Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid (2004) Review

WEEK 2: SLITHERING SERPENTS

Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid (2004) Review

I remember seeing a trailer for Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid before Spider-Man 2 in the summer of 2004, and being really excited to see it. I never heard much about it afterwards, and it was over a year later that I finally rented it on DVD, and I thought it was pretty good. That was when I was ten years old. Ten years later, my reaction is (not too surprisingly) a bit different.

There's no opening text this time, but the movie starts out in the same way as the first Anaconda, only it’s a native being stalked and killed by an anaconda instead of Danny Trejo. The plot concerns a rare flower capable of prolonging lifespan, so a group of scientists embark on an expedition to find it for a pharmaceutical company. They hire a rough-around-the-edges captain with a crappy boat to take them up river, but when things go awry and they plunge over a waterfall, they end up stranded in the territory of the anacondas, which have grown huge due to their prey feeding on the blood orchid, allowing them to live longer and grow bigger. And better yet, it’s their mating season, meaning there are lots this time, and they’re getting rowdy.

The first act of Anacondas is almost identical to the first act of Anaconda, minus the few plot differences. While the concept of the blood orchid and its connection to the anacondas is pretty innovative, it’s not enough to make it feel very distinct from the previous movie. They’re on a boat, going down a river, searching for something hard to find, and the snakes attack. At several points the captain warns them the river is hazardous ahead, but then they offer more money, and he’s like okay, we can do it. I find it weird that money dictates how dangerous the river is. Did the river just suddenly become safe, or was he just making it up because he didn’t want to go as far? Or did he just want more money? I know, I’m looking too far into this.

The characters are all basically the same as those we saw last time, albeit no-name actors; there’s discount J-Lo, but she’s really annoying and not the main character, discount Ice Cube, also more annoying, and way less badass, discount group leader with an accent who turns bad, etc. But there are a few new things they added. A new hot girl is included in the group, but she has a spotty Texas accent and is, just like her co-stars, annoying. There’s a stupid monkey named Kong who follows them through the entire movie, and is only there to provide false scares and jump scares in the first act. His owner, the ship captain, is the only moderately interesting character, but even he isn’t given much to do. As far as the human characters go, they’re totally dispensable and no longer a highlight like in the first movie. Not only are the actors not stars, their acting and dialogue is much worse than anything in the first movie. Jon Voight may have been bad, but at least he was interesting. No one turns in a performance that’s so bad it’s entertaining this time around, they’re all just bland.

The first half hour is dull, but once the boat goes over the waterfall, it starts to get a bit more exciting. Like the first movie, most of the action is contained to the third act. The snakes this time around are somewhat enhanced, but they get less screen time, which doesn’t add up, given this is slightly longer than the first Anaconda. One thing I forgot to mention in my review of the first movie was the screaming effect given to the snakes. I guess they thought just hissing wasn’t scary enough, so added a scream (something used by many future snake films), but this time around, it’s removed; only hisses are to be heard here. The cgi for the snakes is, thankfully, improved from the first one, but the animatronics are kept to a bare minimum. I would have preferred more animatronics used, but it was probably faster and cheaper to make them more prominently with digital effects, and because they look mostly decent, I’ll give them a pass on that one. What I won’t give them a pass on is the decision to downgrade from an R-rating to PG-13. As a result, there are no memorable death scenes, no memorable one-liners, almost no blood whatsoever, and not enough snake action.

The one thing that always bugged me the most about this movie is the incorrect geography. Anacondas don’t live in Borneo, which is where the whole movie takes place. I guess the writers wanted to give the sequel a fresher setting, but it failed, and is massively inaccurate. Instead of switching up the location, they should have focused on not featuring these same elements from the first movie: 1. This piece of dialogue: “There are snakes out there this big?” 2. A poisonous bug that incapacitates people. 3. Creepy crawlies in the river. 4. Other dangerous animals threatening the characters’ lives that aren’t anacondas, but are easily killed. I guess they thought the growth spurt flower was enough of a change.

There is one reference to the events of the first movie, but there are no other connections between the two movies aside from that. On the plus side, it’s not necessary to have seen the first movie in order to get what’s going on in this one. And to be fair, it’s not devoid of any entertainment. There are a couple creepy scenes, such as when they go through a cave and when they come across a tribal village, but there is definitely a lack of giant snake action (likely due to a smaller budget than the first movie), and because the characters aren’t as entertaining this time around, it makes for an inferior sequel.

Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid is not a step up from the first Anaconda by any means, but if you liked what you saw the first time, this one’s worth watching. It lacks the re-watchability of the first, but still has higher quality snake action than the typical fare of a low-budget B-movie. Many people are unaware that there are more movies in the Anaconda series beyond the two theatrically-released ones. There's Anaconda 3: Offspring (2008) which starred David Hasselhoff, Anacondas: Trail of Blood (2009), and even Lake Placid vs. Anaconda (2015)! I’ve never seen any of those, but I’ve seen clips, and with the knowledge that they were made-for-TV and shown on SyFy, I’ve decided to never see them.

This concludes snake week! Next week I’m moving on to creepy crawly critters. Trust me; some of them pack an even toothier bite than the snakes!