In honor of this week's release of Snakes on a Plane,today's Bad Movie focus will be on the reptilian delights of Anaconda,which starred a pre-J.Lo Jennifer Lopez as Terri,a documentary film maker traveling down the Amazon River with Eric Stolz and an array of fun sterotypes such as the effete Brit,the ditzy sex crazed whitebread couple(played by Owen Wilson and Kari Wuhrer)and the badass"urban" camera man(Ice Cube).
This unique group is hijacked by Jon Voight and friends who are searching for ,you guessed it,a giant anaconda. Voight's accent rivals Ricky Ricardo's and gives Al Pacino's vocal stylings in Scarface a run for the money with lines like"Eet wraps eetz COILS around yooo... .TIGHTAH zan anny luvvah." and" Buenos noches, beautiful."
Stolz tries to stop him but gets stung by a wasp while scuba diving(not making this up,I swear)and gets a Get Of The Plotline Free card by being in a convienant coma for the rest of the film. Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube aren't so lucky-they're stuck with the task of fighting off CGI snakes and having to figure out what the hell Voight's saying as he keeps getting the rest of the cast served up buffet style to the slaughter.
The special effects are somewhat decent but incredibly obvious,even for 1997. One of the more entertaining scenes is when Voight gets swallowed up and you think that with all the grease on his hair and body,it would be a quick gobble for the snake but oh noooo! You get more hamming up from Brangela's father-in-law as his body slowly makes it's way down the big boy's gullet. Strangest of all,there's actually a sequel to this mess called Anacondas:The Search For the Blood Orchid. No major stars in that one but plenty of bad acting that does the original proud,I'm sure.
Anaconda recieved several Razzie nominations,including two for Jon Voight(one was for "Worst Screen Couple" which was made up of him and the snake)but alas,no wins. If you can't make it to Snakes on a Plane,just pop over to your local video rental place and grab a copy of Anaconda,along with some Gummi Worms(hey,they don't make Gummi Snakes-maybe they should)for flavor. I would suggest nachos but you might get too qeasey from all the Velveeta oozing off your screen.
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