You’ll Go Ape Over The Gorilla-Thrilla ‘Congo’
“Congo”
Location: Lincoln Heights, North Division and Showbaot cinemas
Credits: Directed by Frank Marshall, starring Dylan Walsh, Laura Linney, Ernie Hudson, Joe Don Baker, Tim Curry
Running time: 1:42
Rating: PG-13
About all that seems to be missing from “Congo,” Frank Marshall’s movie version of a novel by Michael Crichton, is a guest appearance from Indiana Jones or Jungle Jim.
The film bears forth an honorable old movie genre, the horrific jungle adventure, with such confidence and zest that it seems a pity not to have a few of its ancestors along for the ride.
What we have here is a classic Hollywood soundstage jungle, overgrown with cultivated foliage and distinguished by imposing ancient ruins that were actually built only months ago. The setting, as photographed by Allen Daviau, is actually the best thing about “Congo,” which suffers from the same variety of desultory writing and shallow portrayals that compromised the dramatic sense of “Jurassic Park,” the 1993 hit by Frank Marshall’s old crony Steven Spielberg.
But Marshall and his kind are not about making art. They are about making escape hatches from the tedium of reality. And “Congo” is a prime example of this craft.
The fabled Lost City of Zinj seems to have cropped up on somebody’s computer screen, and so a huge Western corporation with diamond-mining interests sends a safari into the wilds of Africa to check things out. Before anybody knows what’s happening, there are dead bodies and trashed machinery strewn about the landscape. An ominous, hairy blur darts conspicuously across the screen, stopping long enough to flash its gleaming teeth, which are obviously deadly.
So company boss Joe Don Baker, whose own son seems to have been among the victims, begins recruiting more people to become gorilla fodder. Meanwhile, ape doctor Dylan Walsh and fellow scientist Grant Heslov get help from flaky philanthropist Tim Curry to mount their own expedition, hence the expression, “Safari, so good.” Ernie Hudson shows up as a savvy guide, and Laura Linney plays a ex-CIA operative who was engaged to marry into Baker’s evil megacorporation.
Apart from the setting and its air of imminent danger, the real stars of the show are its gorillas, especially a “civilized” creature named Amy whom Walsh means to return to the wilds. These beasts are actually special-effects devices designed and built by Stan Winston, who was such a major player in the special-effects team of “Jurassic Park.”
John Patrick Shanley’s screenplay gets too ambitious for its own good - what with gorillas, deadly pitfalls, generic jungle perils, warring provincial governments, and the nature-vs.-technology kick - but at least it serves to leave the viewer wondering what in the heck can happen next.