Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

Hmmm…. My overriding memory of the first ‘Anaconda’ movie I believe is the image of a 27-year old Jennifer Lopez, who happens to be one day older than me, walking around in a sheer night gown wearing a thong. Seared into my brain. My overriding memory of ‘Anacondas: Blood Orchid’ would be visions of Salli Richardson spending the majority of the movie soaking wet. That’s all I remember. Now if ‘Anaconda 3: Offspring’ had been done correctly my overriding memory would’ve been of actress Crystal Allen running through the woods wearing a tank top that is way to small featuring a cleavage full of glisten. That is if it were done correctly. As it stands my overriding memory of ‘Anaconda: Offspring’ will only be how shitty it was. Tragic.

John Rhys-Davies plays some cat who runs a huge corporation that is being attacked by PETA for treating animals poorly. Now forget all about that because they dropped that little plot element almost immediately. I think they used it to have a reason for him to visit this particular laboratory but considering how obsessed the character is with the research they are doing they really didn’t need an excuse. This research is headlined by Dr. Amanda (Allen) and involves genetically modifying big ass snakes to cleave some kind serum from them that will cure the world of everything. I think we’ve seen enough of these movies to know that genetically altering anything just ain’t cool, with one of the side effects of altering the DNA of these snakes being that they grow to massive hugeness and have a triple spiked tail which they use to great effect.

Without getting too much into the how or the why, two of these big ass snakes escape but first kill and eat pretty much everybody at the facility. This drastic situation calls for drastic measures and that drastic measure will show up in the form of Great White Hunter Mr. Hammett (David Hasselhoff). Eventually. You see Hoff spent an awful lot of this movie not being in it. I don’t know if he was cutting another record in Europe or what but if you’re a David Hasselhoff fan he is in the opening scene, takes about an

hour off and then shows up in the third act. Until Hammett decides to show up his crew has to capture these snakes on their own and they really don’t know what the hell they are doing. It was kind of sweet when their temporary leader was gored from the back through his chest by a huge spiked tail, five feet long, a foot wide, and lifted off the ground with gallons upon gallons of CGI blood gushing from his chest. What made this scene cool is that Dr. Amanda dispatched the bureaucrat to get her medical bag because apparently she has something in this bag that can fix ruptured spinal chords, a missing heart and no blood. This is followed up by a dude getting his head ripped clean off and I was wondering if Dr. Amanda had something in her bag for that too. Plus they couldn’t decide if Dr. Amanda was an MD or a PhD. She told us she went to medical school and when folks got their hearts ripped out she jumped into action like an MD but when critical snake knowledge was necessary she informed us that she was a PhD. Perhaps she’s both. I might have slept through that. She also knows Kung Fu. That’s one bad bitch right there.

Anyway eventually Hammett shows up and mobilizes his surviving troops because he has a ‘plan’. Well, not really. The fate of the world is at stake and it’s up to the Keystone Cop equivalent of hunters to save us. We’re screwed.

Aside from being surprisingly dull considering all the running and dying going on, and the incredibly suspect CGI effects and not to mention a narrative that seemed to be making itself up as it went along, my main problem was the blatant lack of respect shown to the Great White Hunter. Now I know next to nothing about hunting but I do know that it is a skill that requires a number of quantifiable elements. Before Hammett shows up these ‘crack hunters’ were simply running through the woods, chasing the snakes and shooting at them. To my knowledge that’s not hunting. Imagine my relief when Hammett finally does show up, yells that he has a plan with this plan being running through the woods, chasing the snakes and shooting at them. Hell, I could do that. Shouldn’t hunters like set traps and stuff, reroute paths and estimate where their prey will be so they can kill it when it show up? To prove to us Hammett was a great hunter he was tracking the big ass snake through the woods and his assistant was amazed at how he was doing it. Well, as he explained, he observed the knocked over bushes and deep grooves in the brush which only a seasoned tracker could correctly assume that this was left by 80 foot long, twelve foot wide snake. That was bleeding. Because he also keenly observed the blood on the leaves, again leaving his assistant flabbergasted by his wealth of tracking knowledge. Mind you this keen tracking knowledge only leads to more chasing and mindless shooting.

I think the coup de grace was when our PhD/MD turned into Bruce Lee on Hoff. I mean she was seriously kicking his ass. And when things looked bad she conveniently pulled a switch blade out her shoe to gut a fool. Obviously our pretty blonde PhD/MD with the glistening cleavage was raised on the mean streets of Soweto.

I also have ‘Anaconda 4’ in my possession since these were shot back to back and I had wanted to watch them back to back but my fragile psyche needed to decompress after suffering through ‘Anaconda 3’. The Sci-Fi Channel done got me again. Damn.