Anacondas: The Hunt For The Blood Orchid (2004) Dir: Dwight Little
- Ridley Coote
- 6 hours ago
- 2 min read
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This 2004 sequel to the cult hit 1997 creature feature; 'Anaconda', is not, typically speaking, the kind of film I would usually bother watching. Directed by Dwight Little, it hasn't exactly got good reviews, but I was tempted into watching it because of how dumb but fun the first film had been. Of course, that doesn't have any real bearing on the quality of a sequel, but I still held hope, regardless.
Much like the first film, this one had some truly laughable CGI, at points. The anacondas looked genuinely awful, or were placed poorly on-screen - an issue that was faced in the first film too. The nineties and early noughties were not for the weak, when it came to CGI. With that said, not all of the CGI looked terrible, some of it was in fact quite serviceable, but the bits that were bad were extremely so.
The narrative actually wasn't as bad as I expected it to be, although, that was no doubt helped by my sensibly low expectations coming into the film. It wasn't great or anything, but it was still pretty entertaining, all things considered. There were a lot of dumb, poorly written scenes, but I enjoyed myself regardless. The third act was a bit too ridiculous, even for me, but the aforementioned entertainment value of the film carried me through it.
The monkey was very nearly the most endearing character in the film, and it barely featured. As such, it was actually KaDee Strickland who I found the most likable, which, in fairness, may have something to do with her softly spoken Southern twang. Regardless, she really was quite a good protagonist, at least for the most part. She felt like the most believable and sensible person in the film most of the time, which, in fairness, wasn't a particularly high bar.
Johnny Messner was trying way too hard to come across as brooding and macho, instead feeling like a slightly bizarre parody of an action hero. Honestly, he could have been swapped out with any second rate action star and it would have made zero difference to the quality of the film. I thought Matthew Marsden gave a pretty woeful performance as the film's human antagonist, and very much felt like a low-effort villain added in to create more conflict. There were also a host fairly watchable performances from those with smaller roles in the film, with the most noteworthy being Nicholas Gonzalez, Eugene Byrd, Karl Yune, Morris Chestnut, and Salli Richardson-Whitfield.
Overall, I was expecting this to be a dier sequel, which had lost all the charm of the original, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed myself. I do love a film that is aware of how dumb it is, but leans into it anyway - I think that, more often than not, it seems to pay off. I do seem to be in the minority of opinions when it comes to this second film - it certainly doesn't have the same fambase as the original, but I for one am glad I watched it, for all its many faults.
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