Just as Anacondas multiplies the number of killer snakes from the original film for your viewing pleasure, so does it multiply the number of black characters. Are the filmmakers comparing black people to snakes? Ed Bradley investigates tonight at 7:00…
Of the eight people who go troddin’ through the jungles of Borneo in this sequel, three of ’em are black. Two more and we’d have enough for a basketball team! Each represents a typical black horror cinematic “type”: Gail (Salli Richardson) is the bitch, Cole (Eugene Bird) is the “What the fuck is that?!” scaredy cat, and Gordon (Morris Chestnut) is the, um, fodder. Surprisingly, two of the three survive (I’ll let you figure out which ones.), although frankly, I was hoping that Cole, whose every line is the equivalent of Bill Paxton’s “Game over, man!” in Aliens, would just die already.
Meanwhile, our intrepid hero is the breathy, monotone Johnny Messner, who sounds like he’s constantly auditioning for movie trailer voiceover work, and hayseed KaDee Strickland, who’s, well, no Salli Richardson. The movie fools you into thinking that there might actually be some rare black romance in the mix, but the bickering sexual tension between Richardson and Chestnut hits a snag when Chestnut gets eaten and stuff. Typical non-committal black man. Despite shallow, been-there-done-that characters and plot, the action in Anacondas is well-paced, and the special effects are good enough (rubber alligator aside) to blow 90 minutes.
And now…The many fears of Eugene Bird:
