Review: Congo (1995)

It’s safe to say Hollywood does indeed like to milk things—sometimes literally, like the dozens of coffee machines that get milked whenever people have to put up with David Zaslav greenlighting another ‘genius’ idea, but at the same time concepts and creators have been taken ransacked to chase whatever trend seems to peek its head out of the ground. Back in the 90s, Michael Crichton became a hot ticket when Jurassic Park made bucks—we saw a flurry of rights purchases from Sphere to Disclosure, and in the process nobody really seemed to care that perhaps having someone with even a fraction of experience and talent like Spielberg might help things. 

Which brings us to Congo—based on the 1980 novel by said technothriller writer that seemed to be combining the old ‘lost world’ stories of pulp yore like King Solomon’s Mines with what seemed to be some sort of commentary on neocolonialism in Africa…which just happened to involve killer mutant gorillas, because of course. Still, before he descended down the dingbat hole in his later life Crichton could never be said not to have ideas that could be played with, so there was some sort of cinematic potential there—how did it go?

Erm…oddly. Our heroes are Laura Linney and Peter Walsh as employees of some tech company lead by a perpetually screaming Joe Don Baker, who wants to harness the power of LASER DIAMONDS to create the impossible—a global communications network! A truly inconceivable information superhighway that could never, ever be done with computers! Oh, and for rather convoluted reasons Walsh is also bringing along a gorilla called Amy he’s been training with sign language. Amy hits that uncanny valley of costume effects where while the suit isn’t exactly of bad quality, you’re still not really convinced you’re looking at an actual ape here. Maybe it’s due to the ape acting just a bit too much like a goofy filmmaker’s idea of an ape, even smoking cigars at some point because why not. 

Well, anyone would be looking at a vodka martini with bedroom eyes after they watch Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes. 

Anyway, our heroes are sent to Central Africa, which of course is embroiled in civil war. Everything is portrayed a lot more flippantly than it probably would be now—shit is just going down in Uganda because well why wouldn’t it be, duh? We do however have some pickup when we meet the effortlessly charismatic Ernie Hudson, playing in his words ‘a great white hunter who happens to be black’. With all the weird tone and dialogue, that’s finally something to keep you watching along.

And thaaaat’s before we get another point—Tim Curry as a ‘Romanian philanthropist’ who speaks in an accent that sounds like he’s trying to do a drunken pirate imitating Bela Lugosi. At this point you’re not likely to be caring for the plot such as it is, but just to see what the hell other weirdness this movie can cough up! 

With no more scenery left to devour, his hungry eyes fall on the cheap props. 

And oh, it does. After a trek through the jungle, we eventually reach a ruined city that is in fact still guarded by a ravenous tribe of evil killer albino gorillas! And naturally our heroes have to survive against this onslaught of ridiculousness with automated sentry guns and the like as if they’re on a bug hunt in outer space! By now ‘making sense’ is a concept long since abandoned, but I must admit I was entertained…and then finally once our heroes attain said diamonds, they use them to power a laser to slice said evil killer gorillas to pieces in the middle of a lava slide! 

I mean, what the hell can I even say at this point?

If that’s the kind of thing that sounds like it’ll give you a laugh, hell maybe watch it just for that. And of course at the end our heroes stick it Joe Don Baker by destroying his orbiting satellite with their laser…which gives it a range and power that sounds like they could hold the entire world hostage if they really wanted to. But no time for that, they’ve got to make an escape in a hot air balloon soon likely to fly into the ash cloud of an erupting volcano! Even in the end credits, this film gives you a chuckle from sheer doofiness.

Is Congo a good movie? Not really, and you will have to sit through a fair bit of nonsense before it starts to get entertaining—but once it does, you’ll probably just be waiting to see what comes around the next corner. I admit I can’t really name another movie that combines laser beams and gorillas, and it does eventually live up to all the buffets of sheer cheese that entails. If that kind of schlock intrigues you, give it a try on a tipsy movie night.