WITH: Johnny Messner (Bill Johnson), KaDee Strickland (Sam Rogers), Matthew Marsden (Dr. Windon edited by Marcus D'Arcy and Marc Warner music by Nerida Tyson-Chew production designer, Bryce Perrin produced by Verna Harrah released by Screen Gems. ''Anacondas'' is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned) for scenes of conspicuous consumption.ĭirected by Dwight Little written by John Clafin, Daniel Zelman, Michael Miner and Ed Neumeier, based on a story by Hans Bauer, Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jr. It helps that the serpents are seen only in brief shock cuts - a stylistic choice probably forced by the film's minimal digital effects budget, but one that lets the audience's imagination fill in the blanks.Ī programmer that once upon a time would have played on the bottom half of double bills, ''Anacondas'' has no pretensions and gets its little job done effectively, providing some small-scale laughs and chills for the late summer season. Little delays dinner time until the film is almost half over, but once it begins, the munching is graphic, startling and occasionally even inventive. Mysterious creatures slither through the underbrush, unnoticed by all on board the tiny boat except for the captain's simian sidekick, a squirrel monkey who seems to get more close-ups than the rest of the cast combined. Once in Borneo, the searchers contract with a grease-stained riverboat captain (Johnny Messner, a graduate of the raspy-voiced, Vin Diesel school of action acting) to lead them to the orchid fields, hidden deep within a jungle swollen to the bursting point by the rainy season.
The ''blood orchid'' contains a mysterious enzyme that removes the cap to the number of times a cell can reproduce, opening the door to eternal youth and infinite growth. There are now an awful lot of them, and although no precise figures are offered, they look a great deal longer than 40 feet, having grown to monster size as a result of feeding on an exotic orchid found only in the jungles of Borneo. In place of her star power, the producers have upped the ante on the snakes. Lopez did not choose to sign on for ''Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid,'' the quasi sequel opening nationwide today, directed by the long-suffering sequel specialist Dwight Little (''Free Willy 2,'' ''Halloween 4''). That, and for the 40-foot animatronic creature of the title, which managed to devour most of the cast - including, gratifyingly, the arch-overactors Eric Stoltz and Jon Voight - before the film was over.
Luis Llosa's 1997 ''Anaconda'' is best remembered, when it is remembered at all, for helping to introduce Jennifer Lopez to a waiting world.