigl starring instead?).
Cast in a thankless role, Lopez plays the feminine-but-strong heroine. While totally unbelievable that she could possibly fight the snake (the grand finale with her, Ice Cube, Jon Voight, and the snake is hilarious), she manages to make the viewer care about her survival, which is the most important thing. Later that year, Lopez showed the potential to be a respectable actress with a part in Oliver Stone’s U-Turn, and then leads in Out of Sight and The Cell, before her singing career took off and she was pinned into romantic comedy roles.
While a part of the reason to why Anaconda is still with us is to see Jenny from the Block in such an odd role (along with Ice Cube and Owen Wilson); the best part of the film is by far Voight.
Nearing the end of his illustrious Oscar-winning career, I’d assume Voight wanted to take one last, fun paycheck. With a hammed up accent and crazy eyes, Voight is a delight to watch as a fearless snake hunter. Able to take Ice Cube in a fight (almost as ridiculous seeing Jennifer Lopez punch a snake) and sharp-shoot a monkey from a tree, Voight is campy and terrifying at the same time. Reuniting with Lopez for U-Turn, Voight had a few more reputable roles here and there before going into Old Man Hollywood purgatory with credits in projects like: Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2, Bratz, and Four Christmases (shudder).
Getting okay recommendations from critics (sitting at a respectable-for-what-it’s-worth 50% among top critics on Rotten Tomatoes), Anaconda surprisingly didn’t turn into a horror franchise. It wasn’t until 2004 when Sony dusted off their rights to the film by making a totally unrelated sequel, Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid, constricting every last drop of money it could. After the middling continuation, two made-for-TV sequels were commissioned by the SyFy channel, again unrelated to the original (David Hasselhoff was the star in the first of the two SyFy originals).
Scripted by three writers whose combined credits include Top Gun, The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, Dick Tracy, and Turner and Hooch, the movie isn't done any favors in terms of dialogue. If not for the cast going above the call of duty and the director’s keen eye, Anaconda would be just another straight-to-DVD horror flick. Director Luis Llosa beautifully shoots the Amazon River, showing off its natural wonder as well as its hidden dangers. Able to consistently scale the size of the giant anaconda, I'm impressed with the CGI snake’s menacing appearance that still holds up today (some animatronics were also used).
I don’t believe in saying that a film belongs in a theme park rather than a theater automatically gives it a negative connotation. Case in point - Anaconda. A nonstop 89-minute adventure down the Amazon, the film’s more than able cast and crew (despite the writers) seem to be enjoying themselves and it certainly translates. Slick, silly fun, Anaconda isn’t high-art (or even low-art), but you might find your fingers coiling up to the arms of your chair by the time it is over.
Verdict: With Us
6 out of 10