X
- 1995
- PG-13
- Paramount Pictures
- 1 h 49 m
- 1995
- PG-13
- Paramount Pictures
- 1 h 49 m
Summary From the best seller by Michael Crichton comes an action-packed adventure filled with state-of-the-art technology and primal fear. (Paramount)
Directed By: Frank Marshall
Written By: Michael Crichton, John Patrick Shanley
- 1995
- PG-13
- Paramount Pictures
- 1 h 49 m
- 1995
- PG-13
- Paramount Pictures
- 1 h 49 m
Congo
24
5.8
Where to Watch
Summary From the best seller by Michael Crichton comes an action-packed adventure filled with state-of-the-art technology and primal fear. (Paramount)
Directed By: Frank Marshall
Written By: Michael Crichton, John Patrick Shanley
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Unfavorable
Based on 19 Critic Reviews
24
5% Positive
1 Review
1 Review
42% Mixed
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
53% Negative
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Unfavorable
Based on 19 Critic Reviews
24
5% Positive
1 Review
1 Review
42% Mixed
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
53% Negative
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
The result is not a movie that is very good, exactly, but it's entertaining and funny.
Congo is basically the old African ooga-mooga movie brought into the P.C., high-tech age.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 56 User Ratings
5.8
34% Positive
19 Ratings
19 Ratings
52% Mixed
29 Ratings
29 Ratings
14% Negative
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 56 User Ratings
5.8
34% Positive
19 Ratings
19 Ratings
52% Mixed
29 Ratings
29 Ratings
14% Negative
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
22?
Some of these critics just need to have a nice, relaxing dump.
Does not deserve such a rating. Not every movie needs to be a Stanley Kubrick masterpiece.
Avatar was a complete hack of Dances with Wolves and Ferngully with worldwide **** this kind of original popcorn fun is buried.
It's unbelievable how much some of these crotch stains love the smell of their own farts.
Rent it. This is a classic B-movie. It's not nostalgia that's guiding my view on this. This movie is still good by today's standards.
It's not as deep as Jurassic Park, but it's still a memorable flick.
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What begins as mildly intriguing stuff with some genuinely unsettling moments, quickly melts into a plot so confusing that it almost begins to look as though the editor was taking some mind-altering substance.
As if aware that Congo is the least interesting adventure ever filmed, screenwriter John Patrick Shanley (who once wrote a funny movie called "Moonstruck") tries to inoculate the activities with humor.
In stupidity, this movie ranks up there among the greats.
All I know is that something has gone terribly, drum-beatingly wrong in Congo (Paramount, PG-13), and you can sense Jungle Trouble brewing from the git-go.
Jawdroppingly bad, this adaptation of Michael Crichton's 1980 novel about a talking ape named Amy and a fabled lost city deep in the jungles of central Africa is as sophisticated in execution as a Jungle Jim movie.
[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]
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The movie is very boring. A talking gorilla is pretty cool. I actually was about to shut the movie off cause it was that boring. Then all of a sudden the movie took a awesome turn at the end. It went from a family friendly boring movie to a horror show.
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There is something weird, screwed up and interesting about this film -
it's mainly because it's the style of film that can't be made any more-
a massive blockbuster film with huge sets, but without CGI, with overtones of racism and bizarre stunts, including an entire species of gorilla being violently made extinct with a giant ad-hoc laser rifle - by the main characters. It's preposterous in all the right ways, although by the end you're truly wondering what exactly the point was. I guess, don't like diamonds? Or mess with Susan Sarandan? Perhaps.
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I have read Michael Crichton's excellent books and Steven Spielberg helped him turn one of his greatest creations "Jurassic Park" into a worldwide success in 1993. So, as you can imagine, I've never heard/seen this movie before, but what I do know is it was based on a fantastic book. With a book that good, Michael Crichton sold his film rights once again to Hollywood but it turns out that they didn't get Steven Spielberg. Instead, Frank Marshall took the project.
I've heard that the critics gave negative reviews about this movie, so I think that this movie deserves a 5/10.
Because the only good things that I found entertaining about this movie was those cool laser guns, the Animaltronics, and the actors Bruce Campbell and Ernie Hudson.
The only bad things were the unexplained plot holes, the clichÃs, the lack and style of the plot, and the poor storytelling.
It wasn't good and it wasn't bad. It was just very mediocre for a movie adaptation of a well-known Michael Chrichton book.
For adults, they won't be impressed, but for kids, it definitely worth a watch.
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In rating this film so lowly, I must endeavor to explain that everybody needs to watch Congo at least once in their life. How bad can a film about a team going to the jungle to discover a hidden city, diamonds, and return a gorilla to its home, actually be you ask? Well, in this film, a talking gorilla is far from the weirdest thing that exists. As Amy the talking gorilla (she uses sign language, which translates into words from a voice box...) is having nightmares and draws the forest, her trainers Peter (Dylan Walsh) and Richard (Grant Heslov) resolve to return her to her home in the Congo jungle. During a presentation to attempt to get research funding, a Romanian investor named Herkermer **** (Tim Curry) notices an eye in a painting by Amy that is the exact same as one in a ring he had that depicts the eye of Zinge, a lost city of King Solomon said to be overflowing with diamonds. As such, **** forks over the cash and off the go. But not so fast! A team from some communications company is already in the Congo jungle and is attacked and killed by killer apes! Karen Ross' (Laura Linney) greedy boss, set on finding diamonds to make some kind of weapon that can pierce the moon (...) dispatches her to find the missing research team and the diamonds.
From here, the film really becomes all the more insane. Up to the point described, it is merely a jungle adventure film blended with some kind of statement about capitalism at all costs. Many a good film has had a worse start. What makes Congo bad really comes later, once they leave for the Congo. Here, Amy the gorilla drinks a martini, the team fights a band of killer apes who were trained by the original diamond miners to be guard dogs only to turn on their masters, and of course the team finds the diamonds. Having killed the killer apes, the team is set to turn back, but not before Karen Ross shoots a satellite with the gun to stick it to her boss. She shot a satellite. Somehow, Congo descends from a solid adventure romp to a ludicrous science fiction film that could have only been concocted after a night of heavy drinking and even more gratuitous smoking. Yet, her shooting a satellite down without first locating it is not the most impressive marksmanship in the film. Together with Munro (Ernie Hudson), their guide, the two of them shoot down heatseeking missiles with flare guns. This is one of those movies.
Somehow, the bad in the film can only continue as Ernie Hudson and Tim Curry sport the weirdest accents in the history of film. I have no idea what they were supposed to be, but if they were supposed to be Congolese and Romanian, respectively, they missed the mark. The special effects of the gorillas are bad at the very best. And by bad, I mean that the apes in 2001: A Space Odyssey, a film that came out nearly 30 years prior, were far more realistic looking. These look like the apes one finds in a grainy shot of Bigfoot that even six-year olds can spot as being just a man in a gorilla costume. The gorilla from that really weird episode of Spongebob looks far more representative of the species than the ones found in Congo. For a primatologist, Dr. Peter Elliott has no idea he has been working with a man in a gorilla suit this entire time.
Additionally, the film is brought down further with classic 1990s cheese, from bad jokes to just generally bad dialogue. The 1990s are often plagued with attempts to recapture the glorious one-liners of the 1980s and Congo most certainly tries. Not necessarily with one-liners, but with an attempt at a witty script. Instead, it comes off as incredibly awkward and weird rather than any type of humor recognized by humans.
Following an interesting beginning and a seemingly harmless plot, Congo smokes a few too many joints on the way to the finish line and becomes an absurd and off-the-wall disaster that must be seen to truly be believed. If the thought of Laura Linney shooting down a satellite or shooting flairs at heatseeker missiles sounds like a good idea to you, it may be time to sober up.
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Awards
Razzie Awards
• 7 Nominations
Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA
• 3 Nominations
BMI Film & TV Awards
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
