| Congo | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Frank Marshall |
| Screenplay by | John Patrick Shanley |
| Based on | Congo byMichael Crichton |
| Produced by | |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Allen Daviau |
| Edited by | Anne V. Coates |
| Music by | Jerry Goldsmith |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 108 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $50 million[1] |
| Box office | $152 million |
Congo is a 1995 Americanscience fictionaction-adventure film directed byFrank Marshall from a screenplay byJohn Patrick Shanley, based on the1980 novel byMichael Crichton. It starsLaura Linney,Dylan Walsh,Ernie Hudson,Grant Heslov,Joe Don Baker andTim Curry. The film tells the story of an expedition team and amountain gorilla owned by one of its members who go to theCongo jungles to find a missing expedition and the ruins of an ancient civilization where diamonds might be located while encountering the undiscovered and violent gorilla species that lurks near there.
Released on June 9, 1995, byParamount Pictures,Congo received negative reviews, but performed better than expected at the box office.[2][3][4] It was nominated for sevenGolden Raspberry Awards including forWorst Picture. Conversely, the film was also nominated for threeSaturn Awards, includingBest Science Fiction Film.
Searching for rare blue diamonds that could enable a revolutionary communications laser, TraviCom employees Charles Travis and Jeffrey Weems discover the ruins of a lost city near a remotevolcano in theCongo jungle. Karen Ross, Charles's ex-fiancée and a formerCIA operative, and R.B. Travis, Charles's father and the CEO of TraviCom, lose contact with the team while tracking their progress at the company headquarters. A remote camera shows the camp destroyed and strewn with corpses, before a monstrousape destroys the camera. Travis asks Karen to lead another expedition to the site.
Primatologist Peter Elliott and his assistant Richard teach human communication to amountain gorilla named Amy, whosesign language is translated into a digitized voice. Peter is concerned by Amy's drawings of jungles and theEye of Providence, and wants to return her to Africa. Karen and Romanian philanthropist Herkermer Homolka join the expedition.
The group flies toUganda and meets wilderness guide Monroe Kelly. Captain Wanta warns them not to trust Homolka and lets them proceed only upon receipt of a large bribe. On their journey viaTanzania and thenZaire, Monroe reveals that Homolka has led previous, disastroussafaris in search of the "Lost City of Zinj". Their plane is shot down as they parachute into the jungle.
A native tribe leads them to Bob Driscoll, a wounded member of Charles's expedition who dies screaming upon sight of Amy. The group continues by boat and they learn that Homolka believes Amy can lead them to the mine. They find the ruined camp near the City of Zinj. Richard and some porters are killed by a gray gorilla. The group keeps the gray gorillas at bay with automated sentry guns.
At daybreak, they explore the city and surmise fromhieroglyphs that the inhabitants bred the gray gorillas to guard the mine, but were overthrown by them. At the mine, Homolka begins collecting diamonds, only to be killed by the gray gorillas. Monroe, Karen, and Peter flee deeper into the mine, where they discover Jeffrey and Charles's bodies, with the latter still holding a giant blue diamond. Karen fits the diamond into a portable laser and uses it to kill several gray gorillas. The volcano erupts, and the four escape as lava floods the city, killing the gray gorillas.
Karen reports to Travis, but when she learns that Travis was only interested in the diamond, she destroys the TraviCom satellite. They find ahot-air balloon in one of Travis's wrecked cargo planes. Seeing Amy with fellow mountain gorillas, Peter bids her goodbye. The three take off in the balloon, and Karen has Peter throw the diamond into the jungle below. Amy watches the departing balloon, then joins the other mountain gorillas.
The mountain gorillas and gray gorillas are in-suit performed by Christopher Antonucci, David Anthony, John Munro Cameron, Jay Caputo, Nicholas Kadi, John Alexander Lowe, Garon Michael, Peter Elliott, Brian La Rosa, David St. Pierre, and Philip Tan.
The following were listed under this section in the credits:
After the success ofThe First Great Train Robbery, Crichton decided to write a screenplay specifically forSean Connery as the character Charles Munro, an archetypal "great white hunter" akin toH. Rider Haggard's heroAllan Quatermain.[5] The film was envisioned as an homage to classicpulp adventure tales, and Crichton successfully pitched the movie to20th Century Fox in 1979 without a fleshed out story.[5] Crichton left the project when he learned that he could not use a real gorilla to portray the character of Amy.[5] It was offered to several directors includingSteven Spielberg andJohn Carpenter.[5] A brief attempt was made to revive the project in the late 1980s.[5] Eventually, Frank Marshall directed the film with little, if any, involvement from Crichton.[5] The film'steaser creditsJohn Patrick Shanley and Crichton as co-screenwriters, but thetrailer and the film itself credit Shanley alone.
Originally,Delroy Lindo was set to shoot his scene in theDominican Republic, but ended up shooting it inPasadena, California.[6]
The gorilla suits for Amy the mountain gorilla and the gray gorillas as well as the hippopotamus puppet were created byStan Winston's company Stan Winston Studio.[7]
A teaser trailer forCongo debuted in theaters on November 18, 1994, with the release ofStar Trek Generations. It was also attached to theVHS release ofForrest Gump. Promotional partners includedTaco Bell,Pepsi, andKenner Products.[8]
Congo was released onVHS andLaserDisc on November 21, 1995. The LaserDisc release isTHX certified and consists of widescreen andpan and scan fullscreen versions, while also featuring aDolby Digital AC-3 track.[9] A widescreen VHS release debuted a year later on September 10, 1996.[10] TheDVD was released on July 27, 1999.
In 2024, ahead of the film's 30th anniversary,Vinegar Syndrome announced a4K Blu-ray release of the film as part of their "Ultra" sub-label, under license from Paramount and newly remastered from the original film elements.[11]
Congo was estimated to gross $13–$15 million in its opening weekend, but surprised the industry when it grossed $24.6 million for the weekend, placingnumber one at the US box office ahead ofCasper.[12][13] It was overtaken byBatman Forever during its second weekend.[14] In the United States and Canada, the film grossed $81,022,101. The final worldwide gross was $152,022,101 versus a $50,000,000 budget.[15]
Rotten Tomatoes collected 54 reviews to give the film an approval rating of 24%. The site's consensus states: "Mired in campy visual effects and charmless characters,Congo is a suspenseless adventure that betrays little curiosity about the scientific concepts it purports to care about."[16]Metacritic rated it 22/100 based on 19 reviews, meaning "generally unfavorable" reviews.[17]Roger Ebert ofChicago Sun-Times rated it 3 out of 4 stars. He called the film a splendid example of a genre no longer much in fashion, the jungle adventure story.[18] It was nominated for sevenGolden Raspberry Awards.Hal Hinson ofThe Washington Post called the film a "Spielberg knockoff...shamelessly lifting themes and ideas from a handful of Steven's greatest hits." He criticized Amy the gorilla as "the most disappointing 'performance' of all" and opined that the supporting actors, Tim Curry and Ernie Hudson, stood out more than the lead actors.[19]
The A.V. Club's Ignatiy Vishnevetsky saidCongo was full of "goofy pleasures" like "delectably goofy" lasers and "mutant killer apes", calling it one of the most enjoyable films that came out of the post–Jurassic Park period. He said he enjoyed the film more as a campy comedy than as the thriller the trailers made it out to be, and concluded with "IsCongo a good film? It's certainly a good time."[20]
| Award | Category | Subject | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Golden Raspberry Award | Worst New Star | Amy the Talking Gorilla | Nominated |
| Worst Supporting Actress | Nominated | ||
| Worst Supporting Actor | Tim Curry | Nominated | |
| Worst Original Song | Jerry Goldsmith "(Feel) the Spirit of Africa" | Nominated | |
| Worst Screenplay | John Patrick Shanley | Nominated | |
| Worst Picture | Kathleen Kennedy Sam Mercer | Nominated | |
| Worst Director | Frank Marshall | Nominated | |
| Saturn Award | Best Science Fiction Film | Kathleen Kennedy Sam Mercer | Nominated |
| Best Director | Frank Marshall | Nominated |
Avideo game based on the film,Congo the Movie: The Lost City of Zinj, was released forSega Saturn in 1996. A different game for theSuper Nintendo Entertainment System andSega Genesis was in development, but was cancelled.[21] Another adventure game was released for PC and Macintosh calledCongo the Movie: Descent into Zinj.
A Williamspinball machine namedCongo was produced in 1995 that was based on the film.[22]
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