Anaconda (1997)

2 stars out of 4

The Bottom Line:

With terrible special effects, a leaden pace, no interesting characters beside John Voigt's campy river rat, and a minimum of suspense, Anaconda is barely above the level of direct-to-video and certainly not worth watching. December 28, 2008

Satisfied Customer

I received my purchased in adequate time in good satisfactory condition. Thanks so much for your service. November 12, 2008

Original Beautiful Cover vs New Ugly Cover

Mom and I were very disappointed with Amazon.com upon receiving this DVD. This page is deceptive: It shows the original cover of the movie (which we already had on VHS). We wanted to have this movie on DVD and looked everywhere we could think of to try to find an edition of the DVD with the original cover and not the cover showing the people. When I saw this page I thought this was it. Alas, we received the movie yesterday and when we opened the box it was the new cover with the actors on it instead of the beautiful snake. In my opinion that was deceptive advertising. Other than all that we have always loved this movie. October 7, 2008

Anaconda

Do you ever get in the mood to watch people eaten by large creatures? I have for years. Not in real life of course but I love the giant creature SciFi movies. This has a decent cast with Jennifer Lopez, Eric Stoltz, Ice Cube, Jonathan Hyde, and Jon Voight. It is reasonably good and worth at least a rental. The story is a documentary crew looking for a lost tribe in South America heading up river meet up with a man that captures snakes. It is trouble of the worst kind for them as he heads them into dangerous waters where giant Anacondas live. From then on one by one the crew is killed off and he takes over the barge.

Voight obviously had fun with this role. He uses an odd accent and claims to be from Ecuador when he tells the crew about how he captures snakes. He does a great bad guy in this movie showing no remorse when someone from the crew that buys into his scheme is made into snake lunch. The special effects aren't bad but there are a few segments where you have to go along with the stretch of it being realistic. Overall great camera work and excellent sets with atmosphere for the shooting. This is one of the reasons many people enjoy this one over a lot of the other B movies that have cheap sets. Good quality DVD with some replayability. If you enjoyed this catch "Lake Placid" and "Congo".

CA Luster August 20, 2008

Chuckles Galore

Look, I'm more worried about a slithering snake coming up out of the john than a 40-foot anaconda devouring me (after breaking every bone in my bod), but if I want to be entertained by goofball campiness I'm going to watch ANACONDA. A group of tenderfeet "filmmakers," dominated by a scene-crunching poacher, floating down the Amazon while being terrorized by hissing CGI is a chuckle-fest deluxe. This flick is fun, and, after numerous viewings, continues to furnish ear-to-ear mirth: some of it intentional, some of it not.

The cast itself sends a searing message this is a movie tailor-made for nonsense. Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube (or is it Ice Tea? I can never keep it straight) as documentary filmmakers? Knee, meet slap. Lopez excels in wet t-shirt shots, while Ice Cube shows some cred doing some serious snake wrestling. The rest of the cast includes Owen Wilson, who was even annoying back before superstardom, and Eric Stolz, who, for the most part, is unconscious (and it's his best acting ever).

But this movie is cut off at its knees (well, snakes don't have knees, but you get my drift) by the crafty, venerable Jon Voight. Playing a diabolical, seasoned snake poacher, and sporting an accent not even Mother Teresa would bless, Voight hams it up supreme, and makes us love every minute of it. He's charming, eery, smarmy, and evil; he busts a groove better than Bill Clinton at an Arkansas hootenanny. He's a perpetual chuckle-producing dude, and he makes ANACONDA a titillating woot 'n hoot.
--D. Mikels, Author Walk-On
July 8, 2008

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