UNKNOWN ACTORS DEAD DEBUT IN SNAKE REMAKE:
Greed, revenge, and pride are all good reasons to chase a giant whale (or snake) to your own demise. And the trailer for “Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid”, in which a boatload of one-dimensional characters crashes over a waterfall into a “snake orgy”, clearly hopes to make us interested in their fate.
But what compelled director Dwight Little to make “Anacondas” so soon after Luis Llosa's 1997 "Anaconda" set the high-water mark for the snake version of a Moby Dick film?
Llosa’s film benefited from the under-employed talents of Ice Cube, Eric Stolz, Owen Wilson, and some actress named Jennifer Lopez. Little’s film gives us a monkey mascot, albeit a monkey smart enough to abandon ship just before his cast of unknown actors goes over the cliff.
Llosa’s film cast creepy Jon Voight as the snake-hunting madman chillingly channeling Captain Ahab. Little’s film features Johnny Messner as the lead in its gallery of victims, an actor previously seen in “Operation Delta Force 4” and the “Guiding Light” TV soap opera.
A visit to the movie’s website reveals the real reason this film was made: video games (this is, after all, a Sony picture). The site promises “hours of play” from both the arcade and the 200-megabyte PC version of the game. Those with slow internet connections are encouraged to “start the download in the evening and let it run overnight.” While you’re waiting, why not also download some buff Johnny Messner desktop wallpaper images from the movie’s website?
Better yet, run out to BlockBuster and grab Llosa’s “Anaconda”. By the time the snake cuts off Jon Voight’s final monologue, your free video game will be ready.
This post is from a 2004 pitch for a series of columns in which I proposed to review awful movies by watching their trailers. It didn't sell.