Starring - Laura Linney; Dylan Walsh; Ernie Hudson; Tim Curry & Grant Heslov Director - Frank Marshall MPAA - Rated PG-13 for jungle adventure terror and action and brief strong language. Congo is based on the Michael Crichton novel of the same name. Laura Linney plays a scientist whose company has sent an expedition into the Congo to look for a lost city. While the expedition is in contact with their employers in the US via a video satellite link, they are attacked. Before the transmission is cut off, it appears as though the attackers are giant gorillas. Linney is told to mount another expedition to find out what happened. Her character hooks up with another expedition that is also going to the Congo. This one consists of a scientist who is returning his gorilla, Amy, to the Congo. Oh yeah, Amy knows sign language and the intrepid scientist has developed technology that interprets her signs into words. So Amy can speak. Sound kinda dumb? Well, in the original novel, Crichton pulls it off. The movie doesn't. Congo is a disappointment from the get go. Amy, as you might expect, is not a real gorilla -- and it shows. There are very few scenes in this movie were you might actually be fooled into thinking this was anything other than a guy in a bad gorilla suit. The actors are largely wasted in this movie -- especially Ernie Hudson who plays the guide, and Tim Curry as the shady treasure hunter along for the ride. The rest of the cast is almost laughable. It may be as much a fault of the script as it was of the actors. I suppose if I was an actor, it would be pretty difficult trying to give my best effort while acting alongside a talking monkey. Not to mention the fact that Congo doesn't quite seem to know if it is an action movie or if it some sort of environmental cause. The movie seems to instantly switch gears back and fourth from this dangerous search for the lost city, to some sort of animal rights message that Amy should be with her own kind in the jungle and not in captivity. Of course that message is completely forgotten when the killer apes arrive and the cast starts unloading some heavy firepower into them. I'm not even going to go into the somewhat schizophrenic killer apes. For most of the movie they are portrayed as being these highly intelligent creatures, but during the final climactic scenes of the movie all those brains seem to have gone right out the window. Confused? Don't feel bad. So were the filmmakers. The movie isn't a total disaster; it just could have been so much better considering the source of the story; which, in all fairness, is not Crichton's best work. So let's just say this film is no Jurassic Park. The only high point, and we're not talking Mount Everest here, is the fact that some of the special effects weren't half bad. But they weren't good enough to make up for the guy in the bad monkey suit. My advice? If you are a Michael Crichton fan -- read the book. Everyone else should stay away from this movie and check out one of the better Crichton movie adaptations -- like Jurassic Park or Rising Sun. 5/10

¶ 12/15/1997 04:25:00 PM

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