Here's a hot take: if you haven't seen Michael Crichton's Congo the way it was meant to be experienced — on the big screen at the local dollar theater — then you haven't truly lived. It is, without a doubt, the greatest movie to come out of 1995 about gorillas.
As an eleven-year-old ragamuffin, I was entranced by the marketing blitz that sold it as a worthy follow-up to Crichton's other somewhat notable movie, Jurassic Park. I even got a promotional Congo watch from Taco Bell so that I could watch the time, counting down every minute until showtime. And yet, this masterpiece of a film is often frowned upon by critics, gorilla lovers and movie goers alike. I assume they are foolishly judging the movie by its content and not by its cultural impact to people named Travis.
There is not as much hyperbole in my words as you might think. Congo represents a time when studios were always looking for their next summer blockbuster — even when they didn't have one ready. Superhero movies weren't a common occurrence back in 1995, so every film that had the merest suggestion of mass marketability had a massive advertising campaign and accompanying toy line.
Remember Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, starring Kevin Costner as a British man with an American accent? It has all the ingredients of an action adventure but, in my uneducated opinion, is a little too serious for a toy line. Yet, it had one. I had an Azeem action figure:
It's probably (and regretfully) the only action figure line Morgan Freeman has ever been featured in. As a seven-year-old boy, I could pretend to be a Muslim warrior who stopped to pray toward Mecca while my friends were in danger. In retrospect, it was a little weird. Thankfully, I was not radicalized.
All this to say, Congo had one heck of a presence at the toy store. Yes, a movie about scientists helping a gorilla who knew American Sign Language return to her jungle home in the heart of the Democratic Republic of Congo while others used the opportunity to find diamonds became a summer blockbuster adventure. That's not to say that the story doesn't lend itself to that motif, but Michael Crichton, the author of the original 1980 novel, tends to idolize science and litter his stories with a bunch of nerds who aren't nearly as charismatic as Indiana Jones or James Bond. For every page of action, there's at least five pages explaining how computers and satellites work. The movie steers away from this (luckily) and embraces the adventure elements of the story, but it's still a story with a lot less fighting than you'd expect after watching the trailer.
To demonstrate my point, check out this sweet action figure for the character of Monroe. He comes with a "Surprise Attack Blaster!" unlike anything you'll see in the movie, as well as a sweet "Capture Claw," presumably for capturing enemy gorillas — a thing that never happens in the movie.
A story about the perils of technological exploitation of a lost land and the relationship between mankind and the animal kingdom is reduced to an absolute unit of an action figure wielding a surprise attack blaster against the world.
So what's my point? The marketing campaign, the original story, and the movie itself all conflict, their sharp contradictions banging together and generating a spark of creativity unmatched in today's Hollywood. You have to appreciate Congo for all of its nonsense for the entire thing to work.
So what's so great about it? Gorillas and lasers. Lost ruins. Super cool tents that pitch themselves. Ernie Hudson and Tim Curry constantly stealing scenes from each other.
Need I go on?
I will.
A woman in a gorilla suit that could give Andy Serkis a run for his money. Nothing less than an expert in body language could accurately portray a gorilla fluent in ASL, aided by a Nintendo Power Glove that translates her hand movements into actual words that normal people can understand.
Amy, good gorilla!
And let's not forget Joe Don Baker. He's an actor.
The action, the toys, the watches, the scientific mumbo jumbo that adds an air of realism — everything collides to create a black hole of adventure, breaking everything down into pure fun.
It's not an Oscar winner for a reason, but Congo is one of the funnest experiences you can have because it's so dumb it's brilliant. As further evidence, I will point out that the best scene in the movie has nothing to do with exploring lost ruins, shooting cool lasers, or being attacked by gray gorillas that attack humans on sight. The greatest single scene in the film is when Tim Curry's character gets put in his place by a passive aggressive African warlord who demands he have some sesame cake.
If you haven't taken the 109-minute trek into the Congo rainforest, do yourself a favor and pick up Michael Crichton's Congo today, wherever VHS tapes are sold. Put the movie in, close your eyes and remember 1995, when the world was a little bit simpler. Back then, everything was exciting and the future had unlimited potential.
This has been Travis Woodside with an (Un)Timely Review.
Bee Good.
