Congo - (1995)

Jurassic Park is a great movie, one of my faves, a classic, and the best Michael Crichton movie. The sequels on the other hand, were lame. The Lost World: Jurassic Park was mediocre, and Jurassic Park III was *highly* mediocre, and you could feel the complete lack of caring from everyone involved. Congo, also based on a Michael Crichton novel, is not nearly as good as the first Jurassic Park, but is much more enjoyable than the sequels, and is the rare B-movie to get a wide release much to everyone’s (just mine) joy.

It’s about a talking gorilla armed with a Power Glove, a treasure hunting Eastern European Tim Curry, a former Ghostbuster (Ernie Hudson) turned smooth mercenary, and a expedition sent out by Joe Don Baker (Mitchell!) to find his son Bruce Campbell (Hail to the King) and a diamond that can power a super laser, which comes in handy against bloodthirsty 1,000 year old albino gorillas. Also, hippos that eat people…bet you didn’t know they do that.

Congo is well paced, and moves from one fun adventure moment to another. It’s dumb, and it knows it, all it cares it about is moving on to the gorilla on man action, which is the problem for most people. Everyone says the special effects for the gorillas are obviously just puppets and people in suits. And past the old albino gorillas which are supposed to look monstrous and different, yeah, all the gorillas aren’t convincing. The talking gorilla Amy is downright laughable. Except when she talks, then it’s just scary. But that’s part of the entertainment value. And don’t get me wrong, this is from Stan Winston, perhaps the greatest special effects artist of all time, he can do better, but for this movie, the dumber, the better. Many say they should’ve done CGI, to which I say “Hell no”. There’s nothing magical or charming about bad CGI, usually even good CGI. I hear a lot of people say this “ruined” the book, but the book was pretty dumb too folks, it still had evil gorillas.

Special credit goes to Ernie Hudson, who steals the show. Many people have said it before, but he’s kind of like a black Clark Gable, it’s awesome. Also, he was the coolest Ghostbuster, no debate. Also props to Tim Curry, who is incapable of not entertaining. Yeah, I recommend Congo. Just note most people hate it.