| Cover Art |
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| Credits |
Director:
David Flores
Starring: David Hewlett, Jaime Bergman, Kirk B.R. Woller, Adam Kendrick, Angel Boris
Screenplay:
Sam Wells, Chase Parker
Country: USA |
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Who could resist a film with a name like this? Certainly not me, that's for sure!
Atlantic City, New Jersey: Broddick, a fiendish millionaire, has hi-jacked an 80 foot long, 12 tonne python, genetically engineered for the bioweapons division, for a hunt he's hosting for some of his equally kooky rich hunter mates. But before he gets down to the serious business of hunting, he and his personal assistant-come-(or should that be cum?) bodyguard Eve settle down to take in a bout of wrestling between two masked wrestlers, Boa (in red, like the titular snake is) and Python (in green, again like the snake), in what is possibly the (I think deliberately) clumsiest bit of foreshadowing I've ever seen.
However, something goes drastically wrong and the python escapes into the wild, the director showing us very clearly (not to mention obviously) that bullets aren't too much use against this mean hombre – action scene with automatic gunfire and explosions and snake induced trauma? Check. He also shows us that giant snakes have a roar like a pissed-off lion, which I would seriously doubt, if we were to use our gigantifying ray to enlarge a real python. I suppose an extra loud hiss isn't too dramatically engaging. Yes, I am taking the piss.
Do you know what the director shows us then? Angel Boris' boobs! I liked her bath scene. I liked it a lot. I mean, I'm not some kind of pervert or anything – I only watched it twice in a row. Okay, four times. Look, it was maybe half a dozen. Is there anything wrong with wanting to see a naked and wet Playboy Playmate holding a snake? Thought not. Yes, Broddick's an odd fella – he lets a snake loose in the bathroom, not because he wants to kill his gal, it's kind of a gag. Mind you, he's certainly not laughing when he finds out that the snake's busted out and run…errr…slithered away. But he immediately sees a new and different angle to this whole hunt…
Back at the accident scene, some more of our key players are introduced – Kent Humphreys, sleazy, pompous, nosey reporter with Channel 15 Action News (and his long suffering cameraman, Lewis) – reporters are never nice guys in action flicks, but we all know what happens to them – and Alan Sharpe, hard-nosed Special Agent with the FBI. We see the aftermath of the snake's carnage and it ain't pretty. And it would appear that senor snake has crawled away into a water treatment plant just outside Philadelphia. And it's hungry. Sharpe has found a scale at the scene, and he knows that it's a giant snake responsible, citing a previous incident of giant snakes running amok. He now needs the help of an expert, our slightly ditzy, stunning and spunky scientist, Monica Bond (another former Playmate, Jaime Bergman), who's conveniently holidaying in Florida, so that we get to see her in a bikini – it's a good thing.
Monica and Sharpe go to Longreen Snake Reserve where we meet the last of our two major players (Broddick's huntin' and shootin' mates don't exactly count, given that their function is…well, you know what they're there for), Doctor Stephen Emmett, a world class herpetologist, and Betty, a specially bred and (eventually) cybernetically enhanced 70 foot long 11 and a half tonne Scarlet Queen Boa, who Emmett has been feeding venomous snakes. That might sound weird, but it makes sense – her body then produces an antibody which Emmett then harvests in order to make an anti-venom. When we see Betty for the first time, Sharpe delivers a really breath-takingly dumb line: "This is big. And big is nice." We also find out that Monica has been working on some kind of implants to monitor animal behaviour (specifically dolphins) and track the little blighters. This meeting leads to one of cinema's greatest ever double entendres, from Monica: "I'm dying to know what kind of situation could possibly require the use of his boa and my implants!" This really is the kind of movie for people who like to giggle. Sharpe's master-plan? Simple: use Monica's implants (*snicker*) on Emmett's boa (*chortle*) to hunt the killer python.
Broddick's group of hunters turn up, and they couldn't be a more gleefully cliché-ridden bunch of bad-guys if they tried: Tex (from Lubbock, Texas whose snakeskin boots are not a great idea given this kind of hunt – who knows whose relatives he could be wearing! He arrives in a big ole 4x4 flying the Stars and Stripes), Foley (a show-off sniper who burns rubber in a red Porsche), Danner and his son James (bumbling incompetent try-hards who drive a fuckin' facrissakes Volvo station wagon), and Littlefield (arriving on foot to show how hard he is, and in tune with nature, and who hunts with a crossbow).
We get to see what is possibly the funniest oral sex gag since Flying High, the sleazy reporter gets his, the implants are umm…implanted, and it's time for Betty the boa to kick python heinie! Broddick's oddball assortment are out on the hunt, too – cue: tooling-up montage. We get to see that Monica's implants (it's still funny to me) work well – they can not only track Betty, but see everything that she does, too. Emmett is suitably impressed and delivers the second best double entendre in the film; looking at Monica, he breathlessly exclaims: "Your equipment is incredible!" And I must concur. His efforts to extract his foot from his mouth are really quite amusing.
The hunt rapidly becomes a clusterfuck, but of course leads down into the water treatment plant, where Sharpe, Betty and co (including a whole bunch of well-armed soldiers) are already searching for our python, too. And of course our technology isn't quite what it's cracked up to be, and then there's the rather disturbing fact that our human protagonists (main characters and cannon-fodder alike) are rapidly becoming tomorrow's snake-shit, as human nature rears its ugly head (there's also another rather amusing moment as we get to know about snake-mating – watch and learn, kids; the look on Monica's face is priceless).
The final act – who lives, who dies, what happens to the snakes – you'll have to see it yourself and find out. Damned if I'm going to spoil such a silly and highly entertaining film for you. This film still has so much more to give you than what I've told you about already. I must say though, Boa vs. Python ticks so many of the best giant monster movie boxes, including Inept local police; Bad special effects; Charismatic bad guy who you can't help but like, even though you know you still want him dead for being an arsehole; Interminable scenes of expository dialogue delivered by egg-heads; Ropy lines of pseudo-scientific back and forth; Ridiculous action characters with enough machismo to fill twenty Arnie films; Dialogue that appears to have been written by a twelve year old; Scientists who want to study the rampaging beast rather than kill it; Poetic justice killings; Bigger and bigger guns as the film progresses; Attractive female scientist; Pointless destruction and explosions; Boobs; Awful, awful acting. Man, you want it, you got it. Watch it tonight. |