Director: Dwight H. Little
Year: 2004
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: Anaconda 2: The Black Orchid
Genre: Snake
Plot:
Traveling to the Indonesian jungle, a pharmacology team looking for the truth about a new life-extending flower finds that the area is home to a massive snake looking to mate and tries to escape from the area alive.
Review:
This one turned out to be quite decent overall. One of the better features is the fun times it has with the snakes throughout here as there are some highly enjoyable moments here. The first encounter in the swamp is quite an enjoyable example of this by using both the suspense of showing it around the group and them thinking it's there before utilizing the action spectacle of the initial attack in front of the remaining survivors, and a rather fun finale above a pit loaded with creatures that make for another great time.
The biggest scene though is naturally the attack in the hut which features the chilling stalking scenes of the completely-aware-but-paralyzed victim and the resulting attack before battling the creature in the flaming hut that provides this with some rather exciting scenes as the burning wood collapses around them. Likewise, the adventure segments of the first half do tend to feature some fun as well with a different sort of action throughout the trek into the jungle with the group going along the unfamiliar scenery along with the waterfall ploy and the jungle hikes which are all pretty fun.
There's not a whole lot here that doesn't work, but it is pretty sizable in that the film's adventure scenario in the first half really takes its toll on the rest of the film in keeping the snakes off-screen for quite a while. This results in them being utilized so infrequently that it really has to rush through its scenes in the final half in such a blur that they feel more like an afterthought to a story about the dangers in the search for a rare flower.
Not only that but the fact is the first half is filled with useless scenes that merely exist solely to pad out time with even less time for the creatures so that the numerous flirting scenes with each other or the monkey hijinks eventually cause this one to drag out even more than what is needed. The last issue is the rather egregious CGI for the snakes which never really evokes any kind of reality on-screen which seems natural here and is what keeps this one down somewhat.
Overview: ***/5
Somewhat underrated and enjoyable if you're in the right mood for these kinds of creature features, this one has plenty to like about it even with the films' pacing issues that are carried over from the original. Give it a shot if you're a fan of the original or action-packed mainstream creature features like this, while those with no interest or tolerance of these issues should heed caution.
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