Congo (1995)
Rich boy adventurer Charles (Bruce Campbell) vanishes in Africa so his girlfriend Karen Ross (Laura Linney) goes looking for him as his evil rich bastard father (Joe Don Baker) screams about diamonds and a communications satellite. Meanwhile the idiot Peter (Dylan Walsh) takes his gorilla who communicates in sign language into a war zone to release her into the wild. He, his sidekick (Grant Heslov) and the spreadsheet with hair Karen end up tagging along together as a sarcastic guide (Ernie Hudson) is sarcastic. Also a nutter (Tim Curry) lurks yelling about King Solomon’s mines. This was dire, atrocious and totally empty. Amy spews unexpected words at random to provide dreary humour. The idiots ignore the political unrest and Peter shrieks and is incompetent.
The stoic idiots stumble around and find a lost city. People die and Peter continues to be a confused, rambling, extraordinarily stupid man with an 80s perm. The characters have no reaction to living in chaos and are venal, lacking depth and pathos. This has wry laughs, outdated computer technology, awful SFX, silly people who deserve to be dead and an idiot plot but this film was still better than ‘Timeline’.
Best Lines:
“Are you human?”
“I’ll be human later.”
“I know it’s not Mr Ed.”
“It don’t pay to ask.”
“Then you’re coming out as somebody’s bowel movement.”
“Now run away.”
“Did they get him?”
“That’s the bad news. No, they didn’t.”
“Amy, don’t inhale.”
“Where’s my gorilla?”
“This is pure Kafka.”
“Who’s Kafka? Tell me!”
“That region of the Congo’s unhabited.”
“Well something inhabits it.”
“Have your laughing!”
“It was an appalling suicide.”
“We won’t quibble.”