Anaconda

Why did I wait to see this until now? And why did Jon Voight not win another Oscar for this movie? “Anaconda” follows a group of highly intelligent and not at all oblivious documentary filmmakers as they search for a hidden tribe in the Amazon. Along the way, they find a not at all creepy snake hunter played by Jon Voight, whose tries to help them but completely by accident takes them into a forbidden area of the Amazon where resides giant, completely realistic-looking snakes that move at entirely believable and not at all unrealistic speeds. Trust me, you won’t believe how realistic the CGI is. You’d swear the snakes were right there with the actors. The characters are in no way infuriating. At no point do you ever root for the snakes to win and all the human characters to die in horrible ways. You feel genuinely upset when a character dies and don’t want to laugh or cheer at all. Trust me, you need to see this movie. It’s easily on par with such masterpieces as “The Room” or Kirk Cameron’s “Saving Christmas.”

Good watch, would watch again, and can recommend. This is a huge surprise that this holds up after 20+ years, which is great because there aren't enough giant snake movies out there. This was a bit before modern technology, but that's offset by taking place on the Amazon River, far away from where technology would work anyways. This was also back when Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube thought they were actors (and I honestly prefer them as actors), and I certainly don't think that they are the any of the bad parts of this movie. Jon Voight was by far the most confusing, if not "bad" part of this movie. I think he was doing an impression of a Spaniard, but maybe was supposed to be having a Portuguese accent as that's what they speak in Brazil, but it was never clear if he was supposed to be FROM there or not. Even the character itself is oddly motivated, fighting to stay alive against people, but clearly has no self preservation when comes to catching the snake alive....so he can.....what...mate with it? Owen Wilson, in typically form, plays the "let's ruin this" role and really is a catalyst for the movie spiraling out of control. This is a "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" of a movie, not good (even back then), but still lots of fun. With the bad CG and odd, but impressive practical effects, it certainly was never the impending threat of an unstoppable beast that was the problem.