From the Archive – Anaconda (1997)

 

“You can’t scream if you can’t breathe.”

Directed by Luis Llosa
Starring Jennifer Lopez, John Voight and Ice Cube

An anthropologist (Eric Stolz) and a film crew (including J-Lo and Ice Cube), travelling into the South American rainforest to film an undisturbed tribe are implausibly hijacked, for no very good reason, by an insane Paraguayan snake hunter (Voight) who wants to capture a giant anaconda.

Instead – predictably – the snake hunts them, eating most of the crew before finally getting to the snake hunter, then being blowed up by Ice Cube.

What’s wrong with it?

Well, for starters, check out that casting and tell me the producer was in a legal state of mind. John Voight as the novice priest-turned-psychotic snake hunter is a revelation in failure, while a fairly talented supporting cast (Ice Cube, Stolz, even Owen Wilson) are basically relegated to the ‘getting eaten and beaten’ watch (Stolz wisely spends most of the movie in a coma).

There are no surprises in the death toll, save that the sissy-chick is killed by the snake hunter, not the snake; in fact, you can pretty much count the seconds until each loser gets chomped. The sleazy boat pilot is never going to last, and the moment the whiny Brit drama queen (Jonathan Hyde) starts being useful and likeable, you know he’s toast.

Our ostensible heroine, Jennifer Lopez’s documentary director, is by turns pissy and ineffectual. There isn’t a single character you really give a shit about. And then there’s the snake itself.

The opening text tells us that the anaconda is so vicious and evil that it yaks up its prey so it can go off and eat someone else, presumably because someone pointed out that unless you have one snake per victim, it’ll just chow down, then go off and sleep for a couple of weeks while it digests. This anaconda also kills by crushing, instead of suffocating its victims, as real snakes do. Oh, and at one point it fairly clearly kills a leopard. Not a jaguar, but an honest-to-god, ye olde worlde leopard.

Factual errors aside, the snake is terrible. The model is bad enough, looking as it does for all the world like a fuck-off great plastic snake on a stick, but the CGI is worse. Most notably, the damn thing just doesn’t move like a snake. Plus the ‘oesophagus-cam’ shot fails to convince on any level, as does the ‘Owen Wilson’s screaming face showing through the gut-wall of the snake’ bit.

The plot also makes no sense. The snake hunters have this whole insane plot to hijack the film crew’s boat, but the boat seems to belong to one of the hunters – the sleazy pilot – and since they don’t use any of them as bait, there is simply nothing that the hunters need, that the film crew could possibly provide.

What’s right with it?

Are you paying attention? Nothing! It isn’t even funny. Even the decent performers labour with tripe for dialogue, and the few swish cuts and dissolves just show up the film’s inferiority compared to the classics.

How bad is it really?

This film is a genuine piece of crap. Watch it at thy peril.

Best…Oh, I can’t even pretend.

What’s up with…?

• Sorry to be the broken record, but John Voight as a South American snake hunter? He snarls limply, and fails to convince as evil, just ending up kind of seedy and unpleasant. We all wish he’d been eaten earlier; say before the film started.
• All this bollocks about anacondas being evil? They have this legend of the giant devil-snake; why not have it actually be the giant devil snake? Since it doesn’t move like an anaconda, hunt like an anaconda or kill like an anaconda, why get so attached to the idea of it being an actual anaconda?
• This damn film? I mean really.

Ratings

Production Values – It pretty much stinks. The jungle looks OK sometimes, but the snake is dreadful. 16

Dialogue and Performances – When the acting is good, the script stinks, and the script is never good. It’s not even memorably bad, just utterly banal. Ordinarily, J-Lo’s insipid sultriness would win the turkey, but John Voight tops even her. 19

Plot and Execution – ‘I will plot intricately to take over your boat, because I need to prove that I am evil’. And that – plus the eating – is about your plot. 17

Randomness – Why the plot to take over the boat? Hell, why the whole damn movie? Nothing much makes any sense. 15

Waste of Potential – It’s a horror movie about snakes. People are scared of snakes, right? This could have been great. All it would have needed was a cast that makes sense for even a moment, a decent director, and some infernal influence to explain the snake’s non-snakeyness. 13

Overall 82%

From the Archive – Highlander II: The Quickening (1991)

Highlander II: The Quickening (1991)

“It’s time for a new kind of magic.”

Directed by Russell Mulcahy.
Starring Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, Virginia Madsen and Michael Ironside

In the sequel to 1984’s cult favourite, Highlander, the mysterious immortals from the first film turn out to be aliens exiled by the evil dictator, General Katana (Ironside), forced to fight for the right to either return to their home planet of Zeist or to become mortal and live out their days on Earth, as Connor McLeod (Lambert) has done.

In the future, an aging Connor recovers his powers and his youth when Katana – for no apparent reason – sends two giggling incompetents to kill him. Regenerated by their Quickening and motivated by bad movie sex, he then teams up with a resurrected Ramirez (Connery), and an ecoterrorist (Madsen) to bring down the ozone shield he helped to create and save the world.

The ‘Renegade’ Director’s Cut apparently makes more sense, but may be just a myth. I certainly know no one who has seen it.

What’s wrong with it?

This film is bad on so many levels. For starters, it bears little or no relation to the first film, in which the immortals were weird and mystical, with an unknown source. The degree to which the ‘sequel’ is not trying is indicated by the fact that the aliens were exiled over a thousand years after Ramirez was supposed to have been born in Egypt.

The playing is lacklustre – even Sean Connery and Michael Ironside seem to be phoning it in; the plot is incomprehensible in parts, and drivel in others. Even the sword fighting is minimal, to say the least, with only really two scenes which can even approximate to decent duels.

Yeah, and the continuity is poor.

Also, I don’t know what the female lead’s name is. I could probably look it up on IMDb, but seriously, I ought to know from watching the film.

What’s right with it?

Nothing really.

How bad is it really?

Truly appalling. As a sequel it doesn’t work, and it lacks the justification of being a watchable movie in its own right.

Best bit (if such there is)?

Umm…No.

What’s up with…?

• In the bit when Ramirez uses his big burst of telekinesis, why does Amazing Grace play on the bagpipes? He’s an Egyptian, and an alien. And how come his katana is stuck in the floor beside him after Connor and the woman leave, yet later on Connor is carrying it instead of his naff little Zeistian sword?
• How come Katana isn’t dead? He’s supposed to be a mortal on Zeist. And why can’t he get better help if he rules the whole planet with an iron hand? And why does he send them when Connor is about to kark it from old age anyway?
• Why?
• Why, God? Why?

Ratings:

Production values – Poor. The lighting is not just muted, in places it’s hardly there at all. The fight scenes are clunky and awkward, and the SFX is pretty rubbish (a few cheap-looking Quickening rushes and an ozone shield that looks like a Los Angeles sunrise). 14

Dialogue and performances – The dialogue is unbelievably bad, even by action-adventure standards, with the standout piece being the explanation of how the whole Zeist-Earth/Mortal-Immortal gig works between Connor and the ecoterrorist chick, which plays like a badly gaffed version of Who’s On First? 17

Plot – There is no plot; only Zool. Slay evil; destroy bad machine. Fire bad; tree pretty. 16

Randomness – For starters, there’s the issue of why it’s called Highlander II, given that with the alien timewarp and so forth it has next to no continuity with the first film. Move past that, and the question of why Katana bothers to go after Connor trips you up. Also, how come none of the stuff they do in this one comes up in the first? It’s pretty out there, and that’s where it needs to stay. 18

Waste of Potential – Maybe Highlander wasn’t Citizen Kane, but this isn’t even Jeffrey Archer’s Kane and Abel. 18

Overall: 83%

From the Archive – Sanctuary (1997)

“From hood to priesthood.”

Inflicted by Tibor Takacs.
Perpetrated by Mark Dacascos (which readers may come to think of as ‘all you need to know’) and friends.

OK; so there’s this priest, right. Only he’s really an assassin, in hiding, after doing something he can’t face. A series of flashbacks reveal that he was part of an elite team, trained from childhood, loyal only to their commander, etc, etc. After years living quietly as a priest, they come after him, and he and his former lover have to shoot some people and reveal assorted nefariousness.

Um…That’s pretty much it. There’s probably some soul-searching involved somewhere.

What’s wrong with it?

Sanctuary is a film so dismal I can’t even be bothered to write more of a plot summary than I gave above. It’s full of dull characters, engaging in dull fights and even duller conversations. It’s very difficult to become engaged enough to care whether any of them live or die, except that maybe you want them off the damned screen. I only remember the lead character’s name is Luke because that’s my name.

What’s right with it?

Actually, nothing. Really, seriously, nothing.

How bad is it really?

Sanctuary is awesomely, mind-numbingly, stomach-churningly, soul-destroyingly bad. Only sheer bloody-mindedness kept me awake through the whole thing, and I wasn’t even tired. It’s suffocatingly boring, packed with characters who don’t even cease to be boring when they’re being cartoonishly evil or unpleasant.

Best bit?

The end credits came as something of a relief.

What’s up with…?

It’s a little difficult to write this section, mostly because in the case of Sanctuary, I just don’t care enough.

Ratings

Production Values – Poor. The dialogue is mumbled (this is a common flaw in this breed of film; they think characters who can’t speak above a whisper unless they’re screaming in barely coherent rage automatically seem deep and sensitive), and many scenes underlit. It’s all pretty cheap and dismal. 18

Dialogue and Performances – I’ve seen worse, but then I have seen some very poor performances. The dialogue is pretty poor, and unforgivably, is not even memorably poor. 19

Plot and Execution – No real effort has been put into developing or moving the narrative. Many of the primary plot junctures are ill-explained and nonsensical:

• “I’m the new member of your team, who have trained and lived together since childhood. No way I’ll be trouble.”
• “We need blackmail material against our new Congressional overseer; let’s trick him into killing one of our best operatives on camera.”
• “We’ve lost them! No wait; I’ve picked them up on the plot-cam!”

In short: Dire. 20

Randomness – Aside from the above-mentioned narrative ‘eccentricities’, there isn’t a great deal of randomness. Unless you count the order of assassin-priests who recruit Father Luke at the end of the film. They’re pretty random. And the sporadic, almost spontaneous nature of the attempts on Father Luke’s life probably count. 10

Waste of Potential – This could have been a nice little thriller about an assassin in hiding, whose past catches up with him. The idea of a team trained together since childhood was a good one, but the film would have needed much more work to make something of it. 15.

Overall – 82%