Director: Dwight H Little
Writer: John Claflin, Daniel Zelman, Michael Miner, Edward Neumeier (Screenplay) Hans Bauer, Jim Cash, Jack Epps Jr (Original Screenplay)
Starring: Morris Chestnut, KaDee Strickland, Eugene Byrd, Matthew Marsden, Johnny Messner, Karl Yune, Nicholas Gonalez
Plot: A scientific expedition sets out for Borneo to seek a flower called the Blood Orchid, which could grant longer life. Meanwhile, they run afoul of snakes and each other.
There may be spoilers the rest of the review
Verdict: Nice Story, Average Acting
Story: Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid starts and Dr Jack Byron (Marsden) and Gordon Mitchell (Chestnut) have discovered that the blood orchid could offer a natural fountain of youth and have convinced a medical board to let them travel to Borneo to complete their research.
Putting together their team including Sam (Strickland), Dr Douglas (Gonzalez), Cole (Byrd) and Gail (Richardson-Whitfield) they find a rag-tag captain Bill Johnson (Messner) and his first mate Tran (Yune) the only man who will travel to the location in the rainy season.
When the ship is destroyed, the group must travel through the jungle to rendezvous with another boat, but they must face up against a group of deadly oversized anacondas.
Thoughts on Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid
Characters/Performance – Bill Johnson is the captain that will do anything for money, risk his life and go on the missions no one else would. He does also take responsibility if anyone is killed on his boat. Sam is the best researcher on the expedition who does know that life is more important than the research once the team come under threat. Dr Byron is the one who will do anything for money even risk his teams lives. The rest of the characters are Cole who panics too much, Gail who panics too much, Tran who is locally smart knowing how to survive. Gordon also in it for the money.
Performance wise, this is harsh to say but I feel nobody does anything that good in the acting side of this film, we are have a mix of plain acting or completely overacting nothing comes off convincing.
Story – The idea that doctors and scientists have discovered a plant that could offer a cure for endless number of diseases and the group are going in search in unknown area comes off very well, this give us a good reason why these characters are there and certain actions they take. Add in the snakes you get survival horror 101 so this isn’t the worst story.
Adventure/Horror – The adventure is good because you could see this happening, but the horror just doesn’t reach the levels it could.
Settings – Moving the setting was a risk because the first is on the Amazon river now we are in Borneo, the truth this does work as it helps the story as we need to see our characters go to an unknow location.
Special Effects – The special effects are not good in this film as you can tell this is a CGI snake from start to finish.
Final Thoughts – This is a solid sequel, it has a believable reason for going into the jungle and risking everything but the poor acting and bad CGI don’t help this one out.
Overall: For a good drunk creature feature this is a lot of fun.
Rating
