Gorilla + Martini = Magic

Before I discuss 1995's Congo, I'd like to introduce those who don't know about it to a very, very important website.

DoesTheDogDie.com

See, as an animal lover, I often find myself being one of those morally confused viewers who watches a film where human beings are tortured and slaughtered without a facial twitch, yet sobs like a baby who stubbed its toe when an adorable puppy is kicked or a likable hamster meets the dark limbo of a household vacuum. Call me a hypocrite in any language, but I was among those in the theater for Cold Mountain that gasped when a hungry hermit slit a goat's throat yet munched on my popcorn when hundreds of soldiers were blasted away.

This kind of attitude is what kept me away from Congo for, it would now seem twenty years. I remember the film being released and thought, as any typical thirteen-year-old girl would, "Neat! Gorillas! Jungles! Volcanoes! Ernie Hudson!" Then I realized the film included a lovable TALKING gorilla who was so clearly going to earn my instant love. Then I realized the film included human characters SHOOTING gorillas. I could connect the dots well enough (thanks, Pee-Wee's Playhouse) to know that this added up to the chance that human characters may very well shoot the talking gorilla that had earned my love.

That did not sound joyous.

Thankfully, twenty years later, I'm married to a man who has seen Congo so when I asked, "Does the adorable talking gorilla die?" he responded, 

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Okay. So I now allowed myself to watch Congo. 

Side note: DoesTheDogDie.com does not apparently care about gorillas, as it has no entry for Congo. I still recommend it for those (like me) who nearly turned off The Caller for fear of that wonderful golden retriever suffering a cruel fate, but if you like gorillas, then I advise you to marry someone like my husband.

Just not, you know, MY husband. Because then I'll have to go all Laura Linney on you.

CONGO!

Quick Plot: A multimillion dollar communications conglomerate something something headed by a paranoid Joe Don Baker sends Ash to Africa to find diamonds that can power laser guns.

No, I'm serious. 

And yes, that's just the first five minutes.

Before you can say groovy, Bruce Campbell is mangled by mutant-ish gorillas and his ex-fiancee/colleague Karen Ross (Linney) is heading overseas to track him down. Meanwhile, primatologist Peter (Dylan Walsh) is also booking a flight to Africa in order to reunite his prized talking ape Amy with her motherland. His travel companions include a nervous assistant and a Romanian philanthropist hammed up by Tim Curry.

Yes, THE Tim Curry.

And yes, THE Tim Curry speaks in what might be the most awesomely ridiculous European accent humanely possible. If Congo gave me one thing, it's the new dream project of seeing Tim Curry cast in a live action musical version of Bram Stoker's Dracula but playing the titular role as if he were Sesame Street's The Count.

In my head, it's life changing.

Because one amazing accent isn't enough, we also get Ernie Hudson as Munro, a black great white hunter (it makes sense, trust me) guiding the missions. Munro is British, I guess, and speaks with a randomly pretentious lilt that seems to delight the man playing him. That's enough for me.

Also, his assistant is played by Adebisi himself, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. Here's an actor that always deserves better, but it's still nice to see him show up to fight mutant-ish gorillas.

So. To recap:

Karen Ross goes to the Congo to find Bruce Campbell and maybe laser diamonds that Muppet Count Tim Curry wants while Peter tries to free Amy the Talking Gorilla and political chaos causes a lot of travel problems so we lose a few porters but Laura Linney can fire flare guns at missiles and hungry hungry hippos attempt to eat people which means we lose a few more porters while mutant-ish apes guard King Solomon's mine and we just lost two more porters and there are volcanoes, too.

I think I hit all the major plot points in that beautifully written sentence, but I did not, however, provide you a list of all the amazing things Amy does. 

No, not that Amazing Amy. Better.

Remember, Amy is a gorilla, albeit a puppet one created by Stan Winston, but still an adorable banana-eating gorilla. She adorably does the following:

Hugs a stuffed animal

Plays with a lizard and frog

Wears 3D glasses

Paints a picture

Smokes 

Parachutes with Ernie Hudson

Sips a martini

Yes folks, no matter how sour that 7% Fresh Rotten Tomatoes rating may seem (and the lone fresh bite comes from none other than the late but always great Roger Ebert), Congo is the movie that features a cute gorilla sipping a martini. 

It is a masterpiece.

High Points

There's no other way to say this: Laura Linney as Karen Ross kicks ass. Here's an intelligent, multi-talented female character who never asks or needs help from her male counterparts, who can take down missiles, outrun a volcano, kill killer mutant-ish gorillas, stick it to her boss, tie her hair back in a soft scrunchie, and assemble a futuristic laser gun in the middle of an African cave. Screw Lara Croft: THIS is what a heroine looks like

Low Points

You can always tell when a script was filmed with some undecided decisions. Here you have Oscar and Tony winning playwright John Patrick Shanley penning the kind of screenplay that gives our main character an ex-fiance without ever discussing what made the ex, which was most likely done because the studio hadn't decided if Laura Linney and Dylan Walsh had romantic chemistry (they don't; Linney is great but you can't compete with a martini-sipping gorilla) or if test audiences wanted a romance. So instead, we have a vague attempt at romantic tension (seemingly more from the actors' instincts than script), confusing dead relationship we don't know if we should care about, and the feeling that it would all be better if Ernie Hudson and Laura Linney ended the film making out

Lessons Learned

The shortage of qualify diamonds is the real reason we haven't yet made lightsabers a commercial product

Unlike pounds of sugar, primatologists don't have prices

Stop eating Captain Wanta's sesame cake

STOP EATING CAPTAIN WANTA'S SESAME CAKE

Rent/Bury/Buy

Look, Congo is a mess of a big budget action flick, but it's a RIDICULOUS mess of a big budget action flick and as a result, it's one heck of a good time. Director Frank Marshall (Alive, Arachnophobia) spent decades playing around as a producer on Steven Spielberg's films, and he brings a sort of highly flawed, but super enthusiastic spirit of adventure to this weirdly ambitious summer film. The movie is streaming on Netflix and while there are innocent(ly murderous mutant-ish) gorilla deaths, the spirit is light enough to make this ultimately more about fun than anything remotely political. Sorry, Michael Crichton. I'm sure you hated the final product along with the critics, but when you have Ernie Hudson playing the suave hero, Tim Curry eating scenery with the hunger of Cookie Monster, an unapologetically strong female lead, and an adorable gorilla sipping a martini, you have a winner.

One Flew Over the Martian's Nest

I don’t think I’ alone in remembering movies from my childhood more as moments than full narratives. I couldn’t tell you much about my family’s VHS copy of Invaders From Mars, save for those specific images that stuck: a mother eating raw beef, icky open wounds on the back of adults’ heads, and Louise Fletcher practicing Grandma Foxworth’s diction screaming a-e-i-o-u (in my own re-imagining, she adds “and sometimes y”).

Naturally, when it popped up on Instant Watch, it was a natural experiment to see how Tobe Hooper's little loved sci-fi/horror remake played to my adult sensibilities.

Quick Plot: Young Hunter Carson lives happily in the suburbs with his mom and NASA employed dad. One night, he spots what a possible UFO landing just over the hill outside his window. Dad takes a walk to investigate and returns a little ... off.

Just give it one more day and a parents-only walk before Mom is serving up blackened bacon and eating raw chopped meat. At school, Hunter begins to suspect his teacher may also be under some form of extraterrestrial influence, and not JUST because she happens to be played by Nurse Ratched. 

Thankfully, Hunter is able to convince the friendly school nurse Linda (genre stalwart Karen Black) that something is amiss. Together they discover a series of underground tunnels occupied by giant, fleshy ball creatures with long legs and almost adorable t-rex arms, plus their master who resembles what I assume would happen if a baseball had sex with a meatball, the meatball took thalidomide when pregnant then drank steroid-infused clamato while breastfeeding.

Slightly cute, but mostly ugly.

Invaders From Mars is a remake of a classic (though unseen by me) sci-fi film from the golden ‘50s. This version starts with a fair amount of complicated pedigree: Alien creator Dan O’Bannon on script duties and Texas Chainsaw Massacre director Tobe Hooper behind the camera. Fresh off of the alien (and boob)-filled Lifeforce and slightly distanced from the controversial Poltergeist, Hooper seems to approach Invaders from a rather in-between style. With its child protagonist and PG rating (although a 1986 PG is generally translated into a 2014 PG-13), Invaders From Mars certainly feels like it’s made for a younger audience. On the other hand, some of the violence and general theme of Martians landing on our planet to possess your parents, eat your teachers, shoot your war heroes, and poke a hole through your neck is rather rough stuff for the kiddie crowds.

More problematic is the pacing. My understanding of the original film is that it follows a similar feel to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, with a slow build of suspense with special attention to its Cold War analogy. Hooper’s film has other aims. We get one quick but sweet scene setting the Carsons up as a happy family before immediately pulling them apart. It’s not that every monster movie with a child lead has to include the obligatory ‘only the kid knows the truth!’ trope, but Invaders moves so fast that there’s not even time for the intelligent adults to question him.

It’s strange. There’s so much about Invaders From Mars that’s almost awesome. You’ve got a super duper supporting cast filled with the likes of Timothy Bottoms, Laraine Newman (with a Coneheads reference to boot!), and James Karen, all of whom clearly relish the chance to go big. The effects by Stan Winston and John Dykstra are genuinely great, and plenty of weird touches (Fletcher’s zombie-teacher-intimidating-through-vowel-reciting, for one) that keep the film on a kind of special radar.

It’s not really enough. I enjoyed watching Invaders From Mars, but to call it a good film would be a lie. And reader, would I ever lie to you?

High Points

Enough really can’t be said about the creature design of Invaders’ Martians. Gooey, ugly, and genuinely not of this world. Also, they shoot lasers. That’s never bad

Low Points

I don’t really want to even talk about the ending because it made me that mad, so we’ll just leave that right there

Lessons Learned

Always keep a sack of pennies on you. They might cause you to run with a limp and almost get caught by clumsy martians or schoolteachers, but it's worth it

Marines have no qualms about killing martians (although they never carry spare change into combat)

Astronauts need to stay up late

Rent/Bury/Buy

Just 90 minutes on Instant Watch, Invaders From Mars is certainly worth a look for those interested in sci-fi, heavy practical effects, or true ‘80s genre cinema. I can’t imagine anyone will declare this an unheralded classic, but it’s a weird little oddity that should prove entertaining on one level or another. I mean, lasers. Who doesn’t love ‘em?