Anaconda [Blu-ray]

This is one of my most favorite movies!

This is the first of the Anaconda movies. It is one of my favorites. Jennifer Lopez can really act - i had no idea. This movie has an all star cast and a terrific storyline. This one as well as Anaconda Blood Orchid are equally good. The other anaconda movies that came later were terrible in my opinion with really bad special effects.

Cornball old-school style "B" movie with a giant killer snake replacing aliens, vampires, werewolves or whatnot. Loved this unashamedly goofy flick since first catching it in theaters decades ago. Pretty solid performances all-around by a mostly young cast of then up & coming actors. Still, it's sturdy veteran thespian Jon Voight who shows these new kids just how it's really done with his amazingly hammy turn as whacked-out snake hunter, Paul Sarone. He rocks every aspect of his juicy part: from the outlandish Paraguayan accent to even the tiniest nuanced physical mannerisms. Voight can do more acting with a single look or body position change than the other noobs could with a page and a half of dialogue. He makes watching this monster mash totally worthwhile. God bless him!Wildly uneven visual effects are a real mixed bag here, ranging from great to laughably awful. (Backwards waterfall, anyone?) This is an older movie and at the time this was filmed computer generated effects were still in their infancy. That, and the low budget nature of the picture meant that the resultant full body shots of the anaconda look pretty crude & obvious, especially when compared to the infinitely more polished CGI we see today. Full-scale animatronic snake puppetry is similarly rough and not that much improved from the giant rubbery snake Arnold wrestled some 15 years prior in CONAN, THE BARBARIAN. Even so, they're effective enough to creep you out if you suspend your disbelief and just go with the flow. ANACONDA's best moment combines practical effects & CGI to give us the unforgettable "vomit & wink" scene. That lone sequence helped cement this film in the horror lexicon. That and a then fresh-faced booty babe Jennifer Lopez, plus the crazed, over-the-top performance by Voight combined to gave this little B-movie shocker a box office take surprisingly respectable enough to insure a stream of direct-to-video sequels (and endless imitators) that are still being cranked out 20+ years later.This Blu-ray release of ANACONDA looks & sounds pretty good. Focus is satisfyingly sharp, with strong blacks, mid-tones and little to no artifacting & pixelation. This is good news since much of the picture takes place at night, in shadowy jungles and in the silty waters of the Amazon itself. No extras though, which is a HUGE disappointment. After all these years it would have been great to have had a set of new interviews with the cast to capture their reflective thoughts looking back on the film. The F/X stuff, harsh as it was, would still be interesting to dig into. Maybe on some later edition from a company who really gets into such stuff (are you reading this Shout!Factory?). Even so, this film looks & sounds pretty dang good here, enough to highly recommend even this barebones release - at least until a better, more fan-flavored edition comes along. I give this scaly, snake-fest a solid 4 STARS.

Ice cube and jlo are super good in this.

Anaconda is my favorite snake horror movies besides snakes on the plane, and it came in good conditions too. No cracks on the case, no scratched on the disc, and there wss no trouble when you watch the movie.

Yep hope I never see any giant anaconda In person. I would freak the hell out. Probably pee my pants too lol. It's a ok movie, but the snake does look fake. Either way I hate snakes.

Had to laugh. It shows how stupid actors and movie producers can get. I Mean really going to find indigenous people who don't want visitors that are protected by giant snakes and they are shocked that horrible things happen to them. LOL

Oct 7, 2008-Mom and I were very disappointed with Amazon.com upon receiving this DVD. This page is deceptive: It shows the original cover of the movie (which we already had on VHS). We wanted to have this movie on DVD and looked everywhere we could think of to try to find an edition of the DVD with the original cover and not the cover showing the people. When I saw this page I thought this was it. Alas, we received the movie yesterday and when we opened the box it was the new cover with the actors on it instead of the beautiful snake. In my opinion that was deceptive advertising. Other than all that we have always loved this movie.Update: 4/2009- we have since received the movie with the beautiful cover as shown and the DVD works, therefore I take back my previous rant.