It’s no Jurassic Park, but fellow Crichton adaptation Congo has goofy pleasures galore
Film Lists Jurassic Park
Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by new releases, premieres, current events, or occasionally just our own inscrutable whims. This week: With a new Tom Clancy movie, Without Remorse, premiering on Amazon Prime, we’re looking back on other Hollywood adaptations of mass paperback novels, a.k.a. so-called airport fiction.
Congo (1995)
Like the toothy T. rex, Jurassic Park towered over the many Michael Crichton adaptations that made their way into multiplexes in the ’90s and early 2000s. Many struggled to stave off anonymity (see: Barry Levinson’s inertly stylish Sphere), but ironically, one of the most enjoyable entries in the Crichton-mania cycle is the one that feels the most like a bungled Steven Spielberg take-off: Congo, a zany update of H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines for the telecom age that was directed by Frank Marshall, co-founder of Amblin and producer of, among other things, Raiders Of The Lost Ark.
Obviously, it’s far from the purified two-fisted pulp of Indiana Jones. But any film that gives an Eastern-European-accented Tim Curry (playing a character named Herkermer Homolka) multiple opportunities to say “the lost city of Zinj” understands a thing or two about B-movie pleasures. In Congo, we find such delectably junky ingredients as lasers, mutant killer apes, animatronic hippos, a volcano, and Joe Don Baker in the role of a greedy industrialist. Most memorably, the film features a martini-drinking, cigar-smoking gorilla that speaks in a computer voice with the aid of a sign-language-interpreting high-tech glove.
What more does a movie need? Decent direction? Marshall’s is flatfooted, and it’s all too easy to imagine what a marginal talent might have done with the same material—or, for that matter, how the film might have worked without its dull protagonists, the primatologist Dr. Elliott (Dylan Walsh) and the former CIA operative Dr. Ross (Laura Linney). Instead, Congo rides on the shoulders of its supporting cast, beginning with Ernie Hudson, who has a blast playing the charismatic guide Monroe Kelly, the film’s equivalent to Haggard’s Allan Quatermain. Kelly is hired by Ross, Elliott, and Homolka to take them, for conflicting reasons, to the same remote location in Zaire, known today as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Honestly, Hudson probably deserved top billing.
Elsewhere, there’s the aforementioned Curry and Baker; Delroy Lindo and Joe Pantoliano as corrupt operators; Bruce Campbell, Grant Heslov, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, and, briefly, John Hawkes. Though advertised prior to release as a thriller, Congo is closer to a camp comedy; the characterizations seem to recognize that—Hollywood budget aside—this is ultimately a movie with a bunch of gorilla suits. There are goofy line readings aplenty and molten lava in the climax. At one point, Hudson parachutes out of an airplane with the talking gorilla strapped to his chest; said plane is then blown up by a heat-seeking missile. Is Congo a good film? It’s certainly a good time.
Availability: Congo is available for digital rental or purchase through Amazon, Google Play, Apple, YouTube, Fandango, Redbox, and VUDU.
156 Comments
The cast is the only redeeming thing about this film- it’s such a godawful turd. How someone who professionally reviews films would argue for people to watch it is confounding.
First off, I love the name. Second off, this is a website that has a section called “Home Video Hell.” There are a lot of people who watch truly bad movies because they’re so bad. Thirdly, camp, even accidental camp such as Congo and Hudson Hawk, is a specific genre as much as horror or comedy. Loads of reasons to watch a movie beyond wanting to even be entertained in the way the filmmakers intended.
Thanks! I’m one of those people, shit like Hudson Hawk or a Neil Breen film are good times- Congo is an unenjoyable abomination. If you enjoy it, great- doesn’t change how I’ll be feeling about it.
so that’s “sometimes i enjoy bad things, and you can enjoy bad things too, but don’t recommend the bad things you like if I don’t like them too”
I didn’t tell anybody to do shit, buddy. There’s no need to get your hackles raised over defending Congo.
You kinda did, pally. There’s no need to get your hackles raised over recommending Congo.
Not really. They replied to a post recommending Congo by saying they can’t believe anyone would recommend Congo. I didn’t read it as saying no one should ever watch or enjoy it, just that they certainly didn’t and won’t be watching it ever again.
No. Congo is indefensibly bad. They are correct.
You’re telling me you see nothing enjoyable about the Delroy Lindo scene?
That’s fair enough! Garbage is in the eye of the beholder, and I haven’t seen Congo since I rented it from Blockbuster and turned it off halfway.
Say what you want about Congo or Hudson Hawk but if you want to talk shit about Neil Breen, well, you’ve crossed the line, SIR.
Breen is a master at all crafts that make a film- cinematography, writing, editing, special effects, directing, the list goes on!
Hudson Hawk isn’t accidentally campy. It’s deliberately silly and over the top.
Only accidental camp can work reliably. Intentional camp is almost always uncomfortable because it’s trying too hard to be camp.
Yah, this is an utter trash bag of a flick. It’s just bad. New mortal kombat at least has some cool fights
Oh please, don’t compare this to new MK what are you 12?
Agreed; it’s a pretty dull movie despite every wild detail about it. There’s a pretty good pinball machine they made for it though.
It’s kind of so bad it’s good. Or at least so campy it’s fun, if you are in the mood.The problem was that when I first saw it, I was expecting another Jurassic Park. It is absolutely not that and, other than in the misleading trailer, never tries to be that. I hated it then, but have come to appreciate it’s charms now that I know what it is really trying to be.
Roger Ebert liked it, and he was never wrong!https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/congo-1995“%5BN%5Dot a movie that is very good, exactly, but it’s entertaining and funny” ‘bout sums it up.
Although Ebert’s more famous missteps are when he just didn’t get a movie (as in his negative reviews of Blade Runner, Blue Velvet, and Raising Arizona, although he later changed his mind about the first and became a major booster of David Lynch and the Coen brothers once he got what they were going for), he also had a soft spot for bad movies that reminded him of things in his childhood. It was always funny on the show when he would defend something and Siskel (who was rather more snobby in the traditional movie critic sense) would be like “What the hell?”
Ebert has always been my favorite movie critic. He certainly appreciated craft, but he wasn’t so up his ass or seemingly trying to protect his bonafides to not admit when a piece of trash entertained him. I also liked when he frankly admitted when and how otherwise popular films didn’t work for him. His eviscerations of truly abominable films were hilarious, but just as gratifying was his grace in reconsidering his opinions or crediting bad filmmakers who sincerely reached out to him.
Responding to my own post, but I found the show where Siskel and Ebert review “Congo”, which is a classic example of the dynamic.
Thanks for posting that clip! It was very nostalgic for me, and I especially enjoyed a segment they did on Bob Dole criticizing movies he’d never seen.
I always liked Roger’s take that movies are not good or bad because of what they’re about, but how they are about it.
I actually like the novel, but agree the movie is awfulGlad it was made so Bruce Campbell could get paid for a location vocation with minimal shooting scenes though
The novel is really fun. There’s a lot of…speculative tech that probably doesn’t hold up but it’s a good pulpy kind of read. Movie is way more silly but I still kinda like it. Hell I’ll watch anything with Tim Curry in it.
It’s wild to realize what a movie is going to be laughed at for as it ages. Nowadays the whole “cutting edge tech” shit is always good for giggles because there’s no way entertainment can keep up with what’s actually around, whereas when they made the movie it was simply a Maguffin that seemed “futuristic” enough to hang the movie on.
Yeah. I still love the old ass computers in Alien because the aesthetic works for me, even though it’s still silly. The existence of cellphones makes a lot of old movies kinda fun too, thinking of all the ways they break the plot. Remember when people would cut the phone lines in a horror movie? Computers do it too but modern movies tend to have silly knockoff search engines and stuff to get around copyright stuff and that’s it’s own kind of funny. Like in anime where McDonalds becomes WacDonalds or Pepsi becomes Bepsi. It’s good stuff.
…and a young Laura Linney?
I thought the weird thing about this movie was the cast seem to be all supporting cast and character actors.
Y’know, that’s true, and I never thought about that until now. Such a bizarre production.
Well, there’s the Jerry Goldsmith score, but yeah, Congo is garbage. And I usually LOVE bad movies! I saw it on a double-bill with Stallone’s Judge Dredd. Still can’t believe I sat all the way through both.
TBH I haven’t watched Stallone’s Judge Dredd, and the fact that Rob Schneider is in it bodes ill.
It’s also a really bad movie.
From the writer of Moonstruck!
Nic Cage was in Moonstruck. I think of this as from the writer of Doubt.
It’s Moonstruck and Leaving Las Vegas that remind us that Cage actually can act. He just has a case of Robert De Niro Disease in which most of the time he just doesn’t bother.
Cage isn’t an actor who just doesn’t care anymore and just phones everything in. He puts effort into plenty of low-budget prestige-free movies.
And Joe Versus The Volcano!
In his autobiography, Bruce Campbell gripes a bunch about how he was ordered to not deviate AT ALL from Shanley’s script, even down to unconscious interjections like “Huh,” meaning that for the whole filming he had to be more focused on not letting anything like that slip than actually acting.
Stop eating my sesame cake!
Excellent music score. I still listen to “Spirit of Africa”. But yeah, whenever Ernie or Tim ( also Joe Pantoliano is fun) aren’t onscreen it tends to dull a bit.
When Laura Linney locks and loads a laser and growls “Put them on the endangered species list!” I just lost it. That was some high quality camp.
Can you get me in contact with your dealer? Because he has to be selling you some prime shit if you believe that there is anything amusing about this movie. It’s not even a good ‘bad’ movie. Congo wasn’t that great of a book to begin with, but this movie is a lot worse. I’m sure that it was written on the fly right before everyone broke for lunch. The fact that the lead gorilla in the movie’s sign language consisted of only of either touching her lips or shaking her arm in a jerk-off motion shows that no one even bothered with this film.
It’s Michael Crichton in his plagiarism phase. Nothing he did was good then.
I remember reading The Lost World and realizing, “Oh! Books can be sell-out sequels too.”
I remember reading Annie Wilkes’ rant in Misery and going “oh right, I know what you mean”.Also thinking that if you intend to rip off Conan Doyle’s story, maybe changing the title would make it more subtle.
I loved it how he basically wrote it as a sequel to the movie rather than his novel and had characters who died in the novel but lived in the movie come back!
“Turns out that I didn’t really die. They just thought that I was dead.”
Um… yeah… but didn’t they also leave you severely injured laying on a table on an island full of carnivorous dinosaurs? Even if those injuries didn’t kill you, you were literally set out buffet style for those man eating lizards.
When was this phase, exactly?
It began sometime in the 1970s and ended in 2008.
What did Jurassic Park rip off? Westworld doesn’t count, since he made that too.
It was a transparent rip off of “Billy and the Cloneasaurus.”
Was your previous comment a joke too?
Carnosaur (the book) – which has a dilophosaurus being blinded!
At least it was better than his rightwinger phase (Disclosure: Sexual harassment is something women make up to get back at men who spur them, Rising Sun: Japanese corporations are just a plot to destroy America, or State of Fear: Global Warming is a hoax created by environmentalists in order to make themselves rich). Fun fact, although State of Fear never got the movie treatment, Disclosure and Rising Sun did!
swarm: technophobia, silicon valley startups bad.
And the people behind the Rising Sun movie were actually so uncomfortable with the anti-Japanese stuff that they changed the ending so the Japanese guy who turns out to be the killer in the book literally just says “Wait, it wasn’t me! It was him!” and points to the wormy white guy, and the movie just continues with that guy as the villain with no further explanation.
Ignatiy says it “understands a thing or two about B-movie pleasures,” but this was supposed to be an A-movie, blockbuster. It had a Burger King promotional tie-in, Upper Deck made a complete set of foil-packed trading cards.. If it had been shot as a B-movie, maybe it would have been better, but I don’t think you can just call bad movies B-movies to excuse their failings.
I remember thinking at the time how cheap the sets and gorilla costumes looked. It seemed everyone but the marketing team knew this was a B movie.
It was a great book
Congo, eating flowers, and Ghosts of Mars are my (now, not so) secret shame.
Much like I severely underestimated Jessica Lange after King Kong, I severely underestimated Laura Linney after Congo. Blondes and Apes don’t mix, I guess.
Whats not to love? Bruce Campbell, Tim Curry talking like Boris from Rocky and Bullwickle. A talking gorilla, Ernie Hudson emulating Clark Gable, the sesame cake scene, and laser guns. Its a goddamn blast!!!
Tastes and opinions vary, but I’d argue that despite all you describe (which sounds great on paper), it’s pretty damned boring. They made a decent pinball table for it, though.
Stop. eating. my. sesame. cake. LOL.
Probably the best scene in the whole movie. Had me rolling when Curry’s character just spit it out afterwards.
My only issue with this review is that it doesn’t convey just how unhinged that Delroy Lindo scene is. A better director might have reigned him in, but Frank Marshall is the guy who gave John Goodman’s exterminator a hillbilly-harmonica leitmotif in Arachnophobia. Which is exactly the aesthetic impulse this movie deserves.
If Bruce had more than 5 minutes I may agree, but the film is largely unwatchable. I love Tim Curry, but he was in a different movie than everyone else.
Laser guns powered by diamonds just lying around on the ground, no less! I don’t see how anyone could fail to enjoy this goofy movie.
From a Bruce Campbell EW interview on how surprisingly bad Congo was:
“I’m Frank Marshall,” he began. “I’ve produced all of Steven Spielberg’s movies. Interested? Okay, I’ve got a book written by Michael Crichton. I’m going to get John Patrick Shanley, the Academy Award-winning writer of Moonstruck, to adapt it. It’ll be shot by Allen Daviau, who did E.T. Will you make this movie? Well, congratulations! You just made Congo.”
Joe Don Baker is a talking gorilla?
No, he’s Mitchell!
My mother doesn’t like you!
Why a gorilla though.http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/27p18/
Nope. Not even a fun, so-bad-it’s-good flick. Just bad.
All I remember about this movie is Amy, the gorilla that can sign with the special glove that translates phrases like “Amy good gorilla.” for her. And my buddy and I all that summer every time we saw each other saying, “Amy good Gorilla. Amy write movie script. What Amy really want is to direct.”
I’ve never seen this but now I’m sad we can’t get an MST3K episode on it.
Even when they had Netflix money, Congo would be a little out of MST3K’s league.
There’s probably a Rifftrax for it, though.
I can’t believe Rifftrax isn’t hunting this one down.
All that technology and they couldn’t even give it basic grammar.
“Amy… want… raindrop… drink.”
Amy stuck in head. Amy stop evil gorilla. Amy A+
I, too, remember a single line of dialogue from this ridiculous film and it was the aforementioned “Amy, good gorilla”.And is it just me, or was Laura Linney absolutely beautiful in the 90s?
No. Linney has always been very attractive. Seeing her again in Frasier the other day reinforced that for me. Not that I necessarily believe it is the definition of beauty, but she has very symmetrical facial features.
Yes. Mocking Amy’s hand gestures was a favorite for us at the time.
Unrelated, but what is with the formatting of the sites today? There’s this weird open blank area above the headers and some articles have overlapping text.
Judging by the comments this movie seems to be really polarizing. Put me firmly in the camp that recognizes the greatness of this ridiculous movie. It is pure Kafka.
Same. I love this movie. Ernie Hudson, Delroy Lindo, and Tim Curry were the best characters and made the movie worth the watch.
The only pleasure to be obtained from watching this “film” is saying “hey, look how young that famous person was!”.We’ve all been there.
When I was growing up, I remember hearing the phrase “guerilla warfare” by third-world rebels and interpreted it as “gorilla warfare” as in the rebels were training gorillas to do their fighting for them. So if nothing else about this movie was good, it did have fighting gorillas.
I have the same exact memory
I remember playing “Guerilla War” on the NES at my friend’s house when we were kids and wondering, hey, where are all the damn apes at?
The person who wrote the Navy Seal copypasta agrees.
Mad Magazine once had a piece illustrating how kids interpret news headlines. “Guerillas attack over the Plain of Jars” looked exactly how you would expect.
There is a Doctor Who story called Day of the Daleks which confused me a lot as a kid – in it, there are ape-like monsters called Ogrons and human rebels constantly referred to as “gorillas.”
Maybe you just saw “Captain Ron.”
I know this movie climaxes (shut up) with the protagonists blasting lasers at albino apes in a semi-mythical jungle city, but what I most remember about it was how incredibly hamfisted the Taco Bell product placement was. Like, they try to rip off the opening scene of Rear Window, where a silent pan of the hero’s living quarters tells you most of what you need to know about him. Apparently the main thing the director or writer wanted us to know was that this guy must shit pure Taco Bell mild sauce.
Heh-heh… climaxes.
My (controversial?) take on Chrichton is that he was a good historical fiction writer who too often chased after sci-fi schlock. The Great Train Robbery and Eaters of the Dead are his two best novels.
“Schlock”?
I don’t think it’s controversial to call Chrichton’s writing schlocky. We’re not dealing with Stanislaw Lem here.
Schlocky in terms of quality or style?
So pleased to see someone beat me to posting this gem. Freakazoid doesn’t have nearly the cult following that it should.
It’s an abortive Bruce Campbell action star vehicle. And if that doesn’t pique your interest, it ain’t for you.
The only parts of this movie I remember are(spoilers?):1. The beginning, where Bruce Campbell says a couple of lines and then screams and dies. 2 The ending, where suddenly a laser weapon is pulled out of nowhere and all the scary monster apes start getting dismembered and set on fire. It was an astonishing turn of events for the film, and one I was not expecting.
I remember as a kid being hyped for it. I think I had one of the Burger King watches. And I remember that once I saw it I thought it was juts ok, but that I had one very specific disappointment (like some scene from the book wasn’t used, or something) but I can’t remember what that exactly was anymore.
Not burger king, Taco Bell. I must have sold about a million of them that summer, for some reason they became a minor fad at my high school. In retrospect being able to source the more popular colors of watches might have been the height of my high school popularity…
Mr. Homolka was eating tres leches cake in the book, not sesame cake.
By the way, Michael Crichton wrote the screenplay for Twister, a great popcorn movie I recently introduced to my son. Catchy score by Mike Mancina too.
This film is such awesome stupid fun. Diamond powered-lasers? Evil apes? TIM CURRY in his absolute weirdo prime? Some of the cast is boring, but the ridiculous parts more than make up for it.
Did — did you just call Laura Linney dull? I will accept no such slander.
The best part is the climactic ending where there are two so-bad-they’re-great lines.1. Amy makes a dramatic entrance to save the life of her caretaker who is being surrounded by the white apes. She roars at the top of her lungs, runs to his side and signs/says in a little girl voice, “Ugly gorilla. Ugly. Go Away.”2. Laura Linney’s response to Ernie Hudson when he points out they can’t leave because of the white apes.
“We’re getting out of here.”
“What about them?”
“Put ‘em on the endangered species list!”
[Commence white ape massacre via laser]I’ve often wondered if fans ask Laura Linney to repeat that line.
I would if I could, lol. This was my first Laura Linney movie, so I have an affinity for it because of her.
This is the best thing to come out of this cinematic farrago.
Ah, this was always the other half of our double feature with Anaconda on “When Animals Attack” nights in college. The awful dialogue, Tim Curry, Delroy Lindo, Joe Pantoliano, Ernie Hudson, and about half a minute of Bruce Campbell. There are two lines from this my friends and I will still say just out of nowhere and instantly crack up – “Ugly gorillas! Ugly, go away!” and “Stop EATING my sesame CAKE!”
I had no idea this movie was so polarizing. I thought people who liked cheesy movies would enjoy this and everyone else would be indifferent, but judging by some comments this movie is as hated as the Transformer flicks.If you are wondering whether to check out the movie for yourself, I suggest watching this clip to see if you gel with its sense of humor:
This POS is infuriatingly stupid. It’s insulting. It’s garbage.
Delroy Lindo deserved an Oscar for his scene about the sesame cakes. Let’s be real, here.
Always love any excuse to post this:
It was an appalling suicide!
No. This movie fucking sucks.
The movie may be shite, but it’s one of Jerry Goldsmith’s best scores from the era. He always seemed to come through with great scores for the worst movies.
I’m this kind of human beings, shit like Hudson Hawk or a Neil Breen film are genuine times- Congo is an unenjoyable abomination. in case you revel in it, top notch- doesn’t trade how I’ll be feeling about it.https://www.anatrax.com/
I know. I know… BUT. The book was way better than the movie.(Except the presence of Tim Goddamned Curry, a pirate’s treasure chest in human form)Seriously, we are the better for his existence.
Honestly, I was so disappointed in the majority of Chricton-adapted movies. Congo and Spehere were two of my favorites, and they were hot garbage on the screen. These deserve a remake.Even Jurassic Park – despite incredible effects for the time – paled compared to the original book. Don’t get me started on Rising Sun!
for me ‘Timeline” is the biggest disappointment from book to movie.
oh, good one – forgot about that!
Sphere deserves a remake for sure.
I don’t remember much about Rising Sun, except I think I watched it on PPV? (back when pay-per-view was “new” and movies were on there?)
I don’t know how you make that ending work
Andromeda Strain and 13th Warrior beg to differ!
I don’t think I ever saw Andromeda Strain (I did read the book), and you’re right about 13th Warrior – good call.
To be fair, a lot of people under like…age 55 probably haven’t since it came out in 1971
This and even worse “Timeline” could have been good movies but they phoned it in just hoping that Crichton’s name would cover the budget.
Craving a damn green-drop-drink now
Things from Congo I still do in my daily life:“Me Amy, me jungle”“Why are you eating my Sesame Cake? … STOP EATING MY SESAME CAKE!” And then mime spitting/regurgitating it out of my mouth.“Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!”
I’m fond of this one, perhaps because I was at the right age to appreciate its silliness. Even today there are things I still like about it, especially the theme of man’s hubris in the face of nature. That expedition has pretty much unlimited cash, and an incredible amount of resources – hot air balloons, guns even portable air conditioners. Meanwhile the jungle just looks at it all, and says, “Hold my beer.”
Don’t you mean “Hold my raindrop drink” ?
Rainwater or pure grain alcohol keeps the fluids pure.
As bad as Congo is, it’s such a fun watch.
They should cast Joe Pantoliano as a Christ figure one of these days just to balance things out a little.
So the connection between this and the new release is they were both based on books? kind of a wide net.
Congo rides on the shoulders of its supporting cast, beginning with Ernie Hudson, who has a blast playing the charismatic guide Monroe KellyYou got that right. I liked that he was a knowledgeable rogue and once he figured everyone out, I enjoyed the skilled dynamic with his and Laura Linney’s former CIA character. They knew how to play the game whereas most of the rest were somewhat unawares.
PSA: The movie is schlocky 90’s camp at best, but the novel is simply phenomenal. Definitely a superior read to Jurassic Park, tbh.
I’d rather watch Sphere!
I love how boring this movie feels for like 8/10th’s of it’s run time and them the last bit is people cutting mutant albino gorillas in half with a telecom laser powered by blood diamonds to avenge the murder of Bruce Campbell while a volcano erupts around them and then they cap it off by blowing up a satellite and bankrupting a major telecom company
I was excited to see this film, given the cast, but if I could sum up my reaction to it in GIF form, this is about as close as I can get:
Say what you will, those gorilla suits were awesome. I’ve seen way way worse.