Dr. Cale (Eric Stoltz) is a NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC documentary filmmaker travelling up the Amazon with his cameraman (Ice Cube), producer and girlfriend (Jennifer Lopez), soundman (Owen Wilson), production manager (Kari Wuher), and front-of-camera talent (Jonathan Hyde) in tow. Hiring the services of a riverboat captain channelling the grizzled shade of Humphrey Bogart circa The African Queen, the crew makes the mistake of allowing mad snake-hunter Sarone (Voight) aboard, promptly finding themselves embroiled in a plot to capture a vengeful forty-foot anaconda.

Voight's performance is one for the ages, a deliriously perverse turn that joins Olivier's evil dentist and Voight's own irredeemable baddie from Runaway Train in the rogue wing of the Bad Accent Hall of Fame. As unafraid to offer gruesome shocks as dreadfully leaden monologues, Anaconda's gore highlights come in a makeshift Bic tracheotomy following a scuba respirator-launched-sting from a deadly South American wasp and, of course, the aforementioned upchucking of Sarone. Though it seems initially as if Llosa will wisely keep the creature from view throughout (its point-of-view menace throughout the earlygoing courtesy Butler's water-level eye), the second the snake appears in all its digital glory, any pretense of real fright falls by the wayside.

Voight's performance alone is absurd enough to merit the film a look (it reminds in its alien fervour of Nicolas Cage's turn in Vampire's Kiss); Anaconda is his as soon as he appears, rendering moot the stunning predictability of the kills and false alarms. Regardless, the picture is so jokey and well-heeled (and that titular monster is so fake) that there's just not much in the way of genuine suspense, locating Anaconda several degrees superior to, but ultimately just as forgettable as, the patronizing Lake Placid and the mean-spirited Deep Blue Sea.-Walter Chaw

The DVDs in Columbia Tri-Star's first wave of Superbit titles seemed to get criticized for what they lacked in supplements rather than what they didn't in technical finesse. Let us review: the discs exist for the sole purpose of providing an optimum viewing/listening experience to videophiles, and in almost all cases one can choose a version with bonus material over these movie-only editions. The average consumer would not appreciate the slight boost in quality, anyway.

Columbia Tri-Star's Superbit DVD reissue of Anaconda presents the film in an impeccable 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. (One does question the studio's practice of releasing pan-and-scan-only discs of catalogue titles whilst catering to the techno-minded film buff with their Superbit line, but there appears to be no answer forthcoming.) Not a single valid criticism can be made of Anaconda's image quality, though the 5.1 mix, in Dolby Digital and slightly crisper DTS incarnations, behaves more erratically, with bass mild when one expects depth (such as in an egregious explosion) and vice versa. Split-surround effects are plentiful when the anaconda is snaking through a given locale, the jungle ambience convinces, and Voight's accent is almost intelligible without the subtitles. As with almost all Superbit DVDs, there are no extras--which is okay, as there weren't any supplements on the previous Anaconda disc, either.-Bill Chambers