Anacondas: Hunt for the Blood Orchid (2004)

Plot Outline: A scientific expedition heads to the remote jungles of Borneo to track down a rare orchid which could be used to grant eternal life. However what they don't realise is that the orchid's home is also home to a nest of giant anacondas, which have also been using the orchid's powers to become smarter and faster.

The Review: Anaconda was a modest success, let's be honest. Granted the film was mauled by critics (and it's easy to see why) but there is a certain entertainment value at hand to see the likes of Jon Voight overacting, Owen Wilson in a trademark "slacker" role, Kari Wuhrer providing eye candy and Jennifer Lopez in an early role before she shot to super-stardom. The sequel, and I use that term loosely, is more of a poor reworking with slightly more characters to feed to the snakes as well as featuring more than one CGI beastie. But it sucks. It is, in every essence, a straight-to-video flick which somehow diverted into the cinema. Playing solely on the fact that it is a loose sequel to the original may have something to do with it. But when you've got a cast of complete unknowns with no star-power at hand, a cheesy second-rate script which has been reworked time and time again and some pretty cheap CGI monsters, then it's simply got to go to video. Maybe I'm being too harsh here. The cast aren't that bad but they rarely break free of the stock characters that they're all lumbered with: the token black guy who wisecracks every few minutes, the scientist who can't see past his own success, the troublesome guy who turns into the hero, a couple of chicks for eye candy and a couple of other characters on-screen for about 3 minutes before turning into snake fodder. It's fairly obvious who dies and who survives from the start and low and behold, come the end of the film, you're exactly right! The snakes here are complete CGI. At least the original had some models which were used for close-ups to give the snake a bit of a "real" feel to it. But these snakes look and move like computer sprites with varying degrees depending on the situation. For instance in some scenes the snakes move like grease lightning but then in others, specifically the scene in the tunnels, the snakes look like they need walking sticks to get around. A bad sign of monster films is when you see the monster within the first 5 minutes because then you're guaranteed not to see it again for a good period of time. Here the snakes don't really get down to business until about 45 minutes in. Until then we're given some routine jungle adventure flick with crocodiles and waterfalls thrown in for good measure. F**k the waterfalls, I want to see giant snakes eating people! The script writers credit the writers of the original with the screenplay for this but it's about as far from the original as Mars is from Earth. Maybe that's where these guys should be headed next because I don't want them "writing" any more trash like this. My brain (and wallet) can't take it.

Final Verdict: Anacondas: The Hunt of the Blood Orchid delivers very little when the least we could have hoped for was another cheesy timewaster like the original was. Never mind straight-to-video, this belongs in the straight-to-bin vaults

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