CineBad!!!

Holy Cow! That’s all I can say! I watched this one with an open-mouthed stare– It was as cheesy as a cheese can be. I highly recommend it! Anything that stars Tim Curry as a Romanian philanthropist/adventurer named Herkimer Homolka is worth a look.

Based on the Michael Crichton thriller about killer gorillas, this film is bound to please. It starts out with an expedition to the Congo to find a diamond that a Meglomaniacal International Business Conglomerate Guy can use to make a laser gun so powerful it can “drill holes on the moon” from Earth. The Business Guy’s son is on the expedition, so when there’s a problem, he sends his right-hand-woman (and son’s ex-fiance, Dr. Ross, played by Linney) to the Congo to find out what’s going on. What is going on? All we see is a satellite transmission which includes dead bodies around the camp, and large creatures running around before they eventually knock over the cameras and it all goes blank.

Enter Peter and Amy, a primatologist and his midget in a monkey suit, er, I mean, gorilla who “talks” via a electric interpreting device that translates and speaks her sign language in a weird computerized voice. Peter decides that Amy is really depressed because she’s homesick, and decides to take her back to Africa. Coincidentally, Amy’s birthplace and the place where the expedition disappeared are the same place! Dr Ross and Peter team up, and Herkemer Homolka joins along because he enjoys “doing good.” Thus they go to Africa, which is full of military unrest and Primative Tribes who do funkily hysterical ceremonies. There are also volcanoes. Rule of Cheesy Movies #1: any film containing a volcano has high cheese value!

It turns out that Herkemer is really looking for the legendary King Solomon’s Mines (Rule of Cheesy Movies #3: any film where members are searching for the afroresaid mines is bound to have a high cheese value,) so this film becomes more adventurous and exotic as our adventurers slash their way through rooms full of houseplants, er, I mean the Congo, in search of the ancient mines. Herkemer believes that Amy holds the key to finding the mines because she keeps finger painting eyes on everything. It all ties together, I won’t go into the details! Accompanying our fearless adventurers is a cast of “African” porters who leap into a Ladysmith Black Mambazo-esque rendition of “California Dreaming.” Everybody dreams of California in Africa, didn’t you know that?

This movie has it all– laser beams, final showdowns with creepy mean gorillas, cute gorillas who provide comic relief and touching scenes– I mean it has it all. The jungle looks like someone dumped several barrels of MiracleGro in my living room. (Note: do not watch this movie with an ethnobotanist, or anyone else who can identify houseplants, that is, unless you enjoy people sarcastically muttering “Nice philodendron!” and “Ooh. You should water that schefflera.” throughout the whole thing.)