Anaconda (1997)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1997
Running Time	85:44
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Luis Llosa
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Jennifer Lopez Ice Cube Jon Voight Eric Stoltz Jonathan Hyde Owen Wilson
Case	Brackley-Trans-No Lip
RPI	$36.95	Music	Randy Edelman

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French Dutch Arabic	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    And so Anaconda made a trip into the player, and a fresh repressing it is too with the Gold Standard Quality label on the case and a nice picture disc presentation. Okay, it has been roundly panned in most quarters as being a pretty ordinary film, currently enjoying a 4.2 out of 10 rating on the Internet Movie Database. Does it deserve the criticism? Well, basically yes if you want to take it seriously. The broad plot here is director Terri Flores (Jennifer Lopez) is heading into the Amazon backwaters to make a television documentary on the 'People of the Mist', a fabled Amazonian Indian tribe. Accompanying her is a specialist on the tribe (and potential love interest), Dr Steven Cale (Eric Stoltz), cameraman Danny Rich (Ice Cube), narrator Warren Westridge (Jonathan Hyde), producer Denise Kalber (Kari Wuhrer) and general dogsbody/sound guy Gary Dixon (Owen Wilson). Heading upriver in search of the tribe, they come across a stranded snake catcher Paul Serone (Jon Voight), whom they take on board with somewhat disastrous results. The original mission goes by the wayside fairly quickly after a slight accident and they end up battling one rather large, angry and very ravenous anaconda (plus a snake catcher) in order to return to civilization - to the detriment of most, including the snake.

    As you may have gathered, this is not Shakespeare that we are talking about. The story is fairly poor and quite predictable, stretching credulity to the limit at times. Not that there aren't some seriously sized snakes in that part of the world, but the depiction of the anaconda just fails to meet the criteria for believable in my mind (no doubt plenty of herpetologists will be able to shoot me down here). With the story being less than great, it would require a great cast to help raise the story out of the mire. Sorry, it did not happen, unless you can accept Jon Voight's way over the top effort. Across the board, this is not an especially great demonstration of acting, with Ice Cube leading the way here. Little things like character development might have helped here, but this is sadly lacking indeed. Add to that some fairly lacklustre direction, and some effects that hardly leave you gasping, and there is not an awful lot to redeem this effort. Some have unkindly suggested that even the self sacrifice of Jennifer Lopez running around in a singlet top for eighty minutes could not raise this effort from the mire. I will not be so crass, but at times you really do begin to wonder what, if anything, will save the film. About the only thing for me was some actually not too shabby cinematography, which has captured the feeling of the Amazon jungle fairly well. This is really very B-grade stuff, and sort of works at that level, but even that is stretching things a bit.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, and it is 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer is quite sharp throughout and in its way very clear, let down by only a few moments of soft focus: an example being at 40:58. Definition at times is a little lacking: however, this is not a transfer problem, but rather an effort to convey the eerie feeling of the jungle and river. It has to be said that this has in generally been shot a little darker than I would normally expect. Shadow detail was good, if lacking the absolute definition of the very finest transfers. Other than that, a nice transfer that holds up well in comparison to later efforts from this stable.

    This is generally a quite vibrant colourscape, with some nice rich tones. Colours have been nicely rendered and are very natural looking. There has been no effort made to indulge in wildly garish green tones to the jungle, which does help the film somewhat. Some of the shots of sunrises and so on were wonderfully done and really convey the natural beauty of the region.

    It may be earlier Columbia TriStar, but there were still no MPEG nor film-to-video artefacts noted. If there were any appreciable film artefacts, then I certainly missed them. A nice clean transfer that does nothing to detract from the film, and shows that Columbia TriStar have been on top of this game for some time.

Audio

    There are four audio tracks on the disc: the default English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround encoded soundtrack, an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, a French Dolby Digital 2.0 surround encoded soundtrack and a French Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. I listened to the English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack.

    The dialogue was crisp and clear, and easy to understand, throughout.

    Audio sync did not appear to be a problem with the transfer.

    The music score comes from Randy Edelman, although it is not especially memorable. It did not seem to have anything especially noteworthy about it and it really does not do an awful lot to help the film along - but then again does anything?

    This is a nicely balanced and quite nicely detailed soundtrack. The surround channels have been well used, with the rear channels providing some lovely background detail sounds like insects and birds. The sound picture is quite natural, totally convincing and you are well positioned in it.

    The bass channel did not get a whole lot of action, but when it was called upon it was suitably boomy and well supported the surround channels.

Menu

• Pan & Scan version of the film
• Theatrical trailer

    The video quality is very good.

    The audio quality is very good.

    The extras missed the boat up the river.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall