"Python" - 'sixty feet of pure sillines'

[Fearless Freep]

Happened to see "Python" the other night, although I'm not sure what possessed me to pick this one up.

It's a fairly typical low budget 'genetic super monster has escaped and is killing the towns folk' type of movie.  I don't have a lot to say about it other than some comments

Casper Van Diem is terrible in this.  He acted like he wasn't sure what type of character he was trying to play and he looked way to young for his role.  His accent was...inconsistant and vague.   I think he waas trying to sound menacing with a southern drawl, but neither actually resulted

Robert Englund was also in this movie and, while he didn't really do that great himself, it was uncomfortable watching his interactions with Van Diem because he's clearly a much better actor and the juxtaposition between the two as they say their lines is jarring..

Will Wheaton and his purple hair were amusing, but I could not picture him as a real estate agent like the story told us he was.  And for the anti-Wesley Crusher crowd..he does not save the day, he just becomes snake chow.

Other than that, most of the back story is pretty non-sensical, giving us little more than an excuse as to why this giant snake is loose in rural America; don't think about it too much

Some of the stupidity:
Agent Van Diem and his group of trained commandoes become snake food  and leave the plot so quickly and with so little impact that I can't see why they were even in the movie other than as a checkoff in someone's list of 'things we need in a monster movie'

In one scene, Englund and Van Diem are facing the snake and Englund is warning Van Diem not to move as the snake looks them over really closely.  When Van Diem movves, the snake notices and strikes.  I thought snakes used body heat and smell for locating prey?  Not eyesight.  I guess it was supposed to be a tense moment, but the writer could've worked in something that actually made sense with their monster and not something so cliched, and in this case, non-sensical.  And why did the snake kill a character by impaling him with his tail?  Given that all the rest of the victims just get munched..

The snake has a bad tendancy of half digesting and then throwing up it's victims; I don't think snakes do this.  This just leads to the cops finding acid-burned corpses in strategic locations at proper times to throw suspician on 'our hero'.  Again, writer trying to move the story in ways that don't fit with the chosen monster.

I like that this huge snake can hide in a garage behind a couple of boxes until it needs to be seen and then it occupies the whole garage.

Nice to see in the 21st century that men can settle their differences so maturely.  A guy comes back to town and steals your fiance?  Just have a fistfight with him until you both collapse exhausted with no clear winner and suddenly you're buds; male bonding at it's best.

Anyway, this is not a very good movie.   Made by the same company as Interceptor Force and a slew of other movies that seem to be the sci-fi/horror version of the 'movie of the week'.  The plot is weak and the acting and dialog aren't that great.  A lot of the script seemed built around cliches for moster movies like this that are very forced because they don't fit well with the characters or with having a giant snake as the monster; a paint-by-numbers script from the color-blind.  It's a movie about a hundred foot snake, if you can handle that then you'll do ok, but you need a high tolerance for the ridiculous.  And don't believe the box; this movie is not in the same class as "Anaconda" or "Lake Placid", so if those were not your thing, don't even try for this one.



Post Edited (05-07-03 10:50)

[The Burgomaster]

Fearless Freep wrote:

 

> In one scene, Englund and Van Diem are facing the snake and
> Englund is warning Van Diem not to move as the snake looks them
> over really closely.  When Van Diem movves, the snake notices
> and strikes.  I thought snakes used body heat and smell for
> locating prey?  Not eyesight.  

Pythons use their tongues to detect motion in the air. So, when he moved, the python probably detected his motion. My ex girlfriend had 3 pythons, one was 9 feet long - she usually fed them live mice and rats, but the big one sometimes got frozen rabbits (which you can buy at a lot of pet stores). She had to dangle the rabbit carcass in front of the snake and wiggle it so the snake would strike at it.

[Fearless Freep]

Pythons use their tongues to detect motion in the air. So, when he moved, the python probably detected his motion.

The Python in question had his mouth closed, so I'm not letting the write off so easy on that one

[The Burgomaster]

Fearless Freep wrote:

> Pythons use their tongues to detect motion in the air. So,
> when he moved, the python probably detected his motion.
>
> The Python in question had his mouth closed, so I'm not letting
> the write off so easy on that one

Well, you DID say that this is a "genetic monster has escaped" movie. Maybe it was a genetic mutant with good eyesight? Or maybe it is (as you suggest) just another damn terrible movie . . .

[Fearless Freep]

Well, you DID say that this is a "genetic monster has escaped" movie

Well, that was the confusing part.  The box talks about it being some sort of military experiment, but in the movie, Englund alludes that the monster was found naturally and he speculates on what caused it.  He does try to provide a hand-waving excuse for the creature's behavior by descibing it as some sort of intelligent hybrid of different kinds of snakes, but given how silly everything else is, I'm not inclined to give the movie a break by using that as a cover for everything the snake does.

It's amusing to hear Englund try to get Van Diem to capture the snake alive by describing it's potential military value but if you listen to the explanation(s) and think about it, it makes as much as capturing dogs with rabies for their potential military usage.  Yeah capturing such a snake may have merit, but not for the reasons Englund tries to sell.   Another example of pushing a button on the script-o-matic that really doesn't work with this monster

[Perk]

I remember when me and my friend rented this flick a while ago.  It was after we rented Vengeance of the Dead and Grim if I'm correct.  I may be wrong but anyway it wound up being the best movie we saw that night.  (Although I admit vengeance was better after my bad chinese was out of the picture ).  But the fact that the first 5 minutes is some guy riding a bike , the whole rubber duck shower thing,  and the garage thing made me think why was the movie even made.   Also my friend came to a conclusion that I saw posted on Christian  Salabert's Review)
 If it's big and it ain't human, then Casper Van Dien don't like it.

[Evan3]

Thanks for the heads up Freep. This was on my list of movies to rent once off Blockbuster's New Release wall.

I am a big fan of Lake Placid, and my memory tells me Anaconda was fun, though not believable, so this looked good. Now I wont rent it at all, try for downloads.

I have heard that there is a movie called Boa out about an ice age boa constrictor who attacks a futuristic prison. Anyone know anything about this???

[Fearless Freep]

I have heard that there is a movie called Boa out about an ice age boa constrictor who attacks a futuristic prison. Anyone know anything about this???

I think Jabootu has a Video Cheese review of it, it stared Dean Cain if I remember

[Chadzilla]

Python, I liked it.  Its dumbness just won me over...and the tee-shirt at the end was a hoot.  Great little wrong name at the wrong time gag at the beginning, too. Better than King Cobra, then again, just about every other movie made is.

Boa is much of the same, just as dumb.  So, yeah, I am going to watch it too.  Surprised?  What the hell do you think I hang around this site for?  I like cheese laden b-movies.  It's in my blood.

[Fearless Freep]

Just for clarification, I was not advising against renting it and watching it, just trying to level-set anybody's expectations that this is far close to "Interceptor Force" then "Anaconda" in quality.  If you're into that kinda thing (and as I wrote that comparison you could probably guess  that I am :) then you may be able to stand the dumbness.

Yeah the "...lousy T-Shirt" at the end was rather clever

Great little wrong name at the wrong time gag at the beginning, too.

Oh..forgot that one...little bit of a twist on the monster cliche, I suppose

[Andrew]

Van Dien's performance in this is absolutely ridiculous.   Maybe he was looking to practice with different accents, but his southern whispering/drawl drove me crazy.  Sometimes when an actor is using a false accent it amuses me, but not in this case.  The entire section with Jenny McCarthy and Kenny the Closer "flirting" with each other was also a tedious section.  I was happy to see people get eaten.

"Boa" is set in a new ultra-secure prison that is being built in the Antarctic.  While drilling deeper, to expand the facility, the engineers punch a hole into a cavern.  Inside are various dead creatures from the distant past and one very alive giant boa constrictor.  It makes a few testing forays before going hog wild.  Now, just to add cliche, some very dangerous villains are already occupying cells at the prison.   Once most of the guards and military types are gone, guess what happens to the elite terrorists and such?  Yup, they get let out and end up armed, so that they can fight the snake.

Ken Begg's "Python" video cheese:
http://www.jabootu.com/vcaugohone.htm

The "Boa" video cheese:
http://www.jabootu.com/vcjuneohtwo.htm

I think that I liked the "Boa" movie a little better, mostly since the characters did not annoy me so bad.  "King Cobra" is not only a slow and boring giant snake movie, it is a terrible movie overall.