Fire up your standard-issue telecommunications laser generators, because Congo is the Greatest Movie EVER!
Click on the movie poster or the title above to download our review of the film,
featuring Zac Bertschy from Anime News Network.
Review in a Nutshell: Congo is a spectacular sort of failure, the kind of bloated, would-be blockbuster that combines solid character acting with a ridiculous plot and questionable special effects. Opinions are divided on the quality of the ape suit work. Hey, wait. Bruce Campbell was in this?
The Greatest Movie EVER! Podcast 
You’re forgiving of Congo but can’t find any room in your heart to give Sphere a chance? Wow.
Sphere is pretty bad, though. And not in an entertaining and fun way.
Never saw either, Paul – is CONGO worth it for the horse laughs, at least?
And say what you will about SPHERE – but we got WAG THE DOG out of its endless financing hiatuses! 😉
Me and “Congo” have an extremely checkered past when I was younger. I first saw this movie when my father recorded it on VHS on Pay-Per-View as part of a triple feature with “Casper” and “The Santa Clause” around later in 1995 or early in 1996. The tape later wore off and then a few years later I bought the movie on videotape where I have kept it ever since. Yes, we all know it’s very cheesy and the ape suits look pretty fake and yet that’s the probably the reason I keep coming back to it so much over the next couple of years.
Oh and by the way, the movie is definitely coming out on Blu-ray this September just to give you and Zac the heads up.
I also remember seeing those Congo figures populating Kay-Bee Toys and pharmacy chain store shelves. Especially Blast Face, but for different reasons.
Whenever I looked at the packaging for Blast Face, 1/3 of the time its name was on a sticker that had been applied after the card had been printed. So, being a curious little monkey myself, I peeled it back to reveal that figure’s original name: Skin Head.
I can’t believe you mentioned Michael Crichton and failed to mention his three most controversial “Dad fiction” books, RISING SUN (in which we’re Those Inscrutable Japanese take over everything American, or so claims an American obviously named to be played by Sean Connery who nonetheless fails completely to act like Sean Connery, fluent in the Japanese language and culture!), DISCLOSURE (which “exposes” sexual harassment as a fraud!), or STATE OF FEAR (where he alleges global warming isn’t real!).
I have no idea why this guy wasn’t a regular contributor to Faux Noize Nutwurkz….
There’s also his last novel “Next” where he wrote a thinly veiled attack at a critic of his by using his name in the book for a pedophile villain with a tiny penis.
Geez, zerolightimageaccumulator! Crichton makes Tom Clancy (the guy who stopped THE BEAR AND THE DRAGON dead in its tracks for a thirty-page anti-choice rant – because, abortion is legal in China and all!) sound downright reasonable by comparison….
I’m a few days late on posting this, but last week as my friends (minus me) geared up to attend a RiffTrax Live of Sharknado–a more self-aware bad movie one would…well, not have a difficult time finding–Zac’s words about how they no longer really make the kind of “sincere” bad movies like Congo were particularly resonant. What’s a person to do in a world where the end credits to Corn Pone Flicks’ Foreshadowing are actually necessary explanations?!
(I already know the answer and that’s “treat everything the way you would while watching Congo.” On that note, I see a new top-selling Rifftrax is for Bruce Lee’s Fist of Fury, which is sure to serve as a generation’s introduction to Bruce Lee. I wash my hands of that entire section of geekdom.)
I would never fault anyone for stating that Wayne’s World is the best SNL movie, even though Wayne’s World 2 is the one with The Villainous James Hong. I would, however, say that tenet held true for decades until MacGruber came along. That is not only the greatest SNL movie, but the greatest movie…EVER.
Speaking of the Yellow Peril (I distinctly said “James Hong” didn’t I?!), if your assessment regarding the elements of Crichton’s writing which the film adaptations improve is correct, then I’m now curious to know how on Earth it’d even be possible for the original novel of Rising Sun to demonize Japanese [male] people even MORE.
You honestly don’t think people knew who Bruce Campbell was until after Army of Darkness was on Archor Bay DVDs? I remember it being on the local news when he was filming Army of Darkness. I remember in the early 90’s watching a bootleg VHS of his film school movies. I guess maybe because he’s from Michigan, be we know who he is here, and have known for LONG before Army of Darkness.
Listening to this way in retrospect, but I just wanted to comment that Bruce Campbell already had a lot of fans when Congo came out, especially outside of America. I think you underestimated the popularity of the first two Evil Dead movies.
The first Evil Dead was the #1 video in the UK when it was first released, and was also all over the news as the most prominent film in the “video nasties” controversy. Anyone who read Fangoria magazine knew damned well who Campbell was, as he was interviewed and profiled in it regularly.
Campbell himself had a fairly prominent internet presence, as he was very accessible and answered all of his own emails, as well as doing AoL online chats and the like. He had his own usenet group at alt.fan.bruce-campbell. I recognized him in The Hudsucker Proxy when I saw it in 1994 (which I saw largely because I knew it was co-written and second-unit directed by Sam Raimi; I didn’t much care for the Coen Brothers in those days).
When Kurt Russell met Campbell on the set of Escape from LA, he asked Campbell to say “workshed” because his son, a huge Evil Dead 2 fan, told him to do so.