Anaconda **
(1997)
Starring: Jennifer Lopez, Jon Voight, Ice Cube
Directed by: Luis Llosa
Written by: Hans Bauer, Jim Cash, Jack Epps Jr.

Now I don't know about you, but whenever I see Jon Voight, I always think, "Swarthy Latino reptile hunter."

Believe it or not, that is one of the least silly ideas you will be asked to stomach in the astonishingly wretched Anaconda, a 1997 release featuring Voight, Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Eric Stoltz, and the phoniest snake I've ever seen. In fact, for those of you familiar with the classic "Mystery Science Theater" episode, "Cave Dwellers," the snake that Ator kills (while his sweetheart stands by helplessly) looks a lot more realistic than the computer-generated anaconda in this movie. In fact, this snake is so fake that if it actually did come to life and start slithering around, I have no doubt that the other snakes would refuse to be seen with it, because it would reflect badly on them.

Meat make less money

Believe it or not, some relatively respectable actors show up in this crummy flick, and the cast made me think of a moment in Michael Moore's documentary, Roger and Me. In the movie, Moore visits a rural woman who has a sign out in front of her house that explains what she sells for a living. The sign says something like, "Rabbits/Bunnies -- Pets or Meat." (No kidding.) When you see the characters introduced in a movie like this, you have to sort of think of them as Pets and Meat. Some of them, the Pets, you are supposed to become attached to (either positively or negatively) and they kind of keep you company and theoretically provide context for the story. The other ones, the Meat, are just there to get killed, and you can almost see them patiently biding their time until it happens. Among the Pets are Serone (Voight), a . . . well, a swarthy Latino reptile hunter, Terri (Lopez), a nubile young documentary filmmaker (retch, retch, Male Fantasy #8677), Terri's friend Danny (Ice Cube) (I wasn't sure which was the surname there), and Terri's apparently erstwhile sweetheart (Stoltz), now some kind of professor/cultural anthropologist type who wants to study "the people of the mist," who can be found along the Amazon.

Among the Meat are a sweaty river guide, a blond guy who appears to have no function whatsoever, a perky little production assistant (Kari Wuhrer, who used to be on "Class of '96" along with characters my friends and I referred to as "Doogie-Howser-Girlfriend" and "Doogie-Howser-Girlfriend-Liker"), and an English fop who's such a weenie he actually sits at one point with a white hanky on his head, looking like a refugee from some kind of charitable safari event.

Heeeeere, snakey snakey snakey

At the opening of the story (such as it is), everybody (except Serone) sets off in what looks like one of the "Gilligan's Island" huts on a raft, determined to float down the Amazon and find the Mist People. Soon, they run into Serone, who appears to be in trouble on his own boat, so they bring him aboard. Big Mistake. Serone quickly begins issuing dire pronouncements about the fact that the Amazon is filled with giant anacondas (Ohhhh, so that's where the title comes from!) and how they're all pretty much doomed if they're not careful. He also gives Terri a few lecherous stares. In fact, one of the stares he gave her was so lecherous that I actually burst out laughing.

Now, Terri is a smart girl because, like Helen Hunt in "Twister," she knows how to dress for action. I can imagine Jennifer and Helen engulfed in some major natural disaster together, and I can almost see one of them turn in a horrified fashion to a nearby assistant and say, gravely, "Andre, the thin cotton shirts." And then I can see Andre turn back to them, saying, "Will you be needing any undergarments?" And then Helen and Jennifer look at each other, then back at him, and Helen says, "We'd better not. This looks serious."

Weakly arguing the obvious . . .

As you may be able to tell, I am trying to avoid saying anything in particular about the movie itself, because I don't even really know what to say. It's so bad, it's almost unreviewable. It's so bad it sticks its thumbs in its ears, waggles its fingers at you, and dares you to say something negative about it that implies you took it seriously. I didn't, but let me point out a few things for those among its defenders (I'm assuming they exist . . . every movie has them) who would say it's just good clean fun.

First of all, it's not a very good suspense/thriller plot when you get to the end and you think, "Now was Jon Voight on the snake's team, or were they on different teams?" "How many snakes were there?" "Who was he supposed to be, and why was he doing all this stuff?" And most of all, "Why did I watch this?" Truly, literally, the plot (what there was of it) made absolutely no sense to me at all. Try as I might, I couldn't even figure out who the snake was working for, or whether he was kind of freelancing.

Second, the idea of the supposedly absorbing love story between Terri and the anthropologist is so stupid you can barely believe they really tried it. They have one scene together, and then a bad fate befalls him, and then he spends most of the rest of the movie lying on his back with a hole in his neck.

Third, the snake attacks are so predictable and obviously shot that you can always tell when somebody's about to get eaten. (There was one shot in which I thought the camera work implied that snakes can fly, but I was to discover that in fact, they were only implying that wild pigs can fly, so -- whew!) When this snake gets ready to eat somebody, he does this elaborate dance where he curls around the person for a while, and then he sort of squeezes really hard, and then he maneuvers his head around so that he can really look the hapless victim in the eye. He stands and watches the agonized face somewhat plaintively for a moment (perhaps thinking, "Oh, dear, why must I do such things as this to my fellow creatures?") and then a ball of spit (do snakes have spit?) dribbles off his big fang. Frankly, I was waiting for the time when they were going to show me the snake actually biting somebody's head off, and they never did.

Fourth, the villain in this movie is probably the actual worst movie villain I've ever seen. Serone just wanders around making threats and shooting monkeys and drooling, and you just can't take the guy seriously. I saw somebody describe this performance as "scenery-chewing," but it's way more than that. I think of "chewing the scenery" as meaning you're at least enjoying yourself. Voight, on the other hand, tromps through this bit of garbage with a grim look on his face, undoubtedly thinking, "Do you know how many awards I've won?" I mean, the guy's a good actor, but I just could not swallow this particular character. In fact, it turns out late in the film that even the snake cannot swallow this character.

The tale of Jeff, Jon Voight, and the Inside-the-snake-cam

Speaking of which, the supposed climactic moment in the movie is so boring and stupid that it's actually worse than the REST of the movie. When my friend Jeff (whom some of you know as FlyBoy) came back from seeing this movie and was just ranting about how incredibly bad it was, I begged him to write a guest review, but he declined. His reason? "I couldn't possibly do justice to the snake-cam." He then paused. "Not to mention the inside-the-snake-cam." I can't either, really, but I'll tell you this about the inside-the-snake-cam: this movie may be the first to ever show you up close what it would look like from your point of view if a snake ate Jon Voight right after it ate you.

The bottom line

This may very well be the worst movie I've seen in years. From acting to script to special effects, it has literally nothing to recommend it. By all means, stay away . . . far away.

Tempted to root for the snake,

Linda