Congo (film)

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Congo

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Frank Marshall
Produced by Kathleen Kennedy
Sam Mercer
Written by Novel:
Michael Crichton
Screenplay:
John Patrick Shanley
Starring Laura Linney
Dylan Walsh
Ernie Hudson
Tim Curry
Bruce Campbell
Music by Jerry Goldsmith
Cinematography Allen Daviau
Editing by Anne V. Coates
Studio Kennedy/Marshall
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date(s) June 9, 1995
Running time Theatrical:
109 minutes
Country  United States
Language English
American Sign language
Budget $50,000,000
Gross revenue $152,022,101

Congo is a 1995 film, based on the 1980 novel Congo by Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park. It was directed by Frank Marshall and stars Dylan Walsh, Laura Linney, Tim Curry, Ernie Hudson, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Grant Heslov and Joe Don Baker. The screenplay was written by John Patrick Shanley. The music was composed by Jerry Goldsmith.

Contents

[edit] Cast and characters

  • Laura Linney as Dr. Karen Ross: Member of TraviCom who wishes to find her ex-fiancé lost in a previous expedition to the eastern Congo.
  • Dylan Walsh Dr. Peter Elliott: Primatologist of Berkeley, California who wants to return his gorilla, Amy, to her birth place in the Virunga region of the Congo.
  • Ernie Hudson as Captain Munro Kelly : The "Great White Hunter" and mercenary.
  • Lorene Noh & Misty Rosas, and the voice of Shayna Fox as Amy: Amy is a female mountain gorilla, born in the Virunga region, who is studied by Peter in the United States. She likes to draw scenes from her dreams, in which the Lost City of Zinj often appears.
  • Tim Curry as Herkermer Homolka: An eccentric rich man from Romania who offers to finance the expedition. He explains this action presenting himself as a philanthropist, but it is soon revealed that his real aim is to find the mythical Lost City of Zinj, where he lost another expedition some years ago.
  • Grant Heslov as Richard: Peter's assistant and friend.
  • Joe Don Baker R. B. Travis: TraviCom CEO and Karen's Boss. He wants to find the diamond mines to finance and expand his satellite technologies.
  • Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Kahega: Monroe's guide and leader of the African porters in the expedition.
  • Bruce Campbell as Charles Travis: Karen's ex-fiance.
  • All Gorillas used in the film are played by actors in costumes.[1]

[edit] Differences from the book

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There are significant differences between the book and movie:

  • The characters Homolka and Richard, are not in the book.
  • Dr. Karen Ross and her aims were greatly changed in the film version. In the book, she is a cold-blooded business woman who wants to find the diamond mines for industrial purposes, more or less like Travis or Homolka in the film version. In the movie Ross is searching for her boyfriend, lost with the first expedition.
  • In the novel, the company that Karen works for is called Earth Resources Technology Services, Inc. or ERTS, while in the film, the company is called TraviCom.
  • Dr. Ross does not destroy the communications satellite in the book.
  • In the book, the catatonic survivor of the first expedition doesn't wake up and die after seeing Amy. He has a reaction to Peter's gorilla smell but never recovers consciousness. Karen says that she will tell his position to the ERTS staff before leaving him in the African village, in order to recover and bring him later to a hospital.
  • The gorillas in the book kill using stone paddles. The stone paddles are not present in the film
  • The book contained a competing faction known as the Consortium. This group included investors from Japan, Germany and other foreign nations also looking for King Solomon's Mines. This element was not present in the film.
  • The book has an epilogue describing Amy's behavior after returning to the wild, teaching her own young sign language, which is not mentioned in the film.
  • Munro is white African in the book. The transliterated joke in the movie is that Munro is their "great white hunter" that happens to be black.
  • The aforementioned character's full name in the book was "Charles Munro", whereas in the movie it is "Munro Kelly."
  • The character Kahega lives in the book, while in the film he is killed by the gray gorillas.
  • The gorillas attacked the camp repeatedly in the book whereas the attack in the film only lasted for a few minutes.
  • The endings differed greatly between the film and the book. The crashed plane discovered by the group in the book belonged to the Consortium, not another TraviCom expedition. Additionally in the book the group suffered an attack by a local native cannibal tribe before they could escape, using the crashed plane as shelter.
  • In the film, the only diamond recovered was thrown away; in the book, Munro completes a sale of a small collection of blue diamonds.
  • In the film, the diamonds are used for an optical communications array that happens to double as a laser based portable weapon but in the book they were all about semiconductor properties.
  • In the film, Amy the gorilla uses a voice box to translate her signing, but in the novel, Peter Elliott translates for her.

[edit] Reception

[edit] Box office

Congo opened with a weekend total of $24,642,539, eventually going on to gross $152,022,101 worldwide ($81,022,101 domestic) theatrically versus a $50,000,000 budget. The critical reaction was less successful.

[edit] Critics

Roger Ebert said that Congo is a splendid example of a genre no longer much in fashion, the jungle adventure story. He gave it 3 out of 4 stars. Most critics called it a theme park that can't decide whether it's a spoof or a thriller. Rotten Tomatoes gave it an aggregate rating of 22% based on 41 reviews.[2]

A significant cause of disappointment among fans was that the "gorillas" were costumes and puppets[1], whereas the 1993 film Jurassic Park had familiarized audiences with CG dinosaurs. CGI was originally planned for the grays,[citation needed] but the technology had not yet been developed to the point where realistic hair could be created. While smooth skinned dinosaurs were possible, hairy apes would have looked inappropriately cartoonish. Therefore, animatronics, masks and puppetry had to be used.

The film has garnered a cult following in the years since its release, from fans who appreciate the adaptation despite its divergence from the source material.  One of the reasons the film was slated in 1995 was because it came out in the shadow of "Jurassic Park," a much more high-profile Michael Crichton adaptation; had it been released before or significantly after, it probably would have faced less severe criticism. 

The "new millennium culture blog" Charge Shot!!! has developed a movie rating system based on Congo known as the "Congo Movie Rating System" in which a movie is rated based on its relative enjoyability to Congo, Congo itself being worth a single Congo.[3]

[edit] Awards

Won 2 and nominated for a further 11 awards.

Wins

BMI Film & TV Awards:

Sci-Fi Universe Magazine, USA:

  • Best Supporting Actor in a Genre Motion Picture (Ernie Hudson)
Nominations

Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA

Kids' Choice Awards

  • Favorite Animal Star - "Amy, the gorilla"

Razzie Awards

  • Worst Director (Frank Marshall)
  • Worst New Star "Amy the Talking Gorilla"
  • Worst Original Song (Jerry Goldsmith) (Lebo M) For the song "(Feel The) Spirit of Africa"
  • Worst Picture (Kathleen Kennedy) (Sam Mercer)
  • Worst Screenplay (John Patrick Shanley)
  • Worst Supporting Actor (Tim Curry)
  • Worst Supporting Actress "Amy the Talking Gorilla"

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Movie Review - Congo by American Humane Association (AHA) Film
  2. ^ Congo at Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved on 2009-10-09.
  3. ^ http://www.charge-shot.com/2009/09/congo-movie-rating-system-official.html

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Films directed by Frank Marshall
1990s
Arachnophobia (1990) · Alive (1993) · Congo (1995)
2000s
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