Do not fear that you will be lost if you did not see the first “Anaconda” movie: no link here! The plot, and I use that word loosely here, is that a group of ‘scientists’ are in search of the blood orchid, a rare flower found only in Borneo that only blooms every seven years. And wouldn’t you know it, it just so happens that it is set to bloom in two weeks. So they have to act now or it’s another seven years before they’ll get the chance again!

Why would they want this flower, you ask? Well, it just so happens that the seed of flower produces a medicine that would be like a fountain of youth. They had another flower, but it dried up or something. I guess they couldn’t have grown more off the one that they had. So off to Borneo they go with dollar signs in their eyes.

You have the usual action/horror/sci-fi cast which contains no less than 10 people so you can kill off over half and still have a hero or heroine or two to spare. There was, of course, the bad jokes (a woman on an over-sized cell phone repeats “can you hear me now,” then falls off the side of the boat and someone yells to her, “Hey! Can you hear me now?”) And cheesy dialogue (“That was either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid.” “There’s a fine line.”)

There was no shortage of physical disasters; it’s the rainy season and only the white guy with the gravely voice who lives in the third world country can take them. Every time they get near a boat, it goes over a waterfall or blows up or the evil guy takes off with it. There’s a crocodile, and a deadly spider; not to mention the giant snakes whose mating season it happens to be, so they’re everywhere, except around the evil guy who runs off by himself and sees not one single snake on his own. Thank goodness for the monkey in the film, his acting saves the picture.

I do believe the movie was trying to make a point about greed, however. When the monkey, who gravely-voiced white man says has had his dinner, reaches off the boat for a piece of fruit, he is nearly eaten by one of the snakes. When gravely-voiced white man accepts money to go into very risky waters, the boat is destroyed, leaving all stranded in the jungle. And of course, the foolish pursuit of the orchid leads to so much death.

But isn’t this always the point of many of these action/horror/sci-fi flicks? I guess we all just haven’t learned our lesson yet!

But, “Anacondas” doesn’t aim to be the next Oscar contender. So I can’t find fault, really, with all the poor dialogue and unoriginal plot points. But, if you’re going to stick to formula, you should have something spectacular to make up for it: great acting, amazing special effects or a kick-ass soundtrack. At the very least, Morris Chestnut could have been shirtless even once. None of that was present here. I would have at least expected some cool deaths by snake. They weren’t that impressive.

All we can do is hope no one makes another Anaconda movie. I think I’ll go watch Python; at least Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) is in that.

Grade: C

Taryn can be contacted at tas75@comcast.net