Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid : Big Digital Snakes!

Only once in my career as a film critic have I bestowed a 1-star rating on a film. That count nearly rose to two with my screening of Anacondas, yet another sequel which should never have been made.

This can best be described by a quote from one of the lead characters: "If you need anything, well, you're shit out of luck."
This film is bare bones, folks. Really, it's pretty much a set 'em up and shoot 'em down flick. We start out with the most ethnically diverse expedition in the history of exploration and watch as giant computer generated snakes eat them one by one.

Oh yeah, they're in the jungle to look for an orchid which can make you live forever. There are some attempts at creating tension among the characters, but basically everyone is there to play their stereotype.

The cast is populated with no-name actors who have appeared in films you've probably seen. "The Whole Ten Yards," "Sixth Sense," "Boyz in the Hood," "Biker Boyz" and "Black Hawk Down" all make it onto the cast's collective resumes. However, when one looks a little deeper, we see that some of these choice rolls include the likes of "Visitor No. 6."

What is interesting to note is that three members of the cast have appeared in movies with Bruce Willis. You can take that however you want, but it might be useful to consider when determining whether to lay down $7 to see this film.

This film is so bad, it really becomes funny at a point and that's what saves it from the 1-star rating. I only wish the writers (and there were seven of them) had realized what they had and made it even cheesier.

And that brings me to my final point. If your film has more screenwriters and recognizable actors, maybe it's time to rethink the whole thing.

The bottom line: If you've seen the original, you've seen this film. The only difference is that in this one, they tried to make it scarier by throwing in about a dozen extra snakes and cheaper by skipping out on the A-list actors.

Rated PG-13 for action violence, scary images and some language.

Starring:
Johnny Messner as Bill Johnson
KaDee Strickland as Sam Rogers
Matthew Marsden as Dr. Jack Byron
Nicholas Gonzalez as Dr. Ben Douglas
Eugene Byrd as Cole Burris
Karl Yune as Tran
Salli Richardson-Whitfield as Gail Stern
Morris Chestnut as Gordon Mitchell

Screenplay by Hans Bauer, Jim Cash, Jack Epps Jr. (1997 screenplay)
John Claflin, Daniel Zelman, Michael Miner, Ed Neumeier

Directed by Dwight H. Little