"Anaconda" tries to do for snakes what "Jaws" did for sharks, but it eventually crumbles under its own silliness and winds up being pure dumb fun as opposed to a competent/mature horror thriller. This is a schlock B-movie with lots of coin to spare; nothing more, nothing less.

Now even though the flick’s first hour is mostly all build-up, I still found myself grooving to what was going down. The pace of the film flowed effortlessly, the scenery was beautiful (although a tad “fake looking” at times), the occasional snake attack helped keep me in the game and Jon Voight’s (Paul) incredibly hammy delight of a show had me drumming on pots and pans. The movie eventually goes full slither for its final block, offering all kinds of zany "snake vs human" shenanigans to delight. The waterfall jump that transcended into a snake snack, for example, was so over the top that it had me standing up in cheers. It’s one of my favorite moments in the whole picture (note to self: get a life).

On a character level, well, the cast is pretty to look at, but that’s pretty much that. Apart from Jon Voight (Sarone) going energized “Pac Man” on all of the scenery before him, the actors here basically play themselves evoking little sympathy and diminishing the tension that I could’ve felt in the process. I just didn’t give a used panty about them as people. Sure, I grooved on stoner-like Owen Wilson (Gary) and was charmed into a boner by Kari Wuhrer (Denise), but in the end, it was the "heavy" (Voight) who kept me rooting for him...at least the dude had a personality and a drop of intelligence.

Which brings me to the lead’s inane stupidity; why does it take the crew that long to pick up on Sarone’s devious motives? I mean, did you see the guy’s fucking face for the love of logic? That upside down shit eating grin gave his M-O away the moment he hopped on the freakin' tug boat. This guy has “evil” (and over-actor) written all over his freaking forehead! COME ON GUYS! WAKE UP! Another beef I had with this petting zoo was Jonathan Hyde’s (Warren) humble presence that was all about being the obvious “comic relief”. Unfortunately for me, he didn’t bring any relief or comedy into my lowly existence. In fact, he inspired the total opposite effect...grating me with all of his being. Take that golf club and shove it in your “hole in one” buddy!

Scare-wise, the movie had its minor moments here and there, but Llosa introduced the creatures fairly flatly and the shoddy effects that accompanied them pretty much nixed the fear factor that I could have felt. Let's face it, the CGI snakes looked like rejects from any old “Coleco” game and the animatronics snakes actually appeared kind of cuddly in a “Care Bears’ kind of way; I WANT ONE. Sure, when the film pulled a "Jaws" and went for the POV approach, I did feel a little bit of tension, but the second that the snakes popped out of the woodworks while making all these cutesy noises (Snakes scream? That’s a first) that would be that. The scares were out the window and made way for the giggles.

Distributor: Columbia Tristar Home

This DVD is “Superbit”, meaning that most of the dual layered single-sided DVD is used for optimal quality in picture and sound.

IMAGE: The anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) image is admittedly gorgeous and yes, flawless.

SOUND: The English DTS Digital 5.1 Theatrical Surround Sound and Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound is much like the image; flawless. WOW! We also get English Captions, Closed Captions for the hearing impaired and French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, and Thai Language subtitles.

Danny Trejo (of Desperado and From Dusk Till Dawn) plays the opening victim. I love that guy!