SnakeMan (2005)

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

You don't have to wait the entire movie to see the low budget monster. A group of scientists go to the Amazon in search of a Fountain of Youth only to discover it is connected to a giant man-eating snake, who doesn't eat once a month like most snakes, but rather eats large meals daily like most man-eating movie snakes.The scene where the helicopter is in the air and gets struck by lightning, I watched several times. It reminded me of those old Flash Gordon serials where the plane is flying on a string.The movie has a lack of bad language, sexual scenes, or nudity. The gore is minimum, but people do get bit in half. It has that "made for TV" movie feel, which is bad. The characters are not that well developed or likable as I found myself rooting for the snake.

Following a rare discovery in the Amazon, a team of explorers hoping to find a potential fountain-of-youth for their pharmaceutical company finds the area guarded by a monstrous multi-headed snake and must find a way of getting out of the jungle alive.As one of the better Sci-Fi Channel originals, there really is a lot to like here. Among the better qualities here is the fact that for once, the plot-line is pretty credible and creative as the subplot about the search for the tribe in the jungle takes precedence and getting the snake to the background. The atmosphere here is quite nice as the thick, wet rainforest and impenetrable heat allows for a great location to be had to introduce the sake who acts as a guardian spirit for their people, and the little bits featured here gives their society a nice enough grounding to work well for the monster action. As the titular creature, this setup allows for more screen-time for the actors and less for the snake, making his sporadic appearances more effective while losing just a little of that fear. It's a nice gamble that pays off, as there's some solid snake action featured here due to the low number of appearances. There's some great suspense stalking scenes early on as the snake would constantly roar off-screen, the first encounter deep in the jungle that takes place in the dead of night works very nicely as the creepy action is fun with the chaotic scene being a blast and the later scenes at the campsite are really fun. The ending assault on the cave is undoubtedly the highlight, though, as bodies fly in all directions, lots of severed limbs go flying about and there's non-stop action here from the creature appearing during their ceremony and sending everyone scattering and leading to some great chasing throughout the different whirlpools and caves before the big ending here. Alongside the great gory kills and a chilling looking snake, there's enough to like here to hold it up over the film's singular flaw. Despite the fact that it appears to be quite large, the snake is still able to hide undetected in the jungle brush and spring out until it's too late, consistently manages to not only move around unseen it actually sneaks up on people and it's pretty hard to believe that an animal of this snake's size is that sneaky, no matter how familiar with its surroundings. Also, for as great as the snake looks, it's so obviously CGI that it hardly meshes with the actors, and the size of it creates several incredibly distracting scenes and ideas that it really sticks out. However, this is the main problem with the film.Rated R: Graphic Violence and Language.

Lurking in the exotic rain forests of Brazil is a deadly, multi-headed serpent that rips limbs off, squeezes victims to a bloody pulp and swallows others whole. A group of scientists working for a leading pharmaceutical company called Gen-Tec are down that way researching a new drug and end up stranded in monster territory when their helicopter crashes. Along for the ride is a local guide (Stephen Baldwin) who is the son of anthropologists and speaks the obscure native language, a corrupt, bossy jerk who keeps waving his gun at everyone and the token attractive blonde lady doctor (Jayne Heitmeyer) who emerges as the film's strongest character. Gary Hudson spends most of his time on the phone or sitting behind a desk as an exec from the company who actually has the team down for other reasons (and shows up with a machine gun toting commando squad at the very end). There's another mean jungle tribe in the forest (with an English-speaking leader!) that use blowguns, spears, tree limbs, booby traps and arrows against victims, kidnap the leading lady and worship the great Snake God "Naga." Also here is a trek through a crocodile-filled swamp, attacks from tarantulas and smaller serpents, overkill green-tinted snake POV camera-work and a partially insane, blood-painted American from a previous expedition. And it all ends on a weird metaphysical note with the discovery of the fountain of youth and a message about modern day greed and disregard for the sanctity of ancient cultures! The computer special effects on the deadly serpent are pretty lame (especially during the day scenes), but this is still a pretty entertaining fusing of Lost World, adventure and monster movie genres.

This movie is great. the real name of it is snakeman ... thats what you'll have to look for in the video store.. this movie is so funny!! and the story is great! and the special effects are top notch CGI quality .. it reminds me more of those older clash of the Titans / Jason and the Argonauts types of movies.. so it starts off with Stephen Baldwin and a crew of People going to the amazon forest for some reason or another and then they run into some natives and there is a huge snake that eats people.. now that i think about it .. this is a lot like the 1933 king Kong.. oh god this movie is funny!! go and get a few friends and a six pack and watch it!!! snakeman will give yall hours of fun lines to quoit in public as an inside joke to make other people around you thing that yall are really cool or just weird.