Monster Movie of the Week: Congo (1995)

CONGO (1995)

Director: Frank Marshall

Genre: Adventure

THE MOVIE

In the wake of Speilberg’s successful adaptation of Jurassic Park there was an instant rush to adapt all existing Michael Crichton novels for the screen. We were shortly given movies based on Sphere, Eaters of the Dead (retitled The Thirteenth Warrior,) Rising Sun and Disclosure. One of the first in this wave was Congo based on the 1980 novel of the same name that combined at-the-time cutting edge science and technology with an old-fashioned jungle adventure story set on the “dark continent.”

Both the novel and the movie follow a mismatched crew on an expedition into the heart of Africa. The expedition is financed by a representative of a communications company that wants to find out about an earlier expedition of diamond hunters that mysteriously disappeared. Ostensibly, the trip is to send home an adolescent sign language-using gorilla named Amy, who in the movie uses a virtual reality glove to communicate her signs for the audience, both because people don’t want to have to read subtitles and, in the ‘90’s, there was no problem in a movie that was not solved by applying some kind of reference to virtual reality.

Congo tries hard to create another runaway hit science adventure in the vein of Jurassic Park. Of all Crichton’s novels to that time, Congo is the one that has the most similar mix of cutting edge science and imaginative adventure so there were high hopes for it when it was released but ultimately it was not as successful in terms of quality or commercial success. Congo is a decent adventure movie that is hampered by a clichéd script and a wildly over-the-top Tim Curry performance (is there another kind?)

You do have to respect a movie that features a gorilla/laser fight.

THE MONSTERS/EFFECTS

The movie features Amy and a group of mysterious grey gorillas that have been bred to protect the ancient diamond mine. The grey gorillas are supposed to be the velociraptors of this movie and are depicted as being smart and fast. The book implies that they had been bred from human beings and gorillas. The movie is reasonably kid friendly and implies no such thing.

All of the gorilla effects in the movie are done with men in gorilla suits and animatronics. Rumor has it that the grey gorillas were supposed to have been realized digitally but in 1995 the technology was not yet able to realistically create hair and fur. The effects are realistic none the less with the exception of the bad CGI lava at the end of the movie that looks like it was recycled from Aladdin.

Someone set that Monolith to "KILL.".

HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY

Widely available.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE

It’s not a good sequence, but the most memorable one is the one in which Amy rescues her trainer from the troupe of grey gorillas by lamely telling them off with her stupid virtual glove.

SEQUELS

None.

SEE ALSO

Jurassic Park 1993 Primeval 2006

TRAILER