A 1995 release that deserves to be ranked with exotic camp-fests like COBRA WOMAN (1944) and SHEENA (1984). What’s stunning about CONGO is that it was an expensive summer tent pole scripted by the acclaimed playwright/filmmaker John Patrick Shanley and directed by Frank Marshall (the team behind 1993’s ALIVE). Furthering the film’s pedigree was its source material, a bestselling 1980 Michael Crichton novel (whose film rights were offered to Steven Spielberg and John Carpenter), and a cast that included the acclaimed likes of Laura Linney and Tim Curry.
CONGO (1995) Trailer
A more appropriate casting choice was Bruce Campbell, who in 1995 was known primarily for low budget horror films. Campbell brings the overwrought acting style of his work in THE EVIL DEAD (1981) and its two sequels to the opening scenes of CONGO; he plays Charles, an employee of the tech giant TraviCom, on an expedition in a remote region of Africa. The object of his quest is a blue diamond that’s of some ill-explained use to TraviCom. Charles finds the diamond, and somebody’s plucked-out eyeball, at which point the video contact with his US based fellows is abruptly severed.
Tim Curry
Charles’ ex-fiancée Karen Ross (Linney), a fellow TraviCom employee, is chosen to lead a second expedition to the site of Charles’ disappearance. Along for the ride are the Romanian playboy Herkermer Homolka (Tim Curry, sporting a very unconvincing accent), the quirky primatologist Peter (Dylan Walsh) and his gorilla companion Amy, who has a machine that translates her sign language into computerized speech.
The trip begins with Karen and co. flying to Uganda, where they meet up with their travel guide Monroe (Ernie Hudson, who after Campbell fares the best acting-wise). After bribing a local warlord (an uncredited Delroy Lindo), they board a plane that gets shot down by locals whose airspace has been breached, resulting in everyone having to parachute into the jungle.
Ernie Hudson, Dylan Walsh, Laura Linney
The group makes its way via boat to the City of Zinj, where Charles and his fellows disappeared. The city, they find, is guarded by gorillas trained to be homicidal sentries by their long-dead human masters. Karen and co. manage to hold back the gorillas long enough to find the blue diamond, just as a nearby volcano erupts and floods the city with lava.
The final scenes are marked by inexcusably poor CGI that fits right in with the Stan Winston created gorillas and set design that alternates, uneasily, between ridiculously unconvincing sound stages and wide shots of actual locations, while the cinematography by Allen Daviau makes everything look like the gilded suburban vistas of E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982).
So yes, the movie is awful in most every respect, and yet I’m quite partial to it. In fact, I feel it’s one of the most successful Michael Crichton filmings. Why? Because Frank Marhsall and John Patrick Shanley fully understood the material’s inherent ridiculousness, and played it up.
As opposed to the Crichton adapted TIMELINE (2003), which dumbed down an intelligent novel, CONGO’s B-movie treatment, with its talking gorillas, plucked-out eyeballs and cut-rate scenery, is fully in keeping with its source material. Only the overly broad snatches of humor (which convinced many critics that the film was a comedy) and an overly self-aware (i.e. very 1990s) tone mar the effect.
Vital Statistics
CONGO
Paramount Pictures
Director: Frank Marshall
Producers: Kathleen Kennedy, Sam Mercer
Screenplay: John Patrick Shanley
(Based on a novel by Michael Crichton)
Cinematography: Allen Daviau
Editing: Anne V. Coates
Cast: Laura Linney, Dylan Walsh, Ernie Hudson, Grant Heslov, Joe Don Baker, Tom Curry, John Hawkes, Mary Ellen Trainor, Stuart Pankin, Carolyn Seymour, Romy Rosemont, James Karen, Jimmy Buffett, Thom Barry, Bruce Campbell, Delroy Lindo, Joe Pantoliano