Hey, you welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob Lamb.
And I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're featuring an older episode of Weird House Cinema. This one originally published on November eleventh, twenty twenty two. And let's see, I was not on this episode. This is one that you recorded with our friend and colleague Annie Reese. This was on
the movie Congo. Oh boy, we were just talking about Congo, the weird Michael Crichton written jungle adventure movie with an animatronic gorilla, talking gorilla, and very importantly Tim Curry in just an unbelievable Peter Lorii role.
Yeah, it's a super fun film. This one came up in our recent Listener Mail episode and I was like, oh, well that was a fun episode and we've never rerun it, so we're going to rerun it here now. This one, As I recall, Annie presented a list of movies she would be open to talking about, and this was on the list. I was like, it's got to be Congo.
Laura Lenny, Ernie Hudson, Joe Don Baker, what's not to love?
Yes, all right, let's jump right in.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb and I'm Annie Reese. That's right.
Can I just jump in? Yeah?
Yeah, that's perfectly, perfectly fine. That's the way to do it. Yes, everyone, it's Annie Reese of Stuff Mom Never told you and save her. She is going to join me as my guest co host today as Joe is still very much on parental leave, and we kind of had a back and forth about what to discuss here, and eventually there was just no denying the appeal of nineteen ninety five's Congo.
I think it was my first option, and I'm very sorry if I overwhelmed you, because I do love movies. I do love bad slash weird. I don't want to put them in the same category, but I do love movies that kind of make you raise your eyebrow like huh. So when you asked, I was super excited and immediately sent you I think like fifteen suggestions, but Congo was
the first one. And I hope Joe's not mad that we're doing it without him, because I've talked about Congo with him, but it is just something that is hard to explain. And in fact, last night I was going over some of your notes and I was laughing aloud at your notes because it's just a strange film. So much of it is hard to describe, and I kind of love that about it. I'm kind of endeared by how strange it is, if that makes sense.
Yeah, it's one of those films where, oh, on one hand, I can't imagine Congo is anyone's favorite movie. No, and yet it's hard not to love, if not parts of the film or the whole film itself, you've still got to admire sort of the the guts to try and put together something like this like this was. It's like a throwback to older jungle adventure movies, but with the
high tech Michael Crichton edge to it. And I'm not sure ultimately anybody was really clamoring for this, but it's hard to argue with the fun results here.
Yes, yes, I think that's It's such a It's a movie that continually is asking you, like, well, don't ask too many questions. Just come along with this journey. We don't have to explain this. It's just going to be fun and it's it does end up being very fun, even though at the end you're like, but wait, and it just like switches genres a million times. It's never entirely clear like what it's trying to be. It's very obviously in the shadow of Jurassic Park, because it had
come out in the wake of Jurassic Park. But there's something about about so much of the acting in it that is just fullhearted despite what is going on around, like maybe even because of what is going on in the script that is just hard not to kind of it just kind of winds you over. You're like, oh, yeah, sure, let's go on this journey.
It has a lot of energy, and it has some great performers in it, who many of which really decide to chew the scenery, which I think is the right impulse for a film like this. And then yeah, the genre I wouldn't I won't say it's necessarily a genre confusion, but there are elements of this movie that are kind of monster film and perhaps even seem like they might venture into horror. But there's also plenty of stuff that's just kind of this old fashioned, essentially like a jungle
cruise kind of adventure. And if you go in just hungry for the killer gorillas. You get a little bit at the beginning, and then you got to wait a long time before you get back to them.
I think I read I read an article that said, if you're for a movie that was like promising killer gorillas, you only really get them at the one hundred minute mark, just constantly like but wait where okay?
But then they they and then the ultimate I guess. Yeah, they're not on screen a lot, but there are a lot of gorillas on screen when they are on screen, so you do get to see a lot of really amazing gorilla costumes. And I'm a sucker. I'm a sucker for a bad gorilla costume. You bring a great gorilla costume, and I'm totally on board.
Yes, and I if you would allow me, I would love to tell the very complicated story of how I saw congo.
Oh, let's hear it.
Yes, okay, okay, So come along with this journey like this is oh so I One of the first movies I ever saw in theaters was Jurassic Park. I snuck into the theater. I was like three or four. I should not have been there, and I had a nightmare about Raptors. That night, I couldn't hide that I had seen this movie because it became very clear. So I got in very big trouble for it. But I loved the movie, and after that I became Once I got older, I read a lot of Michael Crichton. I really liked sphear.
I think my interest was sort of reignited in the two thousand's after Lost, because there was a big loss theory about the book Prey. Yeah, so I started reading it again, and somehow Congo never entered this year. I
did not know it was written by Michael Crichton. I because I'm kind of a gullible and sometimes terrible at deciphering sarcasm, had been told that Congo was an Oscar winning movie and like best Film level, okay, So I thought it was going to be this really dramatic sade on I don't know, diamonds and or gorillas in Africa, which, by the way, that is one thing that does not age well in this movie. So I was preparing it for it to be a really emotional, sad film, and
because of that I had put it off. I'd put off seeing it for years and years and years, still not knowing it's Michael Crichton, and so at the beginning of the pandemic, when it's like, oh gosh, I'm just gonna have to start, I'm gonna stream everything because that's what I that's what I have to only love to me to do. I was with a friend of mine, a very very good friend of mine, and I was like, you know what, tonights the night I'm gonna I'm gonna do Congo, I'm gonna stream it. I'm gonna be sad
and it's gonna be great. And I So we kept putting it off even into the night, and so it was like two am, and I was kind of tipsy, and I started watching it, and she went. She went to lay down in a room next to me so she could still hear me, but she wasn't watching it.
So what follows was me desperately trying to make sense in my head about how this could be a Best Picture Oscar movie and me shouting at Katie like, oh my god, Tim Curry showed up and he's got some accents I can't explain, and her being like what and me being like, oh my gosh, there's a talking gorilla and it likes Martini's what's going on? And just like
my brain desperately trying to make this make sense. And I think it's a real testament to like what you think a movie is when you go into it, of how hard I was trying to well there's I mean, surely it's something. I'm maybe I'm missing something or and so I it wasn't until the lasers lasering of the gorillas at the end that I was finally like, I'm I'm not sure this movie won any all screws. Then when they escape in the hot air balloon, I was like, O, Katie,
they're in a hot air balloon. I don't think I don't think this was an award winning movie at all. And so then I desperately like go online and I search what is this movie? And to my delight, I found several several articles about it that were like exactly that, what is this movie? And I read them all and then I said, we are watching this again, and I
need you to witness what I just saw. So it was like only a couple of years ago I saw it, and I just it still left such a mark on me because I was the whole time, what is going on here?
Oh wow, that's so. Yeah. If you go into into the film Congo expecting one of those, and then there were I believe several like serious films that came out at least in the decade follow dealing with serious dramatic scenarios in Africa. This is this is not one of them. No, but I can imagine, Yeah, you're surprised when these various speculative and fantastic elements begin to pop up.
Oh my gosh, the hot air ballue. It's the funniest part to me is that I made it all the way to that part before I was finally like, something's off here. I think I've been told a lie about what it is.
Oh wow, that is that's amazing. So the second viewing you had that was the one where you went in having full knowledge of what Congo was and what you're going to get out of it.
Yes, and now I've seen it several several times, and it's kind of a tradition, a tradition with me and some friends that we watch it and mostly we just are like, look at what Tim Curry is doing, because he's really, like you said, a lot of the actors are chewing up the scenery. Him and Ernie Hudson are just it feels like they're having a good time. And yeah, I hope so, because they it's it's shining through and it's so fun to just watch them have that fun.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to talking more about about Ernie Hudson in a bit because it is a great Ernie Hudson role, perhaps his best role. It's amazing. Now my history with Congo it very much connected to Jurassic Park, you know, because nineteen ninety three, Jurassic Park comes out in theaters. I think I was fourteen at that point, and like a lot of kids of that age in that time period, like instantly you're in on Michael Crichton books.
You pick up a copy of Jurassic Park, you read that, and they both provide very similar but slightly differing experiences. And I remember my dad had read and was reading some Michael Crichton at the time, so we kind of had that to bond over, and I read I read a series of them at the time. I think I read Fear, which I think I've mostly forgotten, Eaters of the Dead, which I enjoyed a lot, and then the nineteen eighty novel Congo, which of course is the basis
for this film. So looking back on it, I think I was drawn in more to the more fantastic of the Michael Crichton books, the ones that involve dinosaurs coming back from the dead, cannibal cavemen attacking vikings, and of course this wonderful tale of strange lost gorillas and lost cities in the jungle and superpowered lasers.
Of course, and diamonds that somehow, you know, that's one of my other favorite parts of this movie. And I am a big sucker for this period of technology where I experienced it. I grew up with it, but it feels so outdated and kind of like wonky now, and
it's clear that, like the understanding wasn't entirely there. So I love the plot line of just like, don't ask too many questions, but this diamond is how we're going to revolutionize commune occasions technology and it is necessary for satellites.
Yeah, the techno aspect of the film is it's one of the aspects of Michael Crichton's work that I think tended to set a lot of his stuff apart, especially from this period of his writing, because he had a real knack for like adventure and thriller stories, but then would bring in this level of technology and technological speculation, and yeah, it made things feel more alive at the time. Some of it maybe it has not aged as well, just because that's how that's how cutting edge sci fi works.
As you eventually reach the period where you read Neuromancer again and you're like, whoa, they're sending faxes. That doesn't feel very cyberpunk, but it's just talid cos.
Yeah, and I do love it. I mean, there's so many parts of this movie where it is very fun, which again I'll use that word a lot because I do think Congo is a very fun movie to look back at the technology and just smile to yourself and be like, well, it was a different time and they were trying.
Yeah, it's I mean, this is a pretty pricey film. I don't think it's the most expensive film that we've watched on Weird House, but it's up there. It was a big summer blockbuster, and the weird thing is that it was successful. I understand it, maybe not critically, but
it made money at the box. I was people went out and saw it and they enjoyed it, and yet it is It is the right level of blockbuster where it is sort of culturally forgotten by a lot of people, which allows someone like you to come around later and go into it not knowing exactly what you're going to get out of it. Yeah.
Such a lot of the articles I read before this, a lot of people said that, like, people are rediscovering Congo and asking the same questions I did after watching it. And it is interesting because, as you said, people saw it and it had a huge marketing push, huge marketing push. From what I understand, I think there was a quote from one of the somebody higher up the film that he basically said, anybody who doesn't see Congo is a
terrible person or something like. They were really really hyping this, and I'm surprised that. Yeah, it just I guess people were like, sure there was this talk and Gorilla, let's move on to another thing. But now people are rediscovering it and it is it's just a ride. I'm excited for any listeners who haven't seen it to just describing
the plot. That was one of the most fun things that night when I was watching it the first time and just shouting these random phrases to my friend in the other Boom, like I had to share it with her because this is so bizarre to explain to someone.
Yeah, it's it's the story behind it is kind of bizarre too. I was reading a little bit about this. Like, one thing we have to keep in mind is that coming back to nineteen eighty the period that the book comes out, So by the late seventies, Michael Crichton was all already a big name, both with books but also
with movies. We'll get into that in a bit, but the story goes that he had this idea to do a modern King Solomon's Minds type movie, a modern jungle adventure but updated for modern audiences with lots of you know, Michael Crichton technos stuff in it. And twentieth Century Fox loved it. In fact, they loved it so much as they signed him to a contract to write the novel, the screenplay, and direct it before there was even a book.
He signed. But then he got massive writer's block and had to use an isolation tank to overcome it, and that is where Congo comes from. It emerges from the isolation tank.
That makes sense. That makes sense, And he had some really this original take on the film that he was going to do sounds like it was going to be extremely different, and also kind of gave me the vibes of like, how is this going to get made? How are we going to translate this story to a movie?
Mm hmm, yeah, And I think there were there were some some issues early on, just like how would you create like the gorillas. And I think one of the reasons they ended up making it, They're like, well, we've done Jurassic Park, now we can do anything. Let's make cgi gorillas. And I think it didn't take them long to realize that that a that wasn't really achievable, mainly
because of the fur issue. But then also I think they encountered something that that that filmmakers have have sort of have to rekeep reminding them, and that is gorilla suits absolutely work. The gorilla suits are great. You get a good physical actor in there who can move around properly, and and it's amazing. It totally. In fact, it works so well. You know you'll encounter films like say, hell Boy.
I remember seeing some behind the scenes stuff with Giamo del Toro who was talking about creating these like secondary demon monsters that hell Boy battles, and he was like, well, Bay, we said, let's start with a gorilla suit and let's just monster it out. Make it not a gorilla but a demon. But performance wise, it's essentially a gorilla suit because that absolutely works. Yeah.
Yeah, that's really interesting because I do think and I just watched a documentary about this the other day about special effects, and I do think it's interesting that like Jurassic Park was such this like touchstone in terms of technology what we can do, and it was a lot in a lot of ways, like they had so many practical things, but they also had CGI, and so I think there was a lot of like, well maybe CGI sounds cooler, like this technology is newer, so much must
be better. And I think that we have seen and have talked about, like CGI is obviously gotten a lot better since then, but in those early days especially, there was something better. It worked better to have these gorilla suits as opposed to trying to do something with CGI. Like there Stan Winston who was behind it, like he he created these and I don't think I think it would have been much worse if they had tried to go a different route, especially because as we're going to
talk about there. I can't say it enough. This gorilla like drinks some martini. Oh yeah, Like we can't. I think if they had tried to see gi some of this stuff, or gone a different way than gorilla suits, then it would be funnier in a way that they absolutely didn't intend. There are certain scenes in this movie where I'm like, I can't tell if you meant for this to be funnier or not.
Yeah, but they had got on cgi gorillas, it would be an entirely different piece. Because there's plenty of stuff about this film that does feel dated, be it the sort of high tech stuff or the general like nineteen ninety five sheen that is over everything, and like the film doesn't have like a visual vision. I guess that really supersedes that ninety fiveness of the whole picture. But the gorilla suits amy that they all look very real.
You still buy them like they hold up, even if there are other aspects of the film that don't.
It's true, it's true.
So but before we go move on to the trailer, and one more thing I want to add is that, yeah, I very much remember enjoying the book. I did read the book first, on this one. It's full of a lot of traditional jungle adventure story elements, but with the added laser technology that's very much in there, it does get progressively weirder as you end up learning more about these mysterious gray apes and this lost city. And I think a lot of this ties into some elements of
essentially what was kind of darwin'sploitation fiction of Yesteryear. We see this in in the works of HP Lovecraft's facts concerning the late author German J. E. R. N y N, but also Sir Arthur Cunnan Doyle. He had one of the Sherlock Home adventures called The Adventure of the Crooked Man.
And then there's also it's also worth noting that the Lovecraft tale in question kind of links back to an Edgar Rice Burrough story from nineteen sixteen titled Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, which also seems very It seems like it was probably a primary inspiration on Michael Crichton here, because it concerns a lost city and it also concerns
a group of human ape hybrids that protect it. And all of these films, I mean, all these stories that I just mentioned, they all have elements of human ape hybridity and strange things, strange apes and sort of evolution tinged danger.
Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. And I do have a quote I want to read at the end, but somebody was reviewing it and was just asking, like the monstrous gray apes in this, if you dig too deep into why they exist, it doesn't really make sense.
No, no, it.
Doesn't really make sense at all. But that's true. Yeah, that kind of evolution gone wrong, or maybe like even our fears around evolution and even some of those past perhaps scared stories and sometimes not scared stories of experiments done with humans and apes and like the Soviet Union and stuff like that, but then you always had kind of the comedic tinge of you know, Harrying the Hintersons, Like there was a lot going on in that genre act.
We are in that kind of specific idea. So that's interesting.
All right, Well, it is again a jungle adventure movie, but with satellites and lasers. Let's go ahead and hear that fabulous mid nineties trailer audio Activate the remote.
In the race for the world's most advanced communications technology, a shocking discovery has been made.
Block You're remote, give me a thermal reading result of six six.
Relatively, it will take two young scientists into the heart of the African jungle. A secret hidden for two thousand years owns the.
Key to the future. This is Karen Ross eight one four five two Houston.
Do you read you used to work for the CIA, and now you're trafical. Some will come to it for science.
The delts.
This is a big five. Some for fortune and diamond line of incredible bounty, and some to return home. She doesn't really belong anywhere to No, she belongs here.
Together they will search my boss.
You thought I wasn't gonna make it. We sent another expedition, drawn deep into a mystery castroyed people dead, great gorilla gorilla. I saw one.
And the more they discover the same aheroglyphics, over and over, the greater the danger. What did they say, we are watching you?
You never saw an animal.
Move like that? How intelligent are they?
Smart?
The two damn spots.
We're getting out of here them put them on the.
Danger species left.
From the best selling novel by the author of Jurassic.
Art fil.
Of The feel Isn't true.
Congo, Where you are the endangered species?
See it sounds like it's gonna be an adventure. It sounds like something that you're gonna you're gonna buy a lot of popcorn and cola for and you just just try not to pee the entire time.
There's a part of me that wishes I had seen I think if I had seen the trailer and had no idea about the movie, I wish I I I'm jealous I didn't get to have that experience. I suppose because it's actually having seen it. It's a pretty accurate trailer. I was expecting something cheesier, to be honest, but it could be because I've seen Congo a lot by now, so it didn't have exactly the as much of the
strangeness and dated vibe that I thought it would. And it does feel very much like, Yeah, this is popcorn movie. Come out and enjoy your popcorn, have fun, then go and home and forget about it.
I guess yeah. I don't know that much of the film really stuck with me. In fact, there are elements of the film that I remembered as being different because of the book, Like I just ended up assuming that the parts of the book were were accurately depicted in the film, and so I just remembered the film as having those details, and we'll come back to what those
are in a bit. But if you are looking to have your first Congo experience, or your first Congo experience in decades, well, lucky for you, Congo is widely available, even if it's partially forgotten, as much as a blockbuster can be forgotten. I watched it on a very old feeling DVD that I rented from Video Drum here in Atlanta.
There is a Blu ray from twenty fourteen and in their HD digital cop you can rent or purchase online, but I don't think it's received a full blown special edition, so there are no like real Congo extras out there floating around, which seems weird.
It does. I couldn't really get a good grasp on that I own the DVD because I never wanted to be without it after that first time watching it. But it is one of those things where I honestly feel like most of the cast gave it there all they really did, but it's it's also got the vibe of like, okay, we did that, let's not talk about it anymore. I do know Ernie Hudson has said he would reprise his role as Monroe. Oh that would be me, I know, but I'm not sure, like if there's any talk at
all about a sequel. I just know he said that he would do that. But yeah, and like you said, it was it was financially successful, but I think it wasn't because of the critical review, which was not good if we didn't make clearer but I think we did, but it was not good because of that, And I don't think it did as well as they wanted, even though it did way better than it should have. Given the reviews, I think they've just sort of, yeah, put
that one up on the shelf. Let's just forget that that happened.
Yeah, it is. Speaking of reviews, I had to revisit Roger Ebert's review for the film because it's a pretty fun review. It's a three star review, to be clear, so he didn't he didn't go beyond three stars on it. But it's also kind of a glowing review of the film, Like he has a lot of very nice things to say about it and some of the performances. So I'll call back to that review a couple of times in a bit.
Yeah, I read that to you and I was amused by because I was expecting it to be negative, but he kind of seemed to, I hesitate to say get it because I mean, he kind of seemed to be like, you know, this is just it's a fun movie. It's got its issues, but I had a good time watching it.
Yeah, Ebert would would definitely fall on that line for various film reviews if it was just the right type of kind of weird film or pulpy film, like he would, he would view it favorably. So yeah, I find myself agreeing with Ebert a lot on certain films. All Right, well let's get into some We've discussed some of the people already, but just to go through the list, and I think some of these will, especially behind the scenes names, will help us sort of make sense of like what
Congo is. And I think, you know, pointing out that Frank Marshall born nineteen forty six is both the director and the executive this feels kind of key because Marshall primarily known as a major Hollywood producer, and while he's not involved in the current Star Wars stuff with his wife, he's still very much a part of the Indiana Jones franchise, the Jurassic Park franchise, which of course keeps coming back to life and emerging from eggs various other film and
TV projects. His direct as a director's output has been far smaller. But I think this is perhaps key, Like if we think of the blockbuster as as not just a film, not just like a piece of art, but this sort of colossal business project. Congo I think does kind of feel like that, Like, can you fault the fact that the Congo exists as a finished film and made more money than it costs? You know, it seems to have been a financial success. It checks off all
the boxes. You can't really fault it for that. You might fault it for vision, You might say, well, you know, it has this kind I've seen people point out what has kind of a like a TV almost look to it. It doesn't feel suitably cinematic enough, et cetera. But there's no faulting it from a business perspective.
Yeah, yeah, I mean it had all the ingredients there. And I do think the timing of this is important to keep in mind too, because again, it was a time when technology was shifting, when what people had access to in terms of technology was shifting when what people could do in terms of creating things with technology was shifting.
So I think it very much was a product of its time in that way where you know, the idea of the blockbuster had been around since the seventies, but it had kind of become a here's how you do
it by that point. But it also had these pieces that were changing in terms of the technology especially, So it is interesting to me that they did stick with the gorillas and suits, but also having these people that had been involved in one way or another in this type of blockbuster business, as you say, because they did very much a business. It's it's seeing what came out of that because there are pieces. I feel like, this
is one of the things about Congo is there. It's all there, but it's almost like they weren't matched or they were like leaning in too hard at in this comedic way at one point and too hard in this way. Like it was kind of like a blockbuster, but not
one that was uniform, if that makes sense. Yeah, Like there was a lot going on where they're like, oh, let's try this, let's try this, let's try this, which all can work in a blockbuster, but they did it from almost like three or four different blockbusters and kind of trying to jam it together.
Yeah, and I can see you might might chalk that up to Marshall and like, like, what's the director's vision for it, and how much of what works in the film is ultimately coming from all of the people who give it. They're all for this performance, of this bit of the special effects. But still at the end of the day, like Marshall is the one. He's landing the plane here, he's the one bringing the ship to port.
So yeah, it's certainly have to give him credit to all Right, Well, Michael Crichton we already mentioned him a bit already, but lived nineteen forty two through two thousand and eight. Probably one of the best known novelists of the late twentieth century, and his work continues to resonate, at least with some of the franchises that he helped establish, particularly Jurassic Park in Westworld.
Yes, and I loved I loved Drastic Park, and I read all of those books, and it is very because i'd seen the movie first, and reading Drastic Park after you've seen the movie, and Lost World after you've seen the movie, it is a lot more there's a lot more attention to detail, a lot more technology, a lot more science, which I guess that makes sense in terms of what can trance to film, especially a blockbuster film,
and what can be in a book. But that was something that was interesting to me when I went back and read those books, was Oh, wow, this is a lot more detailed in terms of how this would actually work.
Yeah.
Yeah.
As a novelist, he wrote several novels under pen names in the late nineteen sixties, but then he published The Andromeda Strain that came out in nineteen sixty nine under his own name, and this propelled him into bestseller status. Very listed some of his big novels, but he also entered into the film world pretty early, directing and writing five films between nineteen seventy three and nineteen eighty four, West World, Coma, The Great Train Robbery based on his
book Looker, and Oh are you familiar with Runaway? I'm Not Runaway is this stupendous film that stars Tom Selleck as like a cop who specialty is hunting down killer robots that are the work of the diabolical roboticist played by Gene Simmons of Kiss and I mean, that's already enough. You got a that's a lot just going on visually with these two actors. But the tiny robots in question, So don't don't think like black Mirror asks scary killer robot.
These things look like something you would see in a nineteen eighties special about the future of robots. You know, these are about as scary as the little robot that came with the original Nintendo system that puts the spinning discs on the controller.
Oh wow, you have sold me.
Yeah, so it's worth it's worth coming back to. But he also he also wrote nineteen seventy three is Extreme Close Up. He directed the nineteen eighty Bert Reynolds movie Physical Evidence. He didn't write that one, but that was his final directing credit. And yeah, Michael Crichton again, I feel like, you know, some of his works may feel a bit dated tech wise now, but a lot of it still holds up and it's still very enjoyable. But he did not write the screenplay. The screenplay credit goes
to John Patrick Shanley. And this, I don't know if this actually played into your expectations of being a serious nighted film, but I could see where it might have because this is a big name.
I don't I'm not familiar with it, with his name. I'm glad to know that there could have been a legitimate reason other than me misunderstanding what I think was just a sarcastic joke. So I will take that lifeline that you're throwing me, but please tell me.
More well to just think of it this way. You're going into Congo, and you well, especially as a modern viewer of Congo or a recent viewer of Congo, you might well go into it and think, well, this is written by the guy who won an Academy Award for writing nineteen eighty seven's moons Truck. This is the guy who won both a Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a Tony Award for Best Play in two thousand and five
for Doubt a Parable. He Andy also wrote Joe Versus the Volcano Alive and the nineteen eighty three animated film Were Back a Dinosaur Story. But still a number of big films there that, especially when you're when you're looking at the credentials here, I could and if if this is the only name you recognize going into the film, you might think it's going to be more of a more of a drama.
I wonder if they I'll have to go back and look. I wonder if they include that, you know how, sometimes they'll be like and coming from this award winning writer, maybe they did include that, and I was like, ah, the proof.
I think I've seen his name, and I've watched several of the trailers and I'm not exactly sure which one of them we ended up sourcing here in the episode, but at least some of the trailers mentioned him by name, so I think they were very much like, Hey, you liked Moonstruck, Well, I hope you like Killer Apes because Congo is coming to theaters.
But for a couple like twenty minutes you have to wait get a taste in the beginning.
But otherwise, well, let's get into the cast here, because, as we mentioned earlier, our lead here, our lead star, as well as the lead character, is doctor Karen Ross, played by the fabulous Laura Lenny Yes.
Who I love and probably and this might be saying something about me, I don't know, but I know her best from the Mothman Prophecies. Oh really that movie, which I know is not. She is a great actor and has done like amazing award winning work, and she did a great job in that movie. But that is the thing. When I was a kid, I loved that movie. I w watch it all the time.
I remember very little that I think that's one that was kind of on in the background for me. So I just remember scenes of Richard gear like standing in the dark, and there was a bridge, and there may be being not as much Mothman as I thought there would be.
There is very little moth Man. This is true. I am somebody who does enjoy as much as I've been making fun of Congo, I actually do really enjoy like kind of like mystery. They would do like flashes of Mothman, and if you'd like paused at the right time, you'd be like, there is Like I liked that kind of stuff a lot, so I think it worked for me, and it did really scare me. I'm a very imaginative, still am person, so I think I got I got
all up in my head about Mothman. There was a screeching owl outside my window, and I was convinced it was moth Man like, and yet I do like scary movies, so I would watch it over and over again. Even though it did scare me.
Well. At the time of this movie came out, Laara Lenny, I think was best known for Tales of the City and also some smaller role in various films. But of course she's gone on to I mean, I think a lot of people now know her for stellar performances in series like Ozark, John Adams, the movie Kinsey and many more.
Like you said, she's she's a terrific actor. She's only gotten better as of course, she's gotten better roles because I guess when you come down to it, even though this is the lead character, this is the she's got the starring role here, and she does get a lot to do a lot of heroic stuff. But she's a she's a tech expert, she's a CIA operative. There. You know, she's looking essentially for well not a lost love but a former love who is now lost in the jungle
and possibly dead. So it's not like there's no you know, dramatic material to sink her teeth into here. But also like how much room does Congo really give her to do that?
Yes, but like I said, I feel that these actors really did give it their all and she did, and I oh yeah, watching it as a modern viewer who didn't really know what this was, but I knew it was from nineteen ninety five. And I know we're gonna talk about this in the plot because I have a
lot of thoughts about it. But I did find it really fascinating that she was a woman who was an XCIA operative, She was badass, she had They like tried to make this romance between her and the other like main male character that's not Ernie Hudson, who we're gonna talk about, but they never tried too hard, which I find really interesting and I do. I really do enjoy that her Bruce Campbell very brief cameo who was her ex fiance. It seems like they still care about each
other even though they're exes. Like there's just a lot of interesting stuff that women, unfortunately in general, don't get, especially in the kind of these blockbuster action roles like that I did really enjoy, and I I really love her and Ernie Hudson together being kind of like we're running this whole thing. That's one of my very favorite parts. So yeah, the role didn't give her like she can do so much more than that, and it was pretty
limited in terms of what she could do. But I did like that she had these pieces and again are unfortunately pretty rare for a woman in a role like that, especially at this time.
Now, she does have at least one really nice scene with the top build male actor in the film, and that's Dylan Walff playing Peter Elliott. He's our primatologist who works with Amy, the talking gorilla born nineteen sixty three.
They do at least have one really nice scene together on the airplane where we were sort of we see doctor Elliott's whole deal with Amy, and now she's on board and Amy is like jealous of her presence, and so there's kind of a spat back and forth about not only like how we sort of like how we treat the natural world and animals, but also like what is the purpose of this mission? And it's just a nice little scene on the airplane. There's nothing really action based going on.
Yeah, Yeah, I do love the Oh gosh, I can't wait to talk about Amy, but I do love this kind of jealousy she has around Laura Leni's character doctor Ross and just parsing that is a fun thought exercise.
Now, now, Dylan Walsh, he's fine in this I'm not going to knock his performance at all, and in fact, it's kind of nice that it's a performance that allows this character to fade into the background a bit and not feel like he's an action hero that just just kind of pushed to the background by the plot. Like his role is there as Amy's kind of like father
figure and fulfills that really well. This is an actor mostly of television, including the Hearts and Minds episode of the nineties Outer Limits, which I'm not sure I've seen but looks rather good. He also appeared in such films as the two thousand and nine reboot of The Stepfather in two thousand and six's of the Lake House, again perfectly likable in this film. Yeah, no complaints, I agree.
I also think it's I like when we give the so called heroes of something where they don't have to be physical or like their heroism. Isn't that aspect? So I actually, do you really enjoy that he has some lines where he delivers them so well in their terrible lines, like at one point he says, I'm a primatologist, not a pound of sugar, Like there's only so much he could have done as well, And I love that line. It is very funny to me. But I'm sure as an actor, you read.
That and you're like, who Okay, yeah, it's I guess it's kind of a thankless job in some respects, like just to have an actor leats who your role is to is to at times make challenging lines believable, make this character believable, but in doing so, he's inevitably going to fade into the background. Compared to the more outrageous characters such as Ernie Hudson's Captain Monroe Kelly. Oh, this this character, this performance just absolutely rules.
He delivers every line where you're like, I just want I just want you, I just want this whole movie to be you. Yeah, does it so well. He's so like charming and confident and just like overall unflustered even when he is flustered. Like one of his favorite lines for me is when he says so to me, hilariously, I run away because he runs away from a charity gorilla, and I just love that. I love that he kind of embraces even after he told Dylan Watch's character like,
you don't run away, but he did it. I don't know. There was a lot of subversions with him that I very much enjoyed, and just the way he seemed to be having the time of his life with his character, it made it very enjoyable to watch this performance.
Yeah, this is one of those performances where every little thing he does is so entertaining. Like there's this there's a scene in the movie where they're just handing out little air conditioning units for the tents and he accepts one, and it's it's it's great, Like nothing is happening in the scene except Captain Monroe Kelly accepted an air conditioning unit, and it was it was so charming.
Yes, yeah, So much of what he did he clearly like made the as an actor went through and made the like fun decision or the decision like he thought about his character. And so there's a lot of time times things are you just are like, oh, I pick up this air conditioning unit, but he like thought about it and acted it and made it fun and memorable.
Like so much of his character is that. And there's so many lines he he has that he delivers in a way that is I mean, he just immediately makes you blank him like it's just like, oh, this so interesting and cool. And I love when Dylan wash Washer's character has a leechkiness, which I'm sure we're going to talk about, but he's just Captain Monroe Kelly is just like you deal with it. It's your leech.
Cigar cigarette.
Yes, when he sees Amy, he just immediately is like, sure, this gorilla wants something to smoke. Okay, he puts like pills in her. There's just something about him that rolls with the punches and does it in a way that looks very cool, and it's very.
Charming, very cool, very charming. In Ebert's review, he did he seemed to really love this performance as well, and he points out that like there's a little bit Clark Gable to this performance. There's a little bit Stuart Granger. It's a droll performance, and the character has both sardonic detachment but also heroic courage. So he's you know, he's,
he's he's kind of right there in the middle. He's he's he's kind of a rogue, but not not to the point where you're like, can we trust Captain Monroe Kelly. They're not playing that game with this character. And yeah, he has he has his flaws, but they're not tragic flaws. He just a delight to watch on screen the whole time.
Yeah, and that is one thing that Congo did that I can't really get a grasp on if they did intentionally all the time. But they did subvert a lot of like action movie tropes in particular. I mean they leaned into a lot of it, but a lot of it they did. They took things in a way I wasn't expecting. So there's this towards the end where very reminiscent of Jurassic Park, where Doctor Ross is like, I'm going in this temple. I'm going in. Give me a gun,
give me a radio. I'm going and Monroe Kelly has it. He's like, no, no, no, it's not safe, you know, implied like for a woman, I'll do it. And then he pauses for like a little second, and there's like, but I'm also scarce, and he gives me the gun, he gets the radio, and they go in together like I'm not going in a lot like they have so many fun moments like that where you're expecting it to
go one way and it doesn't. And I think for this character where it is there's a little bit of confusion about who's supposed to be the traditional hero, and he sort of emerges as more of the like strong leader that we typically align with hero. I like that it's sort of more spread out with these characters, that it's not just one. But he does have those kind of moments where he's not like, he's like, no, you're coming with me, I'm afraid to go in there too.
Like I like it that he just acknowledges that I don't know. It is a very fun performance to watch, for sure.
Now Ernie Hudson's been in just so many things since I think the mid nineteen seventies, but of course he's probably most famous as being Winston z Moore from the Ghostbusters franchise. He was in The Crow, He was in such TV series as Oz and The Family Business. But yeah, I've seen him point out that this was one of his favorite performances, if not his favorite performance that he got to give.
M M.
All right. Now we've already mentioned him, but we also have Tim Curry in this role playing Herkimer Homolka oh Man. This is the role that Ebert described as the Peter laure role, and I think that's I think it's pretty accurate. This is the kind of role Peter Laurie would have played in a jungle adventure movie like this, the mysterious European figure with suspicious morals and aims, and Curry the legend that Tim Curry is. Of course, he just breathed so much life into this scoundrel.
Yes, oh my gosh, I think I have done at least one viewing where I just watched Tim Curry the entire time, and he is like in the background, acting his ass off, Like they're like the scene where they first get to Africa and Eddie Ventro, who all talk about like is talking about how much Amy is worth. He lowers his glasses and has the most like starstruck shocked look. I mean he's not even the focus of the scene, Like he's just back there doing his thing.
He's got the most unexplainable accent that he just leans into so hard. And he has some of my favorite lines where he's like that Gorilla knows where the lost City of Zinge is, like he just, oh, there's something about it that he elevated a thing, like he was like, you know what, I'm gonna really lean into this suspicious Romanian philanthropist going around the world and doing good. Who really wants to find this los city of Zinge, Like it's beautiful.
Oh yeah, he the accent, yes, is quite a mouthful. That's that's definitely worth noting. But but yeah, there's so many little moments, but then he gets those big moments too, like when they finally enter the Lost City of Zinge and he gets to just be star eyed and wonder at all. And I think he has a line like the myth of the killer the gorilla is true, you know, and it's it's so wonderful.
Yes, oh my gosh. And I do love about him, like he's the villain absolutely, but he's also kind of the like bumbling, wide eyed, confused villain in a way you don't see too often.
Yeah, Like he's in way over his head. I think the key aspects of it.
He's constantly kind of like wide eyed and confused and concerned his money flow is always getting interrupted, which I very much enjoyed. There's just something that feels kind of unique about his take on this very stereotypical, mysterious European villain that is pretty funny. It's funny to see him out of his depth, out of his league, and I love how everybody knows who he is.
Everybody's like, oh, this guy, Yeah, don't trust him.
You can't trust this guy what you're doing. Everyone who encounters especially once they get to Africa, everyone there is familiar with him, and he does not have a good reputation. No, Now, what can we say about Tim Curry? I mean, obviously a legend born nineteen forty six. Is probably one of his most famous roles is, of Course, doctor Frankenfurter Are from the Rocky Horror Picture Show back in nineteen seventy five. He was in the original stage version as well. He
was Wadsworth and eighty five's Clue. He was the demon Darkness in nineteen eighty five's Legend. Other memorable films include Annie, the nineteen ninety adaptation of Yet, of Course, in which he played Pennywise, the dancing clown. And he's also done a lot of great voice work over the years, including the Pirates of Dark Water and season five and six of Star Wars The Clone Wars, in which he took over the role of Palpatine slash Darth Sidius after the
passing of Ian Ambercrombie. Ambercrombie was pretty terrific in that role. But Curry he also brought his own level of greatness to that voice role as well.
Yeah, yeah, I think he's really really great at imbuing so much character, so with like one line, he can do it. So I often joke like, if somebody could win an Oscar for one line, I would give it to Tim Curry from hobolone two for how he says pizza ever pronounced that word before? Because he's that's two below him, Like, he does so much of that stuff where he expresses so much with his voice and how he delivers lines.
What is he doing in home alone too? I don't remember he's.
The concient He should have won an Oscar for that role. I like only half kidding, but he does that. He does that so well where he that was a minor role, but to me, like, I remember so much of how he delivered that line, that one word, and it communicated so much about that character. And I also I loved him and these are this is a reflection of my childhood. I loved him in a Muppet Treasure Island, Yes, and Wild Thornberry's. He was a voice in the Wild thorn Berries.
That's right, Yeah, So He's done a lot, a lot of stuff like that, and I just, yeah, there's so many Like if if we wanted this episode to be basically just as quoting the movie, so much of it would just be me like loving Tim Curry's delivery of these often very hilarious lines. I love it. I love it.
Those are some of the main actors involved here. But we're going to roll through some of the other ones. Maybe it may be a little quicker on some of these because there's less to say about them. But I thought I was gonna skip over this one. But Richard, the secondary primatologist, is played by Grant Heslov born nineteen sixty three. He's done a lot of acting over the years, but he's primarily known as a producer. He's a long time collaborator with George Clooney. Yeah, and he's fine in this,
no problems there. I think he's killed by guerrilla eventually, like most.
In the film.
Oh and then we have Jodn Baker in the film. Jodn Baker born nineteen thirty six plays RB Travis Baker, of course, loud Texan actor who is perfect in this as the enraged, just comedically greedy head of a massive media corporation to his son. Right, This is like Bruce Campbell's character is his son who is suddenly missing and presumed murdered by gorillas in the jungle, and all he
can think about is those diamonds. We got to get those diamonds, and I mean that's all and he just rages the whole He's not on the screen a lot, but when he's there, he's swinging golf gloves at computer screens, He's yelling at Laura Lenny. Just a completely hate heable character.
Yes, he also has many alignments that I'm like, I'm impressed with how much you gave this because it's not that great of a line. But one of my favorites is I can be human later. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, just just a caricature of a of like a media corporation head. But yeah, as a charac caricature, it's very well done. Baker, of course, has an impressive filmography going all the way back to the mid sixties. He did a lot of TV work, but he hit it big time in nineteen seventy three. He's Walking Tall. Some of his more memorable films and Flu nineteen seventy five's Mitchell nineteen eighty four's Final Justice, eighty five's Fletch. Oh,
then we get into the James Bond era. He's one of those guys that has the has the honors of playing two different characters in different Bond films. So he was in nineteen eighty seven's The Living Daylights, where I think he's a villain, but then he's also in both GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies playing a different character who's on the good guy side of things.
Yeah, good for him.
Jodan Baker. Okay, now we've mentioned Amy, the talking gorilla, who is just one of the greatest characters certainly in this film, and maybe you could make a role for like nineteen ninety Cinema as a whole. Oh indeed, Now this is a role that, again, like all the gorillas in this film, they are brought to life via fabulous gorilla costumes but also tremendous physical performances within the costume. And I believe they're two different individuals. Credited. One is
Lola no born nineteen seventy two. Credited is playing Amy, the first of two short statured actors credited with the role. I think she's been more active as a producer, but the other is Misty Rosis born nineteen seventy three, and Roses is a wonderful performer responsible for bringing a live such characters as cool is It, kol. I can't remember this character's name. How I said, quel quel queel? Okay, the let's see. What does he keep saying in the
Mandalorian He's like, I have spoken, I have spoken. Yeah, So she is the physical performer. Nick Nolty did the voice, of course, but she's the physical performer of that character. She was also the physical performer of the frog Lady in What the second season?
Wow, that's awesome.
So there are a number of Star Wars connections.
To con Yeah, all.
Right, this one's a blink and miss it role here. But Peter Jason plays a character named mister Janis. He's just one of the individuals at the airport before they leave for Africa. Born nineteen forty four. Memorable face from various films over the decade. He's popped up in things like Alien Nation, Prince of Darkness, Dream Skate They Live nineteen ninety five is Mortal Kombat and Escape from La And another one you might blink and miss is Jimmy
Buffett shows up in this movie. He plays the pilot of the seven to twenty seven they that they bored to travel to Africa. So yeah, for some reason, the High parod Head himself is presence in Congo, and I guess has has blessed Congo.
Yes, in that way, I mean it feels right for some reason. Of course he's there. I don't know.
Yeah, now, real cool. We mentioned Bruce Campbell's in this, Yes, Bruce Campbell's in this. For a hot minute, this is of course. Yeah, he's at the very beginning of the film, and then he is kind of a spoiler. He is assaulted by some sort of killer ape, and the movie keeps the hope alive that he will come back. And I remember, by the time I saw this movie, I had already seen maybe Army of Darkness, so I was familiar with his work, even if I hadn't seen the
Evil Dead movies yet. So I was excited that he was in here, and then I was disappointed that he was gone, But the movie kept the hope alive that we would find him again and he would help fight the gorillas, and of course we find out at the end he's just he's been dead the whole time. He's really dead. But in a way this in the film, it ended up kind of subverting expectations as well, because, especially as a kid, not knowing maybe how structures of
these things for likely will work. You think, well, Bruce Campbell's in this, well, he's going to show up at the end and he's going to chain saw some apes. But that's not happened.
No, we get lasers instead. And I will say a lot of the reviews I read from this time people seem to that was one of the big critiques people had was I guess they felt tricked that he was in it and then just never He's in it for like I said, maybe a minute, maybe a little more, but then he doesn't come back, and people were like, this is criminally this is a criminally short cameo.
Yeah, because Armia Darkness came out ninety two, so it had had time to of course not only hit theaters, but to really dig into the VHS market in the home rental market. So again this is me my sort of childhood memory of this, but or junior high memory of this or whatever. I remember feeling like the world was hot for more Bruce Campbell action and maybe they weren't, or maybe the studio system that had not really caught wind of the Hunger yet.
Yeah, I think you were. I think you were picking it though. I think people wanted Bruce Campbell, but you know, this is what we got.
We also have Otta walleh Alkanawe Agbaje in this. He just plays I think there's one of the many soldier characters that sort of populates the background of the film. But this is a of course English fashion model turned actor born nineteen sixty seven, who had pretty big roles on TV's OZ and also Lost, which you mentioned earlier,
but this was one of his first screen roles. He's gone into act in a number of big pictures including The Mummy Returns, The Bourne Identity, the remake of The Thing, the Second Thor Movie, and Suicide Squad, so he's been in quite a few things. He also writes and directs Now two, getting into two surprisingly uncredited performances in this. The first we have Delroy Lindo pop up in this
playing Captain Wanta. This is one of This is a corrupt military official that they encounter again on the way to the Lost City and he like hits him up for a bribe and also just talks about how much he hates Tim Curry's character. He's really really hard on Homolka here, even telling him that he has to stop eating the sesame cake in the hotel twice twice.
One of my favorite articles. And I was the next day after I watched this, and I was like, what did I just watch? Somebody wrote imagine a script that went through rewrites and still had to stop eating my sesame cake in there, not once, but twice.
But Linda makes you believe it. It's a yeah, it's a small but memorable little performance here. Mm hmmm, Linda. Of course, some of his biggest films have included Malcolm X, Get Shorty to Five Bloods, and The Core. He's also slated to have a major role in the Blade reboot if they ever actually make that movie. I don't know what he's going to play in that, but I kind of have I'm wondering if he's going to play a Whistler character, if he's going to be like the mentor
to Blade. But we'll see. And then you you mentioned this one already, but we this character Eddie Ventro who shows up and this is an uncredited performance by Joe Pontaliano.
Yes, and I was a huge Matrix fan. I had an extremely embarrassing email address, which you unfortunately have seen, which I've told that story before, but anyway, because I had a huge crush on Neo Keanu Reeves from The Matrix, but I didn't know he was going to be in this movie, and uh when he showed up, that was one of the things I shouted to the other room, was like, it's Joey Pance, It's Cipher's here. My friend was like, what are you talking about.
Yeah, it's a It's a great, slimy little role that he plays like that. I think one of the first things that he does is he offers to buy Amy the Gorilla.
Yes, like immediately, immediately, Yeah, so yeah.
Joe Pantleiano here probably yeah. Best known for playing Cipher in nineteen ninety nine Is the Matrix, Caesar in nineteen ninety six Is Bound, and he played the character Teddy in two thousands Memento. So yeah. A talented character actor that often plays kind of slimy, sleazy characters, morally ambiguous at past mm hmmm. I think he was also in a couple of tales from the Crypt episodes, which, of course perfect place to stick somebody with these talents.
Yes, yes, I do love He has a scene where, like the he re emerges after I assumed we would never see him again, and he's getting off the plane and he has like a head injury and he makes the funniest sound to me where he's like, oh, I don't know. There's just something about how he did that that cracks me up every time I watch this.
In case I forget it for later. What happens to his character in this film? Do we see him killed by guerrilla or something, because at some point later in the film, I'm like, where did he go?
He kind of just wanders. He's like, here's your equipment. Have fun? He doesn't. He says he doesn't like to leave the airport, so I assume he just haunts the airport.
Okay, m Well, let's get into the plot a bit.
Yes, Oh gosh, I'm so excited.
So we open in sub Saharan Africa, presumably the Congo given the name of the film. We have Bruce Campbell's character Charlie, leading a team into the wild surrounding Mount Muchino, who we're told here some sort of volcanic mountain, and almost right away we see he's packing heat, like we see him holding the pistol there, and I guess this is all kind of nice subversion because they really kind of present him as like, this is our star, right,
this is the action hero. This is the guy who's going to take us through the movie, right.
And I do want to before we move on again. I love when you can watch a movie and be like, oh, this is the nineties or whatever. The Congo title is done in the most glorious like gold word art if you remember what that was, So it's like a fading of gold to orange, and then it has a blue drop shadow glow and that's like this nineties, Oh my gosh.
So I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff. But yeah, I do think you know, if you have started watching this and you're like, I guess this is our hero, and then it doesn't really turn out to be what you think it's going to be at all.
Right, Well, for one thing, it's like we're very much in sort of Indiana Jones territory, and then we cut to space. We're in orbits and we see this satellite, which this is one of the moments where the effects feel rather dated because it's like a very dated CGI satellite orbiting the Earth. And this, of course is going to be an important part of the plot. This is what is enabling him to communicate without any lag at
all with a Houston Control center. That's where we go to next, and here we meet Laura Lenny as our former CIAgent, doctor Karen Ross, and they initiate a satellite call to Bruce Campbell's team around the volcano and they start to talking about blue diamonds.
Yes, And as much as I make fun of the script, and I do, I will say they accomplish a lot pretty quickly. So when you first see Laura Lenni she's walking in with a colleague of hers who has a very hilarious password which is just his name Rudy, Rudy Rudy to get in. But it like immediately establishes that the character we're about to meet, who is Bruce Campbell's father, Travis, is paranoid. He's very very paranoid and he doesn't trust people.
But yeah, I love to how quickly there's so much whiplash in this movie where you're like, oh, diamonds, oh, but for satellites.
And of course, Bruce Campbell's character has brought a functional laser gun into the wild with him and immediately loads up one of these blue diamonds and test fires. It's starting a small fire behind him, and we're like, okay, I'm not completely clear on how all this works, but blue diamond and apparently works. Blue diamond lasers are important, and back in Houston, they're very pleased with how this is all shaping up.
Yes, yes, I love how they don't bother to explain it. I like, legitimately love that when movies are like, you know what, we're not really about this part of it, so I can explain it. But he even makes a mention of like it's this isn't a good enough diamond, essentially, like we need a better diamond and then we'll really be in business.
Yeah.
So at this point, one of the other members of Bruce Campbell's characters, Charlie's team, calls him over and says, hey, I found something. Jump into this water here and swim under these ruins with me. And he's like, okay, I'll do that, and so they jump in and lo and behold, they discover a lost city hidden beneath the jungle canopy and the other guy character that will not be around for long, but we find out he'll be back actually,
but then not be around for long. A guy named Jeffrey stresses that this is a big find, this is amazing, and he's telling him all this. They're standing in front of this ominous stone gorilla statue. They're sinister music playing. We can already tell nothing good it's gonna happen here.
Yeah, it really ramps up pretty quickly. You're like, oh wow, something is just about to go wrong. And this has one of my very favorite like horror elements where one of them goes missing. Jeffrey goes missing. Bruce Campbell's kind of staring off in the distance, maybe getting you know, wind, something's not right, calls from his friend eyeball just out of nowhere. Here is a human eyeball in front of him.
Yeah, and then we get we cut to the monster POV. There's this growl and then we get the shot of Bruce Campbell screaming, and it's kind of interesting to think like that, you try to put yourself in the mind of the monster here. So the grey gorilla, after brutally murdering the other guy. Pop is to pluck eyeballs out and then sort of mess with Charlie here, like just chunk a few eyeballs at him, get his attention, and then kill him. So very very twisted on the part
of our our ape adversaries here. So back in Houston, they try and call back on the video chat. They see everyone is dead, something is running around, and Ape attacks the camera. They get kind of this freeze frame that they're gonna have to figure out later. So things get a little bit event horizon here. They've got some footage that they're going to have to tinker with later. It seems like there was a this was a thing
for a while in cinema. There's always a situation where you have some strange footage and there's something computery you could do to it, and you could get everything enhanced and figured out later on.
Yes, Yes, and there's a lot to there's a lot that I love about this part number one. This was such a trope in the nineties. I don't know if you ever saw the Mary Kate and Ashley movie. It takes two, but there was such a trope in the nineties that, like, if you could contray role communications like cell phones or new technology. You could control everything, and
it was such like a evil villain trope. And I love how Travis immediately when you meet this character, who's like, yeah, the most over the top evil business corrupt capitalist guy. Is it like that he's going to dominate the communications industry with this diamond And all of this is interspersed with like the most nineties graphics and the most ninety sound effects to that, like camera that they're looking in
on the campsite with. It is just there's something about it that feels so from that time that it's like a whole, a full body experience for me, like, oh, yes, this is nineties.
Yeah. I think Tomorrow Never Dies one of the Bond film we referenced earlier. I think that the villain in that one, played by Jonathan Price, is also some sort of a media mobile type character.
Yeah, it was such a thing, and I do love that he This is when his line I mentioned earlier of like I can be human later comes up like he's like immediately an overtop caricature. I love how Laurlanie's character literally she says to him, are you for real? And she's in the most nineties Khakis invest too, by the way, and this is when you kind of find out like she was dating Bruce Campbell. They were going to get married and then they broke up for whatever reason,
but she still obviously cares about him. And she has this confrontation with Travis like, I'm not going in there unless you promised me you're doing it for your son. If you're doing it for Charlie, i'll go. But if I get one hint that this isn't for him, I'm gonna make you sorry.
She says, yeah, I love that he does calm down a little bit, and he's like like, yeah, I'm doing it for him. I did not find it very believable, but it's good enough for her. She's like, Okay, all right, Yes, I believe you enough to go out and try and find him in the wild.
Yes. And I also love one of my favorite parts, which like right before it he said something pretty offensive, which just like maybe it was locals, but then he's like or a rival company, Like there's just something about him that's so he's so paranoid. He's so so paranoid. I also agree that she perhaps believed him too readily. But I also think she wanted to go, Like she
she does still care about Charlie. But yeah, he's not very believable at all, but maybe that's just his constant vibe is just this level of anger.
So yeah, and I think I think you're right. I think like she she wanted to go. She wants to to try and find Charlie. And so it's not that she's saying I'm not going unless like she's not really looking for an affirmation from him. She's just trying to encourage the human side of him, like like, Okay, I'll do this, but I want to see it like some acknowledgment that part of this is because you love your son.
Right exactly and uh not you know, not sending me off to get killed to get well that time is Yeah, but this is one of my This is when I was watching the movie, this cut that happens now, Oh whoa, this is what am I watching right now? And this is when we get introduced to Amy.
That's right, we cut to our gorilla expert. This is we meet our primatologist characters and we meet Amy the gorilla, and Amy is doing art, Amy is is making things. But also we quickly learned that. Well, I guess we kind of build up to this, right because we meet Amy and she's great and she's totally believable as a as a younger female gorilla. I guess I don't know.
I went back and forth on how old Amy is, because early on there is very much like a childlike aspect to Amy that we like to but she's also she drinks, she's drinking martini, she's smoking cigars and spoiler but at the end of the movie she goes off and marries a silver bag, so she's like, she's an adult woman gorilla too, and we shouldn't take that away from her.
No, absolutely not. I mean those are some of our favorite parts of Amy. Amy is multifaceted, and I think I just I need people to watch this if they haven't seen it, because you're watching it and you're like, oh, here's this gorilla. This gorilla is drawing all these pictures that look very similar. And I believe this is what they introduce the stuffed animal named Lovey.
Oh yes, she because yeah, and this is another thing that builds up the sort of childlike nature because she has her love right, she has the little stuffed animal that she's carrying.
Around, right, So they're very much prompting you to believe, yeah, she's this, you know, more childlike gorilla and those other things which I can't wait to talk about more detail at the Martini and whatnot come later. But right in the beginning, okay, seems like a young sweet gorilla.
Yes, but of course we keep talking about Amy, the talking gorilla, and to get there again, the movie really doesn't waste a lot of time. We like cut to essentially like a ted talk thing that doctor Elliot's doing at Berkeley. He's talking about language, he's talking about sign language, he's talking about virtual reality technology, and then he cuts
to the real meat of everything. They have created a real time sign language audible translator with power glove that allows sign language literate animals like Amy allow them to actually speak out loud. She wears a little power glove, she does the signs, and this enables her to speak and say things like Amy, good gorilla.
And this is one of my very favorite parts, because I mean this is when it in one way really goes off the rails, at least when I was watching it. But it has the funniest scene. It's like the funniest cut to the audience scene I've ever I think I've ever witnessed, because people are watching. He's talking. Yeah, he's talking about virtual reality. He's talking about all of this like really high tech stuff. And then he calls out Amy, and people, you know, turn and gasp and they see
this gorilla coming down the aisle. It's just like a you know, where you would go to see a talk out of college or something. And Amy comes up and there's this guy and I don't know the actor's name, but he's kind of like bored flipping through the pamphlet and he looks up and then Amy says, yeah, you know, Amy, good Gorilla, Amy good Gorilla, And he kind of like is staring ahead in horror and an awe, and he
says that gorilla is talking. It's so funny. It's such a great stand in for the audience, Like it really is because you're like having a similar reaction. But I love the cut to him of what this girl is donking.
And then we also cut to Homolka there played by Jim Curry. He's in the audience and he's watching creepily and he has a ring with this kind of like I on it and we suddenly get this very mid nineties flash. Then of suddenly there's like scenes from Amy's dreams, something with a jungle and a flash of a gray monster a jumping across it, and uh, we're kind of left. I was left wondering like, well, what happened? Where did this come from? Did that happen? Because I looked into
the ring because was that in in? Yeah? Did I'm cursed? Is that in his mind? Or is this Amy's dreams? But then we cut we cut ahead and we basically find out that well, she she doesn't seem to be sleeping. Well, Peter is worried that she's deteriorating mentally because she's not in the jungle. She needs to be in the jungle. He meets with the Dane and he's like, we need to raise a bunch of money to send our star talking gorilla back to the jungle. And the Dean's like, nobody's gonna pay for that.
Yes, which I am of two minds about I think I can see. But you know, also these he believes these paintings are from the jungle, like this is what she's been doing. But enter Herkima Harmolka former Romanian traveling around the world and doing good. And guess what, I've got a lot of money, and I want to fund your trip to take this gorilla back to the jungle.
Yeah, he's like, I have no ulterior motive. I just want to see Amy return to jungle. Yes, just sound like really like he's basically doing a Abella Lagosi Dracula character here. It's even more that than it is Peter Lourie.
Yes, And the accent is so immediately you can't think of anything else. And I love like, for the audience, at least you've gotten all these hints that he's up to no good or he's got an ulterior motive, as you said. But it cuts to immediately from that scene to doctor Elliott being like, yes, his name's herker Mahomolka. I don't see the problem. He's gonna fund us to do this.
I trust everyone.
Yeah, yes, I love it. I love it. He's just like, yeah, I don't see any reason why we need to wonder about this anymore.
And of course Amy's on board.
Yes, we get Amy into three D glasses.
Yeah, Yeah, a sweet scene where there they were in their three D glasses looking at a book. So another scene with a lot of childlike wonder for Amy.
Mm hm. This is when she asked to be tickled the first time.
I think, oh, yes, yes, hmmm mm hmmm. And so at this point, it seems like, okay, the expedition is ready to go. They get to the airport. Kamulka's like, everything seems good. They seems like they're loading the plane. But then uh oh they're unloading the plane. Uh and uh So there's this scene out there on the tarmac. I'm on the big the mid the crates. Everyone's a little stressed. Amy just wants to be tickled. She doesn't
know what's going on. But then doctor Rossa up and she's like, hey, let my company pay for some of your trip and just let me bring my team along.
Yeah. Basically, they need like she needs almost like a visa. She needs a reason why she's going. She has to join their expedition to get in because I guess if they report what's happened, like, they're not going to be able to get across the border to investigate what happened. So she's trying very very hard, has been for a long time. This is where I get my line that I said earlier, I'm a primatologist, not a pound of sugar.
And we also see the beginnings of Amy being jealous of doctor Russ because Peter is like, oh, it's not me, it's Amy. You can't come because Amy doesn't like you. But yeah, they start unloading stuff off the plane and her molka, I love this. What does he say? There's been an interruption in my cash floor or something? And then doctor Ross knows like, ooh, I got you. You need me.
Yeah, he can't pay for the fuel for the plane, but her company certainly can. And so basically we cut to everyone's on board the plane flying to Africa, and this is where we have that wonderful scene where we get some scenes where Amy is upset with Karen and and the primatologist and Karen have a nice back and forth about like what what is the trip is about? And what is what is the human relationship to animals and so forth.
Yeah, because she's very curious and can't quite pin down why he did it, and he kind of gives like why did he train Amy to be able to speak? Essentially, and he says he gives her some quotes about you know, the face of the teacher and like why not and all this kind of stuff. But this is also when we get the infamous and I dare you to find any review who doesn't mention it scene where Amy is a nervous flyer. Yeah, she wants her rain drop juice. Yes, And it turns out that rain drop juice is a
martine Yes. Yes, So we get a scene in a film where a gorilla is drinking a martini and looks very happy about it.
Yeah, and totally totally believable scene too, I mean, aside from the ridiculousness of it, like you buy Amy the talking gorilla as a real individual who just likes a nice drink to take the edge off during a fly Well, yeah, of course.
And I mean she she had been tense because she had also just thrown an egg at Karen.
Yeah, she's called her an ugly woman and yeah, there's an egg at her. So then things are off to a rocky start between Karen and Amy.
Yes. And this is also when like they have a discussion around the myth of the killer ape and like King Kong all of that stuff, so kind of you can see her Molcha starting to show his hand that he's interested in this, like he's got, he's got more than he's letting on and what he wants to get out of this trip.
Now I'm gonna, I guess try and skip some of what happened. Like basically, they land in in Africa. They they land in one country, they need to go into another country, but already things are in a destabilized state. Here we meet Joe Pantoliano's character Eddie Ventro. He's immediately like, hey, can I buy that ape off you? And they're soldiers running around. Something blows up on the airfield in the back in the in the background, and and Elliott's like
asking around for the guy that they hired. But that guy's know where to be seen because no looks like Big Media has paid for the best guide available, and that is Captain Monroe Kelly. And he's up and he's you know, he's suave. You know, he's very laid back about everything. But he basically saves all of them and he's working on getting them where he needs to go. He's he's all action and solutions. He piles everybody in the back of the military truck and they're on their way out.
Yes, And one of my favorite things about this scene is we get two instances of seeing people being I guess totally on board and completely okay with a talking gorilla. But when Amy talks, Captain Monroe is just like, yeah, sure, and here's a smoke. Amy like, I guess that's what you want. But he immediately takes control of the situation and seems to immediately clock like one Hermolka is no good. He's one of the characters that's like, oh, I remember you.
And then two that Karen is very competent and like that they will be working together to kind of lead this expedition. But also I guess three that everybody's in there for a different reason, and nobody's being completely honest except for maybe Peter.
Right. Even Captain Kelly here is being a He's kind of he's a little uncertain as well, like you don't distrust him. But there's that part where one of the characters ask him, are you some kind a criminal? And he just says, aren't we all? And it's just another great Captain Monroe Kelly moment. We get some it sounds like Kelly is perhaps also an arms dealer. We're not entirely sure. I guess what he's he's involved in, but it also seems like he's the best, most expensive hope
for them. He's hired by the tech company, but they don't get very far before the military stops them and like arrest everybody and says, look, nobody can go to Zaire, so you're all stuck in this hotel here. And this is where we get Captain Wanta played by del Roy Lindo. He shows up and people were interrogated and he does not seem to have good intentions and almost immediately hits them up for a massive bribe.
Yes, and he receives it. And this is when we get the infamous stop eating my sesame cake line twice because Tim Curry is back there kind of nervously nibbling the sesame cake and when he sees the money, like his mouth drops open. Like his expressions during this whole scene, he is just like a befuddled, terrified, out of his league villain who gets called out yeah by Delroy Lindo. He's like, oh, this piece of trash, Like we don't
work with him. He's terrible, And it's just one of those things where you're watching it, you're like, wow, I mean, these performances are amazing, But how in the world did this get made?
So Captain Wanta has up with this bribe and and Karen pays it like she basically has just an enormous amount of cash on her. There's this nice scene where Captain Wanta is then stapling the brown sack that he put the money into shut and he tells them that it's the gorilla that's going to get them across the border, because no one wants to be seen in Western media being cruel to the gorilla. And so it looks like they're going to get to continue.
Yes, yes, So this brings us to like another plane trip. A lot of jokes about uh, doctor Elliott and Amy being a husband and wife, which I think we've already had some of those two, but people witnessing their interactions and some of the funniest, least believable parts of the movie I think take place in this section because they
get shot at while they're in a plane. In this plane, after Amy has been fed some kind of drug in a banana to calm her down, by the way, and Laura, Lenny badass that she is, gets a flare gun, kicks open the door to the airplane and uses the flare gun too, I guess distract to send the heat seeking missiles that way, which I don't think is how it works. But it's quickly joined by Monroe Kelly's like, yeah, this is a good idea. We're going to help you. It's
a really cool, like badass scene. I just questioned legitimacy. That's how it works.
Yeah, So yeah, they fire off these flares. They're able to redirect the heat seeking ground to air missiles that are being fired at them by the military. But it looks like the plane's been hit. Everyone's gonna have to parachute anyway. So we get some shenanigans here where Homolka of course is cowardly and has to be booted out of the plane Monroe Kelly. He grabs a drugged Amy. Amy has been given the I think they later referred to it as the banana with the dope in it,
so she has she's already had her dope banana. So he scoops her up and jumps out. Gear is being dropped as well, and uh yeah, then we're in the jungle proper at this point, and.
I think this is when we start getting answers about what some of the characters are up to. So we hear a little bit about, you know, the city of Solomon, the last city of Zinge Monroe. Kelly reveals he as a past history of a terrible expedition that went wrong with hermoca and caring them out at the jungle. We also learn a bit more about Laura Lenni's character and what she's looking for because she has this what she says, is a gadget that has features like you know, her
ex Cia past is kind of talked about. So we're getting at some of these answers, these character answers about what people are looking into. And also I would like to point out this is when I was like, oh, this is a volcanoo as well. Good to know.
Yeah, and it's it's like what you bring a cannon on stage, right, you bring a volcano on into the picture. You know that volcano is erupting at the end of the film. Yes, so, but we'll get we'll get to that part. So and An you're right, Yeah, they set up camp. The tents are great, the AC units are passed out. We already talked about that. We get more. They spill more details about the Las city of Karen gets satellite gear set up, she checks in with Texas.
They send her the creature analysis. They're like, we've we've done some work on the footage. It is gorilla alike, but maybe not a gorilla. And oh, by the way, that volcano is probably gonna blow up. And she's like, all right, fine, we can we can handle it. But they're not even able to finish the call because then Amy and Elliott come racing through the camp like children. They knock over the satellite gear and destroy it, like it's no longer functional.
Yep, yep, just destroy her equipment. And this is also when the scene you mentioned when we see kind of this gear kind of overkill perhaps that Karen bought with the ac and the tents setting up with that. But yeah, now so now they're cut off from that and they've got to check through the jungle and they've got this volcano threat looming over them and a miss serious creature that is not a gorilla but close.
Yeah, so we we get a fun scene at night where there are all these monkey sounds in the forests and everyone's a little wigged out except for Captain Monroe Kelly, and he has some some fun lines there, but then it rains, it mud slides. There's a ridiculous scene where somebody sees a snake and they're scary music and they chop the snake with a machete, a scene that serves no purpose in the film, just to say that, like, oh, and they're also snakes, but don't worry, they don't factor.
Into the plot, right. And this is also where we get the leach scene on the penis. This is kind of like a montage of all of the stuff, the terrain and environment they're having to deal with. Inexplicable singing scene where they all start singing is also in this kind of section.
Yell California. Also, Yeah, we also get members of a native tribe show up, the Ghost tribe they describe them as and they're like, hey, they they're doctor Monroquel, I mean Captain Monroe. Kelly can speak their language, so he speaks with them and he's like, hey, they have a they have a dead man or a nearly dead man, and they want us to see him. They he has this TC symbol on his clothing. Karen quickly realizes, well, that's my company. We need to see what this is
all about. And they check in on this kind of like tribal ceremony that some sort of a funeral rite. It seems like it's maybe patterned after a scene from Baraka. I'm not sure on that, but it's it's it's impressive to watch and then they realize, Okay, is this man Charles. No, it's not. It's Bob, someone else from that group. He wakes up, he sees Amy the gorilla and immediately just freaks out to death.
Which is classic classic scene if you know, being scared to death of something. I do think this is one scene that did a disservice to the like payoff, And I know they wanted the final product to be really scary, but they just weren't that scary. So like the fact that he sees Amy and is like it just really it was like it built it up and you're like, oh my gosh, this must be terrifying. It killed him, It scared him to death. I mean it was really
it was effective. It served a lot in terms of building your fear and anxiety around whatever it is they're going to eventually face, so they keep going.
They're not going to be deterred by this. There are more zing revelations King Solomon's legendary Diamond mine and the Congo. Others have sought it, none have come back, and Hamolka insists that Amy knows where the city is the open
Eye symbol. She saw it in her dream. So they keep going and eventually they're traveling by boat at night and this is like straight up Disney Jungle cruise adventure here, but we get this terrifying hippo attack where the hippos are attacking the boat and then a plane is shot down in the night. It crashes and they're like, well, I don't know what that's about. That's bad. They reach
the volcano, they two orders have run away. Amy wants her glove and at this point navigation is becoming difficult, like her little multipurpose device isn't really working, and Homolko says, well, we should let Amy lead us. Let Amy lead the expedition, and everyone's like, you know, he's right, we should let Amy leave.
That's Gorilla knows where it is. I love that line so much. Yeah, so they're all like, yeah, let's follow, Let's follow Amy. And this leads us to another one of my very favorite scenes. This is when they meet at big silver back gorilla. And this is after they kind of transverse what seems to be straight up a volcano. I don't know that their path makes a lot of sense, but anyway, they meet this big silver back gorilla. Monroe tells Peter like, don't run gorillas as a challenge, and yes,
he doesn't run. The gorilla backs away, and that's when Monroe realizes, like, oh, he did run away, and then I love this. Amy tries to communicate with the grill and they look at her and they're like nah, and they walk away.
But it's it's sad. You watch it and you're like, oh, he was trying to communicate with the gorillas and she can't because she's been trained in this new system, and it's it's it's sad, it is, but we're holding out hope. We feel like she'll probably get another shot at this. So they press on, and it should come as no surprise they do find the lost city of Zinge. We see this fabulous looking, ruinous lost city with a big We see this like this head statue with these big eyes,
and Homolka is just in tears. Uh. The eye on his ring matches the great statue. These amber eyes, and we get some just wonderful scene showing by Tim Curry here.
Yeah, because he really does have an emotional moment and for all the cowardice he has and I'm this is big you're telling of his character, because he's still a huge coward. But he says I must go because he wants to go in. He wants to find these diamonds. And it's just like the culmination of everything he's been talking about. And he does have a line where I'm kind of like, I don't believe this at all, but he says we can all share, we can all share the loops of the diamonds if we go in.
So at this point we are here in the last city of Zine. Obviously we have reached the final portion of the film, last thirty minutes of the film, and everything is about to just get really wild. So for Starters, the guns are out now killing his team or inspecting everything. They're wisely on guard because they realize some serious violence has gone down around here and they don't entirely know
what's behind it. And Homolka tells them this story about the establishment of Solomon's mine here and the city around it, about how the savageness of the guards was famous, and then about how this it fell into ruin. But when they perhap press and they're like, why did it fall into ruin, He's like, nobody knows. But they're like, okay, let's go in and explore. So we're in full blown
ruin exploration mode. And some of these scenes are effectively creepy, like the lighting is just right, you know, it's the typical shots you have in films like this of people pointing their flashlights at hieroglyphics and checking out hallways and you're just expecting something to jump out at any moment.
Yes, and that's built by the fact that Amy was not feeling it. She did not want to come in, so some of them, some of the members of the group stayed outside. Amy stayed outside. And then there are these hieroglyphics on the wall that doctor Elliott translates and it basically boils down to they trained these gorillas to guard the mines on a volcano whose activity is getting more intense by the way, to guard the diamonds, and then the gorillas turned on the people there, and I
guess have just been living there guarding the diamonds. Getting more and more violins.
Yeah, and perhaps like imbread like it's a very small population.
Yea.
Every time we see the gray gorillas like they do look diseased. And I don't know how much of this is like seriously trying to figure out, like what is the genetic decline of a small population of primates's going to look like? And then how much of it is like notes coming back or the or from the stiff from the studio or just the effects team looking at it, like, well,
how scary can we make these gorillas? And you look at when you look at them, like the sort of freeze frame of the of the grays that they look. They look very frightening. They did a great job making monstrous gorillas. It's just when it comes to actually seeing them moving around, I don't know. I think it probably does come back to the lighting and just some of the you know that perhaps you can imagine these costumes being better utilized.
I don't know, Yes, absolutely, And there they were trying to do a lot of things I will say in this movie with special effects and technology, and one of the most bizarre and jarring ones is in this section. Because so Richard had stayed outside with Amy, and then he runs in screaming and is killed by this big, angry killer gorilla. And the group you know, tries to to shoot at this gorilla and it's like inexplicable stop motion camera work, like it's out of nowhere. They don't
do it again. It just felt like, oh, let's let's experiment with this, and I do again. I go. That makes me wonder how much of it was, Oh, this is new technology we could try, but also how much of it was these costumes aren't working out like we thought, or like maybe yeah.
Or at least the resulting footage was not as scary as we thought what it might be. What can we do, Let's tinker with it until we have something that creates more of an emotional response.
Yes, absolutely, I feel like that's another thing every review mentions is that, like where did that come from?
Yeah? But at this point, like everybody's basically in the mode of like, Okay, I guess we need to get out of here because gorillas are attacking us. Amy shows up for a nice jump scare. One great gorilla has been taken down, but there are more. They leave the ruins, they find more bodies. Hamolka thinks this is whine the mines had to close down in ancient times. I guess makes sense. Killer gorillas. So they go back to camp and it's tech time because Amy gloves up and starts
talking about the bad gorillas. And then in one of the I can't even honestly remember if this was in the book or not. I think it might have been, but at this point the team Karen and or the team remember, oh yeah, amid the gear that we have, we have automated machine gun drones that we can set up that use lasers to detect movement and will fire at anything. And they set this up around the perimeter
of the camp. And I remember loving this in the film and perhaps in the book if it was in the book when I was younger, but especially now, you like,
this is just so ridiculous. This is just ludicrous that they brought automated machine gun Like what was the original like rationale behind this was that just killer gorillas may show up in the hundreds, we will need machine gun drones because otherwise, it's, like you were, these are like weapons of war you're bringing into this other country, right.
And people could have shown up, like anything could have happened, and they also have so Laura Lenny is cool as a cucumber during this part, by the way, and they set up a laptop, an old laptop, and she can like see their shapes on it, like see where they are and how many of them are. But it I mean, again, I think the lighting didn't really work in the scene. But it could have been really scary because you would
just see like the guns turn shoot at something. The lasers were kind of goofy, but like the seeing this turn. You couldn't really necessarily see where the gorillas were, but they were all around. Like it ended up feeling very humorous and over the top where I think it could have been scary. I'm not sure that this movie ever succeeds really it being scary. I think it's much more a fun action romp. So I don't know that it would have worked anyway given the rest of what we've
seen already. But yeah, it's like fireworks and lasers, guns and chiller rapes.
It feels kind of like like this is Hongo the Ride, which isn't too much of a knock because what is a blockbuster film? Like, it's kind of like the approach to a big like Disneyland ride or a Blockbuster film. It's kind of the same energy, so I guess it's fine that they feel it feels much the same here.
Yes, and then it's buttoned with Hermolka saying I've translated this phrase and it says we are watching you. So it's kind of this like goofy action set piece and then oh wait, go back to scary stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So the next morning, people are missing, including Amy and Homolka. Amy's out wandering. She encounters the other gorillas again. They acknowledge her this time, but they're they're standoffish, so it seems like some progress is being made in Amy gorilla relations. Meanwhile, the team heads back into the ruins and they're just armed to the teeth. They just just bringing all the guns this time, and they find evidence on the walls.
They find more not hieroglyphics this time, but more like actual images that are te like sequential art, and it seems that the gorillas were bred using gorillas and humans apparently, and to serve as guardians for the mines, but they eventually turned on their masters, and they find the bones of normal gorillas with crushed skulls.
Yes, quite a few. Yeah, and this is when we see Amy, who's like the volcano it's shaking, it's about to go off. Some of the building collapses. So Amy is determined to help our human friends to fight these bad gorillas, grabs her asl gear and makes her way to the temple to the building.
And so here we are the team. Eventually they have some trouble. It seems like they're the mines may be closed off, and then of course there's seismic activity and there are cave ins, and so they just keep going, you know, very very dungeons and dragons at this point like, okay, we got we got to keep the party moving deeper into the dungeon here and then they emerge into well dungeons and dragging theons wives. This would be when the dungeon master would pull out the feature map where the
big battle is going to take place. It's this is apparently the mine. It's kind of this little valley with the stream going through it. They're all these like alcoves or cave openings in the walls, and the ground is just filthy with blue diamonds, like they're just poking up out of the ground like like big diamond baseballs.
Yeah, you're right, that is very d and d like, look at these shiny things. I know you want them, no problem here, and Harmocha he can't resist. He's like immediately just shoving these diamonds into his bag.
Yes, oh yeah, he kisses one of them. And meanwhile, the great gorillas are starting to file out there. It is kind of creepy at first because they are in the shadows a bit, but then they're they're they're actively coming out. They're like, okay, we're on this is what we were trained for. We did kill all of our trainers, but this is why we live here. And so yeah, great shots of great gorillas creeping in the dark. We see some flashes of their monster faces. And now Homolka
has gone too far. He realizes too late that he was too concerned with scooping up diamonds and that death is all around him now.
Yeah, and he does have probably the most one of the most violent doths we see on the screen, because no, the killer gorillas are not happy about this, and they they kill him quite violently. And this is when the rest of the party is like, oh wow, there are a lot of these killer gorillas they're going to kill us all. So they all start getting out their weapons.
They discover a geode, a giant diamond, and they also as they're kind of running away trying to find a way out, they find Karen's ex Charlie, amongst a bunch of like other bones and stuff, and she takes his satellite gun thing and puts a diamond in it.
Right, Yeah, she has a laser gun.
And now she has a laser gun.
Yeah, so the battle, Yeah, the battle continues to rage here. It's soldiers and party members versus killer Greg gorillas. Looks like they're deaths on both sides, and you know, we found Charlie, and it seems like the gorillas are are gaining ground. They're they're killing left and right, and it looks like they're moving in to kill Elliott. And then Amy jumps into the rescue and she says, ugly gorillas,
Ugly go away. And this is a nice moment because you kind of expect when this happens, you're like, oh, no, Amy, they don't know what you're saying. They're not going to listen to you. But the Greg Gorillas are thrown off on this. They're like, whoa wait, this is a gorilla. Guys, we've got to at least hear her out, or they're at least confused by it.
Yeah, I think that's what. I think. It's inn rosa. It's like they don't know what to make. They don't know what to make. They're just confused. And here in comes one of the best lines because Laurel Annie doctor Karen Ras shows up with this laser gun and she says of the like great killer apes, put them on the endangered species list, and then starts shooting them with a beam of blue laser, just like arms flying off. Body's getting cut in half, and when asked what she's using,
she calls it the latest thing in communication. It's just wild and ludicrous and absurd. Just this killer gorilla is getting just decimated by a laser.
Yeah, just straight up cut in half by this thing. And then we cut to the outside and the volcano is erupting, and it's I think I laughed at this point because the footage or the or the sequence we see from Afar of the volcano erupting is so intense that I felt like, well, there's no way everyone would just be killed instantly by this thing. They're like inside this volcano or inside the mountain when this level of
a volcanic event is taking place. But it's a movie volcano, so the rules are a little different, like lava is not actually hot unless you're in it, and other rules like that apply.
Yes, and I do think it is a rule in these action adventure movies you got to have your classic like the set is falling apart at the end, like everything is collapsing and you've got to get out. And so that's what this scene is is very much like you know, ground, the ground is falling, pieces of like stone, all these structures are falling. We get to see another odd scene of like gorillas jumping in the lava. The
killer Gorilla's jumping in to the lava and dying. But yeah, this is very much that, like, oh, we're in the end game now the entire set is collapsing.
Yep.
We also get us sing. They make it out of the mountain and of course the ground opens up. There's this huge chasm that opens in the earth, and so Karen whips out that laser gun again use it to cut down a tree to make a bridge that they all escape over. And meanwhile, the city of Zene is just crumbling into ruin behind them.
Oh inge, yes, and this brings us to one of my very very favorite things, because I can't stress enough. They escape via a hot air balloon. Yeah, and on my rewatch one too many rewatches, they do hint at this hot air balloon throughout Yeah, yeah, because earlier on they kind of joked with doctor Ross like do you really need a hot air balloon and she said no, well here they are.
And but before that happens, though, she does check back in with Houston though. Remember she she gets some gear off of that crash that second plane, she fixes her satellite system, calls back, and this is a nice little sequence where she touches base with Travis and she tells him about his son. She's like, yeah, Charles's dad, I have to confirm this. And of course does Travis say, take a moment to reflect on this. No, He's like, tell me about those diamonds. I want those blue diamonds.
Yes, And I mean he doesn't even ask about the crew because everybody on that plane was working for him, Like, yeah, there's a blind earlier where Laurelinni is like, this is such needless loss of life. But yeah, He's immediately like, did you get the diamond? And she Laurel Nnie, She's got a good cold, like calculated face, is realizing this and she says, you remember what I told you. If I ever got the hint that you sent me out here for anything other than Charlie, I would make you sorry.
And then she does a bunch of technobabble that doesn't make any sense. I'm convinced, but she puts it in the coordinates of the satellite into this diamond laser gun and then Presto blows up his very fancy satellite.
She blows up a satellite. Yeah, yes, yes, yeah, and then she's like yeah in transmission obviously, and moves on for then may bust out the balloon. They get in the balloon and at this point, yeah, it's just what it's Ross Elliott and Kelly.
Oh.
But before that, Amy goes off into the wild. We finally gets a third try. Will the gorillas accept me? Will the silverback gorilla potentially marry me? And yeah, she goes They say yeah, come on, and so she moves on to be with the silverback gorilla and is like three other wives.
Yes, it is a very touch and good vibe between Peter, doctor Elliott, and Amy, who he had been adamant throughout, like this is where she belongs, even though she'd have these clear signs that it was gonna be difficult for her to adapt, and even her mocal was like, this is not gonna work. But he they have this fawn farewell. This is also a very funny part to me where suddenly his shirt is like wide open and I'm like, you were trying. You guys were really trying, very very nineties.
But yeah, now it's the three. It's Karen, Monroe and Peter in his hot air balloon floating off. Karen asked Peter to throw away the diamond, which he does, and Roe is not happy about that. I did find it interesting that they kind of have this like lovely escape in hot air balloon, but like their plane had been shot down, like two planes had been shot down. I don't know, maybe these are not questions I should be asking, but yeah, that's I mean, the hot air balloon is
what really got me. I was not anticipating that. And there's a lot of things. There was a lot of build up of like, oh wow, there's a talking gorilla, Oh wow, she drinks, Martine. There was a lot of things I could never have anticipated, to be honest, but that was the final thing where I was like, Wow, they are escaping. They a hot air balloon.
Yeah. Yeah, they take off and they look at the diamond one last time and then they throw it over the side.
Yes, and I think we get another We get one more shot of Amy who looks happy in her new Yes, her new crew. She looks like she's going to live a good life.
And that's the end of the movie. That's Congo.
What a ride? All right?
Well, Annie, thanks for joining me here on this episode of Weird House. This was a lot of fun rewatching Congo and then discussing it with you here.
Yes, thank you, thank you, Thank you so much for having me. It was so fun.
Absolutely so again. Your your podcasts are stuff Mom never told you and Savor people can find those wherever you get your podcasts. Have have you done any movie related episodes of either of the shows recently?
Well, we do once a month. We do Feminist Movie Friday and sometimes Spoiled Saturdays on stuff I've never told you. We just did for Savior, we just did Pans Labyrinth. It's kind of like a nice Halloween because it's her savor. We do like foods in fictional proper, so I would recommend that for sure.
Excellent. All right, well, yeah, you can find those shows wherever you get your podcast everyone, And just a reminder that Weird House Cinema is a show on Fridays and the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed. We're primarily a science podcast, but on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film. If you want to follow the films that we've covered here, I blog about them at simmutamusic dot com. But also we have a letterboxed account that's l E T T
E R b o x d dot com. You can look us up. Our username is weird House and there's a list there and you can see all the films we've done in order, and also include links to where you can listen to them, and also sometimes go ahead and give you a preview of what's coming up next. Thanks as always to Seth Nicholas Johnson for producing the show here and stitching everything together. And if you would like to reach out and if you have anything to
say about Congo, if you have suggestions, for the future. Well, you can email us at contact had Stuff to Blow Your Mind dot com.
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