A group of scientists, businessmen, and adventurers travel down a rain-swollen river in Borneo in search of a flower with fountain-of-youth properties, only to meet up with big snakes that pick them off one by one: that's essentially the entire plot of this bargain-basement follow-up to the campy 1997 creature feature Anaconda, and the only genuinely scary thing about it is that it took no fewer that seven writers (and seven years) to fashion the screenplay. In fact, with the exception of the blood orchid, this film is as similar to the original as any of the Friday the 13th sequels are to their dubious progenitor. What we do have here are more elaborate special effects--which in spite of the CGI involved, aren't very impressive--and a much less starry cast: instead of Jon Voight, Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Eric Stoltz, and Owen Wilson, the victims this time include such luminaries as Johnny Messner, KaDee Strickland, Matthew Marsden, Eugene Byrd, and Salli Richardson-Whitfield. Still, what's really lacking here is the sense of genre mockery: Anaconda was dumb fun; Anacondas is just dumb. Not recommended. [Note: DVD extras include a “Special Effects Toolbox” making-of featurette (10 min.), nine minutes of deleted scenes, and trailers. Bottom line: slim pickens extras for a slim pickens film.] (F. Swietek)
Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid
ColumbiaTriStar, 97 min., PG-13, VHS: $107.99, DVD: $26.98, Dec. 21 Volume 20, Issue 1
Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid
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