“˜Anacondas’ lacks story line, suspense

“Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid”
Directed by Dwight H. Little
Columbia Pictures

Sometimes sequels work because everything just comes together.
(Think “Alien” and “Alien 2.”) Sometimes
sequels don’t work because they were bad the first time and
only can get worse. Such is the case with director Dwight H.
Little’s (who developed his sequel directing ability with
such mediocre hits as “Free Willy 2″ and
“Halloween 4″) new sequel thriller “Anacondas:
The Hunt for the Blood Orchid.” In “Anacondas,” a
pharmaceutical company has sent a new group of scientists
(apparently all the good actors from the first film were eaten) to
the Borneo jungles to find a rare bush on which there is an orchid
that only blooms every seven years. This orchid, of course,
promises to be the next fountain of youth. But ““ and here
comes the scary part ““ this orchid is apparently guarded by
huge snakes that get their incredible size and powers from this
very same orchid ““ and they are all over the place. When
these greedy scientists meet up with the huge snakes, the snakes
begin stalking and devouring them. It makes you wonder what these
huge snakes were eating before the hapless scientists wandered into
their food chain. The 1997 original, “Anaconda,”
although not great had a few things going for it. The original cast
consisted of Jon Voigt, Ice Cube, Jennifer Lopez and Eric Stoltz,
and there was a certain tension created among the characters who
had been hijacked by the insane hunter in a mission to capture the
world’s most deadly snake. But that same rising suspense
can’t be said about “Anacondas.” About halfway
through the film I almost entirely forgot what the characters were
even doing wandering around the jungle, let alone caring about why
they were there in the first place. In the sequel, none of the
original surviving cast members could have been paid enough to make
appearances, and instead it appears that the whole budget was blown
on making the already huge snakes look even more huge. So huge in
fact that sometimes you can’t even really tell what it is you
are looking at on the screen, which really takes away from that
on-edge feel contained in the first film. What the first film was
able to achieve with smaller snakes, “Anacondas” is
ultimately unable to do, teaching us all a lesson in jungle reptile
scare tactics: Sometimes size doesn’t matter. The only real
suspense created by the movie comes from wondering which one of the
unlucky scientists will be killed off first. Unfortunately, it
ultimately doesn’t matter much because nothing in the film
offers any reason to care about any of the characters anyway. Even
worse is that the kid-friendly PG-13 rating makes it even less
realistic for a number of different reasons. The language is toned
down so much that it’s really hard to believe a few more cuss
words wouldn’t sneak past your lips if you were being chased
down by a hoard of agitated supersnakes. Even worse, we don’t
see any of the actual killing by the snakes. Not that any level of
gore and violence would have made “Anacondas” any
better, but it might have added a touch of reality that would have
allowed the audience to connect with the film’s events that
much more. Sure, there are a few scary moments, and the cast is
really good looking, even if they are slowly being picked off one
by one by the man-eating carnivorous snakes. But chances are this
film won’t lead these actors to the same success J. Lo and
Voigt have had. Save your money and watch the Discovery Channel. At
least you can be on the edge of your seat watching Steve Irwin
collect reptiles. -Justin Scott