Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid (2004) Reviews

• Not a masterpiece, but Good Enjoyable Fun.

  ashelin2005-01-02

  A scientific expedition sets out for the island of Borneo. They are in search of a flower named the Blood Orchid. Reports say that this flower can lead to a longer life. But what they find inhabiting the rain forest of Borneo are a group of anacondas. But they aren't ordinary... the Blood Orchid made the anacondas longer, faster, and smarter. Now the scientists must find a way out of the rain forest by outsmarting, outrunning and outliving the anacondas. This movie got slammed by pretentious movie-critic-wannabes who don't understand the concept of a popcorn flick. This is a popcorn flick, a movie that you watch and eat lots of popcorn and enjoy yourself, cause Shakespeare it is not. I enjoyed the movie, and I'm planning on buying the DVD.

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• Perfect, dumb entertainment!

  CuriosityKilledShawn2006-09-30

  No one really wanted, or asked for, a sequel to the seriously stupid 1997 creature feature Anaconda. But it was a hit (somehow) and you know how studios are when it comes to milking something for all it's worth - yes, Halloween 9 is currently in pre-production! Surprisingly, Anacondas is actually quite good for what it is. Originally meant to be a direct-to-video production, Sony was so impressed with the dailies that they more than doubled the budget and elevated it to a theatrical release. The budget constraints still cramp its style, compared to A-list studio stuff, but it's the best film it possibly can be. With a touch more plot, involving a search for an ultra-mega-massively rare flower, called the Blood Orchid, that only blooms every seven years and can unlock the secret to everlasting life, there is a sophistication to the script, rather than plain old slither'n'slash. So we have a bunch of scientists on an expedition to the unknown depths of the Borneo jungle and it's not off to a good start. They can only afford a ramshackle boat; it's the rainy season and the rivers are mighty treacherous. Also, their boat captain (Johnny Messner) is a gruff ex-Special Forces American, with the cutest pet monkey ever. Everyone seems to be okay about their perilous quest until they are attacked by big crocs, go over a waterfall and become shipwrecked. Then, when things can't get any worse, one of them is gobbled up by - you've guessed it - an anaconda. Instead of the traditional one-by-one deaths story, like the first film, there is more conflict and interaction. These characters may not be the best, or the most well written, but the actors do what they can with what they've been given. Messner is especially good, keeping a cool head as snakes prey upon them from every shadow. J-Low-IQ, the hammy John Voight and Ice Cube may be gone (there is a quick reference to them), but fellow Boyz N The Hood alumni Morris Chestnut and E.R. star Salli Richardson are offered up as potential reptile food. And it just so happens that it's mating season. And the snakes are all up for a big orgy. And guess where the Blood Orchids are? Right above their shagging pit. Oh bloody hell! Luis Llosa made Anaconda in the most simplistic and static way possible. This time Dwight H. Little, the very man who gave us Halloween 4, the epic Steven Seagal movie Marked For Death and err... Free Willy 2, brings strong direction and integrity. It's a darker, more complex film that seriously promises to deliver the goods, but comes up a bit short. If it had been taken a few steps further, then it would have been great. As it is, it's more atmospheric and professional, but still, a bleaker ending, with more gobbled-up characters, would have suited me better. The snakes themselves look okay, nothing special. Little keeps them hidden for as long as possible, only offering brief glimpses here and there. A snake is an awkward looking villain, so keeping it hidden is probably wiser. There is also, thank heavens, no dodgy animatronics. Incredibly dumb and unnecessary it may be, but Anacondas is easy, inoffensive entertainment that will surely appeal to some part of everybody's taste.

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• Critically underrated

  animalz6192008-10-08

  This movie in my opinion is critically underrated and for that matter it is a superb movie.The first movie in the anacondas series was so pathetic that I hoped the second would be much better,and I was right.An orchid with a unique chemical that can transcend ones life is being protected by bloodthirsty anacondas and those that are looking for it are thrust into a battle for survival. The acting is great and the setting is even better.The reason this movie is so underrated is because it may be inaccurate but movies are made to entertain and are in a world of their own and unless they are based on true facts,they shouldn't be compared to real life situations and for that reason,I rank this movie as a superb adventure/thriller that will be enjoyed by many.

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• A movie that exists for no other reason than to be the butt of our mockery.

  TheMovieMark2004-08-30

  Bring the crackers because mama, this movie is bringin' the cheese! If there has ever been a more culturally diverse group of no-name actors to brave the jungles of Borneo then I'll end my movie reviewing career right now (future users of the Alan Smithee pseudonym applaud). All right, I've kept this secret, but I actually sat in on a production meeting for Anacondas and here's how it went down: "Annoying black dude who just screams the whole time?" "Check. But let's put a tough black dude in there as well. Don't wanna be accused of stereotyping." "Good idea. Who is Morris Chestnut?" "Well, we thought it was a brand of chewing tobacco, but he's actually who we're gonna use as our tough black guy." "Oh, OK. How about a Latino woman with an unnecessarily bad attitude?" "You mean the J-Lo wannabe? Check." "Good. Did y'all find that tough-looking Asian guy?" "Check. It wasn't easy, but we found one with a mullet." "Perfect. That'll alert everybody that he's not one of those brainy Asians. How about a blonde babe with a thick, fake Southern accent?" "Check. She's from Georgia, but her accent sounded too realistic. We told her to fake it up." "Good job. And I saw that you found a white European male, but how about the protagonist?" "Oh, you mean the muscular white guy with a 2-day beard growth and husky voice? Check. He's in wardrobe right now having the sleeves on his tight shirt rolled up." "Perfect. Just don't forget the tattoos. Now how about somebody who's actually famous?" "Um, well, we don't exactly have that. But hey, we've got everything else!" And that, my friends, is your cast. Some other guy of some sort of foreign descent was thrown in there as well. He looked like Gregg Rainwater from The Young Riders. He died soon enough, so it doesn't really matter. My money says you really won't care about anybody involved in this production. Well, I did like the southern girl. She was pretty hot. But why do producers insist on accents being so fake? Her accent dwindled as the movie went along. She eventually was only accenting about one word per sentence, but by the climax she started fakin' it up with reckless abandon! And I'm sure plenty of girls will think Johnny "Five O'Clock Shadow" Messner is pretty hot, but for the most part you'll spend the first 10 minutes of the movie picking which characters you want to see swallowed whole by a giant anaconda. My first choice was the Jennifer Lopez wannabe. When B-movie characters like her prance around with a huge chip on their shoulder, I usually pray for some sort of creature to sneak up and bite that chip right off. Along with the entire shoulder. This is one of those movies that relies on every cliché in the B-movie book. In other words, you can expect a whole lot of stuff like a door opening slowly and then something jumping out while a loud noise is made. And since this is a "creature feature," by definition a lot of the action takes place at night, in dark caves and in water, with only flashlights to light the way. Dialogue is expectedly bad. We're treated to such intellectually-challenged exchanges as: "What's wrong with this picture?" "You're in it." And it's mostly dominated by Messner's Michael Paré-esque line delivery and Eugene Byrd's banshee-like screeching. It's funny up to a point, but eventually you start looking at your watch and thinking, "OK snake, it's time to eat this kid." The CGI looks a little goofy at times, but most of it is well done thanks to the wise decision to hide the flaws with darkness and water. If you're wondering how this compares to the original Anaconda, well, the two really have nothing to do with each other except for presence of an anaconda. The first movie had famous people in it, this one doesn't. However, this one does have more anacondas! It's been 7 years since I saw the original, but I'm pretty sure it's the better of the two. My biggest complaint is that Anacondas wasn't cheesy ENOUGH! If you're gonna be bad, then go as far out on the cheesy limb as you can go! Instead of a blood orchid, their research should've discovered a rare, Indonesian banana that held the secret to long life. Then once it was discovered the anacondas were eating these things and living forever, one of the bad actors could've deadpanned, "What are these things? Bananacondas?" BWAHAHAHAHA! Man, I really need to start writing screenplays for intentionally bad movies. And I've said this before, but I'll say it again. Since "versus" movies are the current sequel trend, they should've dug up Harrison Ford (it's been four years since the guy had a hit), given him the Jack Ryan moniker again, and given *us* Jack Ryan Vs. Anaconda: The Hunt for the Blood Red Orchid in October. He could've been the guide for the scientists, and when one of them started whining he could've cracked, "Traveling through Borneo ain't like dusting crops, boy." Then he would've looked into the camera and winked. It'd have been awesome and you know it. Oh, and let me leave with a word of advice. If a bad guy is standing near the edge of an anaconda pit, and he's holding a gun on one of your colleagues, but his back is to you, then please, for the love of all that is holy, instead of whimpering like someone forced to sit through a post-1987 Corey Feldman movie, stand up and kick the guy in the pit.

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• Bad movie, but since I wasn't expecting much, I can't say I was disappointed.

  Li-12004-12-22

  Rating: * 1/2 out of **** As if further proof that I am in serious need of better taste, I was actually looking forward to seeing this movie, not so much because I was expecting anything great but because I'm a sucker for big-studio, jungle-set adventures. The fact that it's got giant snakes can only help, and heck, this movie's own predecessor wasn't half-bad. All things considered, Anacondas was about on par with what I expected: cheese, but reasonably watchable cheese. In the hopes of becoming millionaires, a group of young, "attractive" researchers hire a boat, whose captain is expectedly hard-boiled and hunky, to take them into the jungles of Borneo in search of the rare Blood Orchid, a flower with the ability to prolong life but the catch is that it blooms for only a six month period every seven years, and they're approaching the last few weeks of that time span. The expedition's boat sinks in a mishap involving a waterfall, leaving the group stranded and easy prey for the freakishly large anacondas in the vicinity. The title Anacondas suggests probably a bit more than even the movie can deliver, with the first genuine snake attack (barring the opening credits) not even occurring until the forty-minute mark, and even then, it's not for another half-hour until someone from the same group is munched on by one of those slithery reptiles. There's a surprisingly bare minimum utilization of the titular creatures, though I suspect that has a lot to do with budgetary limitations. If there's anything I expected to be a vast improvement upon the original, it'd be the visual rendering of the anacondas, but they're actually a few steps backward from the already spotty work in the original. For cost-effective purposes, virtually all the effects are CGI, and they're only a tiny bit better than what one would expect from a Sci-Fi Pictures Original. Making the snakes larger also works against the effects, making them goofier and harder to take seriously as a genuine threat. Worse, the snakes themselves seem a lot wimpier despite those "advancements." The anacondas have been essentially mutated by the Blood Orchid, so they're understandably larger (at least twice so) than the snakes in the original and probably a lot longer as well. Unfortunately, they're also inexplicably much easier to kill this time around. One whack from a machete (used by someone who's never wielded one before in her life) is enough to hack off one of these monstrosities' heads clean off. One of the snakes even manages to explode after being set alight by gasoline and a flare. And correct me if I'm wrong, but when did anacondas actually have teeth? The movie's various roles and characters are as stereotypical and obvious as one can expect from the genre. There's the hunky male American with his haunting past and he's got a hunky Asian sidekick/first mate. There's the "serious" black guy and the comic relief black guy, the latter of whom is probably the most obnoxious character I've seen in film all year. There's also the serious chick with "depth" and the whiny chick. In performing these roles, the cast is almost all terrible (especially Johnny Messner as the lead), the only modicum of acting talent coming from Morris Chestnut and the promising Kadee Strickland. While I've done nothing but harp on the movie, the biggest praise I can shower it with is that it's rarely boring. From the lush jungle scenery to the splendid visuals of the snakes right under the surface of the water, Anacondas is at least a movie that's always nice to look at. Even if it's never genuinely exciting or suspenseful, there are a few cheap thrills and a fast pace that doesn't let up. I suspect very undemanding and forgiving genre fans might even like it and it's to them I would even consider recommending this movie. Everyone else should first set their expectations straight.

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