A film crew travels to the Amazon to shoot a documentary about an indigenous population. Along the way, they will meet and help Paul Sarone, a snake hunter stranded in the river's waters due to an engine failure in his boat. But the hunter will immediately show an ambiguous behavior and drag the entire crew into the worst nightmare, that is, into the claws of a ferocious anaconda ready to devour anyone, and that he himself intends to capture to make a substantial amount of money.
In 1997, "Anaconda" debuts on the big screen, a classic beast-movie that features a ferocious and rather large anaconda as the threat of the moment, snakes that (as stated in the film) are among the largest and most ferocious animals on earth: in terms of length, they can even exceed twelve meters; in terms of ferocity, anacondas distinguish themselves from other snakes because, if they are not satisfied after devouring their victim, they regurgitate it to be able to kill and eat a new prey. Furthermore, these terrifying "monsters", due to their impressive size, are said to be even revered by some indigenous civilizations.
Even considering all these small details, it can be understood from the start that the choice of an anaconda as the villain of a film is by no means a wrong choice, also because for once there is no need to give an absurd explanation to justify the excessive size of the beast (anacondas are already large snakes, so enough with these damned genetic modifications!!!).
The film, directed by Luis Llosa, relies on a non-innovative story, in fact... not innovative at all, the situation is always the same: a small group of people remain isolated in a remote and uninhabited place and do not have the means to contact the rest of the world, worsening the situation a ferocious animal begins to hunt them down, killing one by one all the unfortunate ones until someone manages to gain the upper hand over the animal so as to eliminate it. How many times have you seen a film that follows this narrative scheme?
But undoubtedly the viewer who comes across the viewing of one of these films, already knows what they are getting into and therefore should not have high expectations regarding the story, what really matters, is how all the secondary factors work.
A first aspect to consider are the actors. In general, in this type of film, little-known actors are used, most of the time complete unknowns who are not always able to meet the expectations of the viewer; "Anaconda" follows this path only in part. The only truly familiar face in the film is that of Jon Voight ("A Quiet Week-End of Fear"; "Mission: Impossible") as the bad hunter Sarone, who magnificently manages to embody the role of a greedy and insensitive hunter willing to do anything to capture the big prey; among the other actors, Jennifer Lopez, famous singer who used this film to launch herself into the entertainment world, as the beautiful protagonist, Ice Cube ("Ghosts from Mars"; "Three Kings"), famous black rapper and in this film at his first steps with the cinema world; Eric Stolz ("Pulp Fiction"; "The Fly 2"); Owen Wilson ("Wedding Crashers"; "Starsky & Hutch"); and Danny Trejo ("From Dusk till Dawn"; "The Devil's House") who has become an icon of horror cinema. From this, it can be understood that the cast of "Anaconda", with the exception of the legendary Jon Voight, was populated by actors who were not yet very well-known but who found success in the years to come; but they all manage to give us excellent performances, all managing to easily slip into the role assigned to them.
Another really working element of the film is the anaconda, which never becomes ridiculous and thanks to an excellent realization, almost always with a mechanical puppet and rarely through the use of digital effects (which, although not of the highest quality, still work and manage to integrate quietly with the environment) manages to be realistic and fascinating. Another strong point are the beautiful music by Randy Edelman, suitable for the occasion and definitely memorable.
In conclusion, "Anaconda" is more than a sufficient beast-movie, which, although it does not stand out in terms of story from the crowd, manages for other reasons to be one of the best... if not the best... film on the theme of killer snakes. Recommended especially to lovers of beast-movies, but it deserves at least one viewing.
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