Stuff I Grew Up With: Congo (1995)

I've said many times before that I am an unapologetic child of the 90's. Some may find much of that decade's pop culture cringey to look back on, but I, with some exceptions, mostly think of the entertainment and fads I got into back then with nothing but a smile. That's certainly the case with Congo, which, even then, was mainly looked upon as a joke and a poor spiritual follow-up to Jurassic Park, and nowadays, is viewed as a prime example of the decade's dumbest summer blockbusters. For me, though, while certainly flawed, it's a very fun and cool adventure flick. That said, I don't have anywhere the connection to it that I do with Jurassic Park, as I never owned it on VHS, nor did anyone else that I knew (I didn't even get it on DVD until I was in my late 20's or possibly even into my 30's), and thus, I haven't seen it nearly as many times. But, for a brief time there, it was impactful on my childhood, which is why I decided to label this with Stuff I Grew Up With. I can still remember first learning of it one day when I was over at my paternal grandparents' home. I was seven, and my two older cousins had rented the VHS release of Forrest Gump, which had a brief teaser for Congo on it. Looking at it now on YouTube, the teaser doesn't give much info about the plot or the characters (despite the narrator being very explicit in describing what's onscreen), and is mostly made up of distorted, slanted images of people running through a jungle, as well as extreme close-ups and glimpses of some kind of ape-like creatures, but I remember that being enough to get my attention. The same was true of the movie's title, which, for a while, I thought was the name of a big, bad gorilla that was going to be the villain (because of how it was so similar to "Kong,"). I was rather disappointed when my parents explained to me that it was the name of the region in Africa where it was set. Regardless, the idea of a story set in the jungle with killer gorillas really fired up my young imagination and personally appealed to me, as it brought together both of one of my favorite types of settings and animals. Heck, that poster, with the title and the gorilla's face, would've gotten my attention even if I hadn't seen that teaser. Like with Jurassic Park, there was merchandising and toys, which I think I may have even bought before I saw the movie, and I'm sure I still have some of those action figures somewhere in my house. And, also like with Jurassic Park, my parents were unsure whether or not they should take me to see the movie, as it was another PG-13 movie that looked rather intense from the previews and TV spots. But, in the end, we did see it in the theater, while we were on our annual summer trip to Destin. (It was a part of our tradition to go see some big movie that was out at the time, calling it our "Florida movie" for the year.)

While it was quite intense and violent, with some pretty gory moments for a PG-13, and I did jump a few times (as did my mom), I can remember really enjoying Congo. As an easy to please eight-year old (my birthday was shortly before we took our trip), it served its purpose as an exciting, thrilling, and sometimes scary adventure, with lots of cool visuals and creatures. It was also one of the first movies that I got a behind-the-scenes look at, as not long after I saw it, I found this magazine covering it and its production. It was the first of its kind that I ever bought, and while I was too young to actually read and understand it, the photos, particularly one of a man in an ape suit looking at the script along with someone sitting in a chair (I was young and dumb enough to be convinced that they were real gorillas), really stuck with me. I had that magazine for a long time but, now, I have no clue what happened to it and I wish I could find it. Regardless, it should be clear that Congo was a pretty big deal to me at the time, and I saw it on cable a few times afterward and liked it there as well. Then, I didn't see it for many, many years, as it never had the cultural or even the personal impact of Jurassic Park, but when I saw that old, bare bones DVD at McKay's one day, I figured, "Why not?" Having watched it a few times since then, I can say that I still enjoy this film. It may not be a modern classic, but I have a lot of fun with it, as it has actors and characters that I like, great creature effects, beautiful scenery and sets, and a wonderful music score. It's a great popcorn movie, and I'm glad that Vinegar Syndrome gave it a nice 4K/Blu-Ray release near the end of 2024.

An expedition funded by TraviCom, a Houston-based communications company, arrives at Mt. Mukenko in the Congo jungle. There, Charles Travis, the son of R.B. Travis, the company's CEO, contacts headquarters via satellite uplink and tells electronics expert Karen Ross, who was once his fiancee, that he's found traces of a rare blue diamond necessary to power a new state-of-the-art communications laser. Deciding to link up again in an hour so his friend, Jeffrey Weems, can share in the glory, Charles goes to find him. When he does, Jeffrey leads him to the ruins of an ancient city he's come across. But before either of them can return to camp, they're attacked. Once contact is made, with Travis in the control room, he, Karen, and the others are shocked when the remote camera reveals that the camp has been destroyed and everybody brutally killed. Some sort of animal runs through the camp, but the camera is only able to get a fleeting, blurry glimpse of it before it's knocked over and the transmission ended. Enraged at this, and showing more concern about the diamonds than his son's safety, Travis orders Karen to go down to the Congo herself and locate the laser and the diamonds, as well as Charles, if he's still alive. Meanwhile, Prof. Peter Elliott, a Berkeley-based primatologist, has, along with his assistant, Richard, managed to teach human sign language to Amy, a small mountain gorilla. In a public demonstration to draw funding, Amy literally speaks to Peter in a digitized voice via a special electronic backpack and glove. However, she's also been having frightening nightmares that have left Peter worried about her mental well-being. Looking at the finger paintings she's been doing and noting that they're of the jungle, Peter believes she's dreaming about where she was born and wants to go home to Africa. While the university is reluctant to fund such an expedition, Peter is approached by Herkermer Homolka, a Roman philanthropist who was in the audience at Amy's demonstration, and he agrees to fund the expedition. Before they depart, Karen joins the expedition, agreeing to provide additional funding when Homolka is unable to pay for it all himself. Upon arriving in Uganda, the group meets their guide, Munro Kelly, but get caught up in the tense political situation, and their plane is shot down after illegally crossing the Zaire border. Now stranded in the Congo, they continue on foot, and along the way, they learn that Homolka is actually searching for the fabled Lost City of Zinj, home of King Solomon's Diamond Mines... as well as a deadly secret that kills any intruders.

Naturally, after Jurassic Park became the most successful movie of all time in 1993, studios were eager to produce their own Michael Crichton adaptation. Crichton had actually written and published Congo back in 1980, intending to make it into a movie himself, as he'd just finished shooting The First Great Train Robbery. In fact, he had hoped that Sean Connery, who starred in that film, would star in Congo as well. Intending for it to be a modern day version of King Solomon's Mines and pulp adventure stories, Crichton started writing the screenplay in 1981. But, while it came pretty close to being made a couple of times throughout the decade, it ultimately never happened while Crichton and Connery were attached (ironically, Crichton had based the role he wanted Connery to play on the character of Allan Quatermain, whom Connery would actually play in the very movie that made him quit acting). According to an interview with Starlog in 1984, Crichton said he wanted to use real gorillas rather than people in suits, but this wasn't allowed due to their being an endangered species. With that, Crichton was willing to just give up on the movie, but 20th Century Fox, the company backing it at the time, opted instead to buy the rights off him and move forward. Crichton then left the project, although he did attempt to adapt it into a computer game, ultimately having to change the title to Amazon and rework the story due to his having sold the rights. He also briefly revisited the movie in 1987, saying at the time that it was going to happen, but it, once again, it fell apart. When Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall bought the rights to Congo for Paramount in 1992, as a result of the buzz around Jurassic Park's production, Crichton was long gone from the movie adaptation, despite initially being billed as the screenplay's co-writer in the marketing. John Patrick Shanley, the Oscar-winning screenwriter behind Moonstruck and Joe Versus the Volcano (the latter of which he also directed), was the one solely credited with writing the film and, in so many words, said that he had never met Crichton.

Before he directed Jurassic Park, Steven Spielberg was briefly attached to Congo after Crichton left it the first time in the early 80's. After he passed, other directors like Peter Hyams and even John Carpenter were considered, but when the film was finally made in 1995, produced by the Kennedy/Marshall Company, it was directed by Frank Marshall himself. Having co-founded Amblin Entertainment with Spielberg and Kennedy, whom he married in 1987, Marshall has a huge number of producing credits but only a small handful as director. His directorial debut was Arachnophobia in 1990 (don't expect to ever see a review of that, as spiders freak me out too much), and he followed that up in 1993 with Alive, with both of them being quite successful. Even though Congo was also quite successful, the mostly negative reviews and seven Razzie nominations are probably the reason why his only other feature directing credit is 2006's Eight Below, starring the late Paul Walker. That movie was extremely successful, and could actually be considered Marshall's biggest commercial hit as director, but since then, he's mainly directed documentaries, most of them music-oriented, and television.

While I do really enjoy the characters here, I will admit that our two leads are kind of bland. For instance, Karen Ross (Laura Linney) has one goal in mind when she ventures to the Congo: find Charles Travis, her ex-fiance. Though R.B. Travis himself claims that's his motivation for sending her down there, Karen, knowing how selfish and egotistical he is, rightfully has her suspicions, and lets him know that, if she feels he's more interested in finding the blue diamond than his own son, she'll make him pay. Ordered to attach herself to an expedition that's already going, she becomes part of Peter Elliott's trip to take Amy back home. Though Peter is reluctant to let her come, when Herkermer Homolka proves unable to fully fund the expedition like he said he could, Karen immediately seizes her opportunity, offering to pay for it herself. Along the way, she has to put up with Amy's jealousy, and when they arrive in Uganda, they get caught up in the severe political unrest that's going on. Captured and brought before Captain Wanta, Karen shows that she's a very tough, no-nonsense person. Pulling her hand away when he tries to kiss it, she's also not happy when Wanta reveals that she used to work for the CIA (except for her being very capable in the field, this tidbit amounts to nothing), telling him he has a big mouth. And when one soldier fiddles with her hair, she elbows him right in the crotch. She ultimately has to shill out a lot of money for them to be granted passage to the closed border of Zaire, but even then, their plane is shot down shortly after crossing it. As they head on through the Congo on foot, Karen uses sophisticated equipment to track the signal from Charles' laser, and opts to use really nice, comfortable camping equipment, like an air-conditioned tent, rather than rough it like everyone else. She remains concerned but hopeful about finding Charles, though that hope dwindles somewhat when a local tribe leads them to a member of his team who dies of shock when he sees Amy. When they reach the team's campsite near Mt. Mukenko and find the city of Zinj, they're attacked by ferocious gray gorillas, which Karen realizes is what she caught a glimpse of when she attempted to link up with Charles that second time. And in the end, she learns that Charles is dead and that Travis was, indeed, only interested in the diamond. She then makes good on her promise to make him pay for it.

Similar to Karen, Prof. Peter Elliott (Dylan Walsh) has one goal on his mind: take Amy home to Africa. Having worked with her for a long time, teaching her sign language and getting her to work with the equipment that allows her to "talk," Peter has grown a real fondness for Amy and becomes concerned about her mental health when she continually has nightmares. Noting that the number of pictures she's created through finger-painting look like the jungle, he surmises that she wants to go back to where she came from. But when he's told he won't get university funding for an expedition whose sole purpose is to let Amy go, he's willing to allow Homolka to put up the money, despite how shady he is. He's not thrilled when Karen Ross shows up at the airport, asking to join the expedition, but he then has no choice when Homolka is unable to pay for the plane's fuel. Having gotten off on the wrong foot with Karen already, Peter also has to placate Amy's jealousy of her, and is unimpressed when Karen seems to believe in the myths about gorillas being killers, insisting that they're gentle. Once they reach Africa, Peter finds he's in way over his head, as when they're captured, he and his assistant, Richard, are viciously interrogated, while Karen, Homolka, and Monroe Kelly have a, somewhat, less tense meeting with Captain Wanta. And even though they're released, their plane is shot down after they cross the Zaire border and they have to parachute out. With that, Peter is ready to call it quits, despite it obviously being too late for that, and Monroe tells him as much, saying he can either go on with him, Karen, and Homolka, or just go, "Wherever." Obviously, he sticks with them, and over the course of the journey, learns exactly what both Karen and Homolka are looking for. And when they find Zinj and encounter the gray gorillas, he learns that the myth of the killer ape is true. However, his bond with Amy ends up saving his life during the climax, when he's nearly slaughtered by the grays.

Even as a kid, I knew that Richard (Grant Heslov), Peter's research assistant, was the type of character who had the word "victim" written all over him. From the outset, he's not at all happy about going to the Congo, telling Peter, "A safari? I don't even like picnics." Upon arriving in Uganda and needing to be virtually smuggled over the border in a covered truck, Richard panics when things get tense and almost bolts, forcing Monroe Kelly to restrain him. Then, when they're captured, and he and Peter are being interrogated, Richard, really freaked out and frustrated, murmurs, "This is pure Kafka," only for the interrogator to get in his face and yell, "Who's Kafka?! Tell me!" All he can do is just rub the side of his face. And, of course, that's before they actually get to the Congo, running into one hazard after another during their journey. Richard does make it all the way to the city of Zinj, but is unwilling to join the others in investigating a spooky-looking temple. He opts to stay outside with Amy and a couple of the porters, trying to make small talk with one of them, Claude. But when Richard comments that Claude's name is unusual for somebody from Mombasa, and then admits he's never been there himself, Claude growls, "Then what do you know about it?", tosses away his cigarette, and walks off, along with the other man. Richard groans, "I want to go home," and goes to look for Amy, who wandered off. He ends up finding one of the gray gorillas, and the next time you see him, he comes running into the ruins, hysterical and brutalized, and then collapses to the ground, dead.

While it is disappointing that we didn't get Sean Connery, I'm more than fine with Ernie Hudson playing the role originally meant for him, renamed Monroe Kelly. Hudson has said that this is his personal favorite role and I don't blame him, as he gets to play someone who is effortlessly cool and smooth, and is clearly loving every minute of it. The minute he meets up with the group at the airport in Uganda, he effortlessly takes charge by hijacking a covered truck at gunpoint, allowing the driver to run away. He also calmly stops Richard from running out of the back of the truck and getting them killed when the truck is stopped by a pair of armed soldiers. When they're then allowed to drive on, Monroe lets go of Richard and calmly lights a cigarette. Amy becomes interested in it and he allows her to have it, before finally introducing himself to Karen Ross as, "Monroe Kelly. I'm your great white hunter for this trip, though I happen to be black." He proceeds to very calmly explain to them how dangerous the situation is, particularly in the Congo, all while smiling and adding, "Can't blame them. The 20th century sucks. Maybe the 21st will be better." Peter later calls him a criminal, leading to this fun exchange: "Aren't we all?" "No. I'm not a criminal, I'm a scientist." "Scientist? I run a few guns. You sons of bitches ruin the world." He's also smart enough to know that Karen is using Peter's expedition as a cover for something else, noting, "The kind of money her company's throwing around, they don't spend that for any gorilla." He then adds, "Relax. You're in better hands than you should be." Even when they're captured and brought before Captain Wanta, Monroe keeps his cool, working with Karen to put the money on the table necessary to bribe him. His calmness continues even when their plane gets fired upon, as he and Karen, again, work together, this time by using flares to momentarily stave off the Zaire military's heat-seeking missiles. After they're forced to bail out and have landed, Monroe, who held onto a sedated Amy on the way down, tells Peter, "On the way down, she decided to wake up. And let me tell you, that little lady has some set of teeth." Peter then says he plans on calling it off but Monroe tells him that he's going to fulfill his obligation as a guide for Karen, and that he can leave if he wants. But he also warns him, "But, you should know this is a damn dangerous place, and people die here very easily." Needless to say, that gets Peter to come with them. Along the way, Monroe proves invaluable to the expedition, with his expertise in firearms and also his knowledge of local tribes and his ability to communicate with them.

Having recognized Homolka from the minute he saw him, Monroe knows he's looking for the Lost City of Zinj, and lets the others in on how Homolka led a very disastrous expedition to find it five years earlier. In fact, Monroe was the one who rescued him from the jungle, and the more he reveals, the angrier Homolka gets. It boils over when Homolka yells, "Shut up, you filthy...!", and Monroe gets right in his face, daring him to finish that sentence; Homolka, of course, backs off. Throughout the journey, Monroe

continues riding him about his belief in Zinj, insisting that it doesn't exist and that Homolka is wasting his time (even when they find it, he trolls Homolka about the diamonds, suggesting that the mines are now empty). He's also interested in what Karen is after, saying he can't figure her out, and it's only after they're led to a member of the earlier TraviCom expedition that he and everyone else learns. Speaking of which, despite his jokey, smartass manner and overall calm attitude, Monroe does get serious when things call for it. He's shocked when the man, Bob

Driscoll, dies as suddenly as he does, and when they find Zinj and encounter the gray gorillas, he's downright horrified by how brutal they are. After they've spent the night near the ruins, with the grays attempting to attack them but unable to get past Karen's high-tech defenses, Monroe works to get everybody together and leave as soon as possible. That doesn't go according to plan, though, and they find themselves fighting for survival in the diamond mines.

Instead of The Rocky Horror Picture Show or even It, I first came to know of Tim Curry from this movie and others at the time, like when he appeared in Home Alone 2. Here, while his Romanian accent is as thick and over-the-top as his performance, he's still fun to watch as Herkermer Homolka. While his first appearance, when you see him in the audience at Amy's presentation, makes him seem sinister, and you know he has ulterior motives for funding Peter's expedition to take Amy back to Africa, Homolka is less of a villain than he is someone who's rather pathetic in his obsession. Having searched for the Lost City of Zinj his entire life, with his first expedition to find it having ended with four people dead and Homolka himself nearly dying, he reveals that he believes Amy has seen Zinj herself at an early point in her life. He notes that she drew an eye-like symbol in her finger paintings, similar to one he uncovered while researching Zinj, and on a ring he found on his previous expedition. Thus, he's confident that Amy can lead them to it, despite Monroe's constant derision. In fact, Homolka is so desperate for it and, more importantly, the diamond mines to be real, becoming enraged when Monroe keeps telling him they're not, that it's clear he has absolutely nothing in his life except this obsession. While he's not a totally malicious person, Homolka is most definitely a sleazebag and criminal, as Captain Wanta calls him a "bag of shit" and tells the others, "He owes money to everybody everywhere he goes," while Monroe later says, "He has done a lot of good, but mostly for Mr. Homolka." Also, when talking about the previous expedition, Monroe notes that one of the members died from a gunshot, with the gunman's identity remaining a mystery. Homolka insists the man committed suicide, and while that seems a likely coverup for his having murdered him, even after they find Zinj and the diamond mine, he never pulls a gun on anyone to keep them from leaving or interfering with him. In fact, both throughout the journey and when he's gathering the diamonds up, he seems willing to share the fortune with the others. However, as expected, his greed leads to his downfall, as he's confronted by the gray gorillas, who beat him to death.

As TraviCom CEO R.B. Travis, Joe Don Baker seems to be trying to outdo Tim Curry with his own over-the-top performance. Besides being the classic greedy exec, Travis is also one of the biggest hotheads imaginable. This guy explodes both when he has a right to and when he doesn't. During the opening, when the attempted link-up with Charles leads to the discovery of the slaughtered camp, and some kind of creature knocking over the remote camera and ending the feed, Travis grabs a golf club and smashes one of the monitors in the control room. Karen goes to get help, when Travis reveals he had the security code to the door changed and refuses to say what it is. He then growls, "Use a fire extinguisher on that, please!... DO WHAT I SAY!" When she does, he starts fretting about the border to Zaire being closed if word of this incident gets out, as well as what may have been the cause of all that death and destruction, suggesting it may have been some crazy locals or a rival company. He then all but reveals that he's more concerned about getting the diamonds than his own son, saying it will ensure his company remains intact after their current communications satellite becomes obsolete. That's when he orders her to go down to the Congo, telling Rudy, the company's head of security, to find and take over an expedition that's already going. Before leaving, Karen tells Travis that if she finds out that he did indeed send her down there for the diamonds and not Charles (which we know he did), she'd make him pay. After that, Travis only has one scene before the ending, where Karen contacts him when they've set up camp after being shot down. He does seem more concerned about his son here, telling her that the laser's signal should lead her to him, and also tells her that he's had images of the creature in the footage analyzed, that his primatologist says, "It's gorilla-like." On top of that, he warns her that the volcano is going to erupt soon and they have to hurry. But then, while Peter and Amy are playing around, Amy accidentally knocks over the camera, smashing it. Travis, of course, yells in frustration, "Goddammit! Not again!"

As funny as that is, they later learn that it prompted Travis to send in another team, only for their plane to get shot down, this time with no survivors. Already appalled at this senseless waste of human life, when Karen contacts Travis again after they've escaped the volcanic eruption that destroys Zinj, her worst fears about him are confirmed. When she tells him that Charles is dead, he angrily screams, "DID YOU GET THE DIAMOND?! DID YOU?!", and then breathes a sigh of relief when she coldly says she did. She then proceeds to keep her promise about making Travis sorry for his selfishness and fires the laser at his communications satellite, destroying it.

Speaking of Charles, I'm sure that this was the first movie I ever saw with Bruce Campbell. And this, in turn, was probably the biggest movie he ever appeared in until the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies. Campbell actually auditioned for the role of Peter Elliott but, instead, got this fairly thankless role, where he's killed less than ten minutes in, and I've heard he's always kind of resented it (he does also get to appear as a corpse during the climax). Still, in his brief screentime, he brings that sardonic sense of humor and swagger you expect from him. When he contacts Karen in Houston after reaching Mt. Mukenko, there's a brief rumble and he explains, "That was about the usual. This whole place does the shimmy." And when Karen asks about the volcano, he says it's, "Ah, acting very much like a volcano, thank you very much. They tell me it's fine but, frankly, I wouldn't start building condominiums." Confirming that he found evidence there are blue diamonds there, and gives an impromptu test of the laser using the alluvial traces he found, he goes to get his partner, Jeffrey. Jeffrey, in turn, leads him to the city of Zinj, which he stumbled across, and while Charles is amazed by it, he's more intent on getting back with Jeffrey for the next satellite link-up. I always remembered this part where he's waiting for Jeffrey at the ruins and sits down on the steps to have a snack, when something is tossed at him. He picks it up, thinking Jeffrey is playing a prank, only see to it's an eyeball. He then turns around and screams at something off-camera, and that's the last time you see him alive. After that, Charles becomes little more than a MacGuffin.

Campbell is one of a handful of familiar character actors who make up the supporting cast. Among them is Joe Pantoliano as Eddie Ventro, who meets up with the expedition when they arrive at the airport in Uganda. Again, he's not in the movie much, but he makes up for it with charisma and a lot of memorable lines. When he refers to it as Karen's expedition, and Peter protests, saying she's only along for the ride, Eddie dismissively says, "Whatever. Be an asshole." Peter then asks, "Who is this guy?", and Eddie retorts, "Eddie Ventro, transportation and equipment. But I don't supply assholes with new personalities." Seeing Amy, he asks if Peter wants to sell her, which he protests, and when Amy "talks," Eddie exclaims, "Whoa! A talking gorilla! I feel the money hairs on the back of my neck goin', "Woo, woo, woo!" He then tells them that he fired Robertson Reynolds, the guide Peter hired, saying, "You have any idea what's going on in the Congo as of the radio show this morning? The Kigani have had it with Zaire, and they're eating people. You go in there with Robertson Reynolds, then you're comin' out as somebody's bowel movement." Following the group's capture and run-in with Captain Wanta, Eddie appears again when they fly out of Tanzania, delivering a bunch of equipment courtesy of TraviCom, and now sporting a bandage on his forehead. He explains, "Customs guy, hit me with a can of peanut oil for stampin' visas." He adds, "I'm never goin' back to that country, man. Those people have permanently wigged out."

Another character who's only in one scene but leaves an impression is Captain Wanta (Delroy Lindo), whom Karen, Monroe, and Homolka are brought before after being apprehended. Acting all cordial towards them when they're first brought in to meet him at the Hotel Leopold, he tells them to, "Have some, uh, coffee and cake." They sit down, but no one partakes, and he, quite angrily, insists, "Have some!" While Karen confronts him about his detaining them, Monroe and Homolka proceed to start eating pieces of the sesame cake. Karen tells Wanta, "This is a legitimate scientific mission," only for him to counter, in a slightly sing-songy voice, "Liar, liar. Your pants on fire. So says my computer, Miss Ross." He proceeds to reveal that she used to work for the CIA, and when she says he has a big mouth, he answers, "Everybody says that about me. What can I do?" When they're bribing him to let them cross the border, his reaction to being given two big bundles of money is simply, "More," forcing Karen to fork out three more. He puts the money in a bag and staples it shut so no one will peek. He also suddenly yells at Homolka to stop eating his sesame cake, prompting him to awkwardly spit out the chunk that he was eating, and after telling the others that he's a sleazebag who can't be trusted, has Homolka removed from the room. In his last moment before letting them go, Wanta tells them, "You know, it's the gorilla that's going to get you across the border safely. Everybody in my country is so afraid of being seen in an American movie being cruel to a gorilla. This is the crazy world we live in. Okay, you can go. Hit the road, as you say, and have a nice day."

James Karen appears in one scene as the college president, telling Peter that he's unlikely to get funding for an expedition to set Amy free, and when he says he could do it under the pretense of having Amy teach the mountain gorillas how to talk, the president retorts, "Oh, please. Making you what? Dr. Doolittle?" Stuart Pankin, an actor who appeared quite often in the 80's and 90's, is in the audience during Amy's demonstration and annoys his wife with how excited he gets about the gorilla speaking. He

probably got in there because he'd worked with Frank Marshall on Arachnophobia, and the same also goes for Peter Jason, who appeared in many of the movies during the latter part of John Carpenter's career as well. He shows up as Mr. Janus, who meets with Homolka at the airport, and his attitude is the first hint that something isn't right with Homolka's "funding." You might not recognize him because of the glasses, but Jimmy Buffet actually plays the pilot of the plane that first transports Karen, Peter, Richard, Amy, and Homolka to Africa (likely because he was 

a friend of Marshall's). And finally, Kevin Grevioux, whom I'll always remember for that moment in Steel when his eyes bugged out and he hilariously screamed, "NO!", at the sight of a grenade, appears here as one of the officers who stops the group's covered truck at the airport.

One of the most crucial aspects of the movie was making Amy the gorilla not only feel like a real animal but also a character, and I think they accomplished that really well. She comes off as very precocious and mischievous, but also very affectionate towards the men who raised her, especially Peter. She's rather possessive of Peter, as when Karen Ross joins them on the expedition, Amy gets jealous of her, "calling" her ugly and making angry gestures at her. Speaking of which, while it is a part of the plot that can make the movie hard to take seriously, the digital voice that the equipment gives her does help her feel all the more like a character. In fact, it gives her the personality of a child, as she says lines like, "Amy, seven," "Amy, good gorilla," "Amy, pretty," "Tickle Amy," "Peter, where ground?", and, "Amy want raindrop drink." (The latter is her asking for a martini, which, according to Peter, she's allowed to have!) But besides being a cute, lovable creature, there's also some drama to Amy, as she's lately been having nightmares of what turns out to be the city of Zinj, and drawing pictures of the jungle, as well as the eye-like symbol associated with the city. Thinking she wants to return to her home in Africa, Peter grabs the first opportunity to take her there. Amy is clearly excited at the prospect when Peter is able to make her understand, and after they've ended up in the Congo, she can be seen exploring and interacting with the various animals she comes across, playfully roughhousing with Peter at the first campsite, and waking up before everyone else one morning, opening a cooler, and helping herself to the bananas in there.

Not all of Amy's experiences in the Congo are pleasant, however. When the group comes across a silverback and his family, Amy attempts to communicate with them using her sign language, but they're put off and confused by this and walk away. Amy is saddened by this, and she and Peter exchange disappointed looks, as he decides to remove the equipment. As a kid, I actually got choked up at that part, as I could feel Amy's heartbreak over being rejected. Also, when they reach Zinj, Amy becomes 

antsy, frightened at the sight of the statues, whose eyes featured in her nightmares. Her fear suggests that she's not only been to Zinj before, as Homolka figured, but knows of the ferocious gray gorillas. After the group has had their first encounter with them and have camped out for the night, Amy, clearly frightened, says, "Bad gorillas," and cuddles her baby doll. The next morning, after the grays have attempted to attack the camp, she goes off by herself and encounters the same silverback, as well as his troop, attempting to be accepted. Some time later, she 

returns to the camp, finding it deserted. Taking the initiative, she takes the backpack with the audio equipment and later manages to save Peter from being killed by the grays with them. Her speech and aggressive gestures confuse the grays to where they stop attacking, and she embraces Peter, telling him to hug her back. Following the destruction of both the grays and Zinj when Mt. Mukenko erupts, Peter learns that Amy has successfully become part of the mountain gorillas' troop. She goes off with them, while Peter and the others use a hot-air balloon to make it back to civilization.

Another often-criticized aspect of this movie are the designs of the gorillas but, while I'll get more into that later, I personally think Amy comes off really well. Played by two people over the course of the movie, Lola Noh and Misty Rosas, with Shayna Fox doing the voice, I think she, for the most part, looks and feels like a believable living creature. Even though she's meant to be a mountain gorilla, Stan Winston and his team were asked to add in the characteristic of a smaller and cuter lowland gorilla, which he felt was

a mistake in hindsight, saying it made her feel less authentic. Not being the biggest expert on gorillas, or an effects designer myself, for that matter, I've never had a problem with how Amy looks, although I will admit that there is a hint of artificiality to her in certain respects. Still, I'd take this approach over an abundance of archaic-looking CGI, as was originally planned (check out the CGI monkeys in Jumangi, which came out the same year, to see how this movie could've turned out)..

You know, as I was writing the plot synopsis and going through the characters, it really hit me just how ridiculous of a movie Congo is. Minty Comedic Arts on YouTube summed it up best at the beginning of his video on it: "So, what happens when you take an expedition searching for a lost city of great riches, and mix it with a talking gorilla, a smooth operator, an eccentric Romanian, a dead fiance, an angry CEO who really needs to check his blood pressure, a guy who wants you to stop eating his sesame cake, a volcano, a gang of rampaging, murderous gorillas,

and a diamond laser gun? Well, you get Congo." Even though some of its wackier aspects were created for the movie rather than taken from the novel (the diamonds being used to power a communications laser, the character of Homolka, etc.), I think we can safely say that Michael Crichton's desire to create a modern day pulp-adventure story came to pass. (In fact, from what I've read, the book had some pretty crazy concepts of its own, mostly concerning the nature of the gray gorillas, as well as recorded messages from Amy being used to confuse them, and

and the protagonists, at the end, being attacked by the cannibalistic Kigani tribe, who are only mentioned in the movie.) But, as Minty also states, the movie itself doesn't really lean into the silliness, for the most part. While not 100% dead serious, given how overtly cool and full of quips Monroe Kelly is, how Captain Wanta is meant to be rather offbeat in his one scene, and how exaggerated some characters' reactions to Amy being able to literally talk are, it doesn't have its tongue in its cheek or a twinkle in its eye like other

contemporary adventure movies and series, such as Indiana Jones or the Brendan Fraser Mummy movies. Travis' sudden and explosive tirades, Tim Curry's over-the-top accent and performance, and other elements like the one tribe's ceremony to keep the injured man's soul from leaving his body, the high-tech, Aliens-inspired defense that Karen sets up to protect the camp from the gray gorillas, and the mythology about the gorillas and the city of Zinj, are played completely straight, and I can understand how

that could put off a lot of viewers. Of course, as a kid, I ate it up without any problems, and as an adult, I still like that the grays themselves are portrayed as a very serious threat. As for everything else, maybe it could've leaned into the camp more, but it mostly just reminds me of that 90's tone and approach that I'm a sucker for.

I think another reason for its less than stellar reception is that, despite the marketing reminding everyone it's from the man who wrote Jurassic Park, Congo is not as deep or intelligent, to say the least. There's a pretense of intelligence during the flight to Africa, where Karen asks Peter why he taught an ape to talk. He answers, "Why teach at all? Why teach anything to anyone? It doesn't make you rich. It doesn't get you girls. Why did Prometheus steal fire only to turn around and give it away? There's an inherent generosity in the human spirit. One of its faces is the

face of the teacher." She then asks the question again, and he answers, "No practical reason... 'A lonely impulse of delight,'", which she realizes is a quote from William Butler Yates. Other than that, as well as the brief discussions about the myth of killer gorillas and how the grays challenge the notion that it is just a myth, as well as how you could say that the people of Zinj's training the grays to be killers is something of a dark mirror to how Peter taught Amy, this is a very simple-minded movie. Now, I could be wrong, as I 

haven't read it, but the original novel doesn't seem to have many deep themes or insightful commentary about it either, given Crichton's intentions for writing it. For me, though, that's perfectly okay. Not every single book, movie, or what have you needs to be insightful or philosophical; it's fine to just be pure entertainment. But, given how intelligent Crichton was, and how the best of his books, as well as their film adaptations, reflect that, I can understand how it could be felt that something like this was beneath him.

Whatever you may think of the story and its concepts, I don't think you can deny that Congo is a very well-made movie technically. It's beautifully shot by cinematographer Allen Daviau, who, like Frank Marshall, had previously worked with Steven Spielberg, having shot E.T., The Color Purple, and Empire of the Sun (and was nominated for an Oscar for each of them). As anybody filming in such gorgeous locations should, he gets great beauty shots of the landscapes in both Africa and Costa Rica, including some from the air, and in the scenes set 

deep in the jungle, he manages to bring out the feeling of the heat and humidity, as well as the lushness of the foliage, with bits of sunlight coming through the canopy. He shoots the darkly lit interiors of the Zinj ruins and the nighttime exteriors very well, too, and one of my favorite scenes visually is when the grays are attacking the camp near the ruins, with how vivid the purple spotlights and blue lasers of Karen's defense setup look in the dark, amid the jungle. And while some, including Stan Winston, felt that the set of the diamond mine and the way it was shot didn't 

do the gray gorilla suits any favors, I, again, love the vivid, surreal colors of the reddish sand, and the way the grays contrast against it. Direction-wise, Marshall, while hardly an auteur, shows that he knows what he's doing, with the action scenes, in particular, being well-shot and constructed. I especially like how the grays are hidden until the third act, with only blurry glimpses of them on the video screen during the opening, and how they're either seen in the background of some shots or as figures in the dark in 

others. Since I was a kid, I've always thought the first attack scene at the beginning was really suspenseful in how we get shots of the massacred campsite from the POV of the remote video camera and the feed it sends back to TraviCom headquarters, as well as from an objective viewpoint as it pans around. However, I'm on the fence about how they decided to shoot the moment when the main group first gets attacked by one of the grays, when he comes charging at them down a corridor in the ruins after Richard has shown up, mortally wounded. As he attacks the group, the 

frame-rate suddenly drops down and the image becomes blurry, probably to make it feel more crazed and nightmarish, but it actually comes off as cheap and melodramatic. I think the way that Amy's recurring nightmare is realized early on, with close-ups of the eye-like symbol of Zinj, the eye of a fallen statue there, a gray's roaring mouth, and Amy's eyes snapping open as she wakes up, is much more effective.

While it was shot mostly in California, both in real locations and on studio soundstages, there was some shooting done in Africa, specifically in Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya. It was likely for those shots of the landscapes and animals that are unmistakably African, like the Serengeti during the opening, where you see lions, ostriches, wildebeests, giraffes, and others roaming about, and the village the first team stops at. I'm sure the same also goes for some of the exteriors for when Karen and Peter's team first arrives, and when they drive on and then fly off after

Captain Wanta allows them to go. While most of the scenes set deep in the jungle and some of the river action were shot at the studio and backlot, there was some other location shooting in the rainforests of Central America, specifically Costa Rica. In fact, the mountain they used for shots of Mt. Mukenko, Volcan Arenal, is not only a real volcano but is very active, and the cast and crew had to travel quite a ways into the interior to film near it. Sometimes, though, they had to film at Volcan Irazu, an inactive volcano in the 

area. I think it was well worth it, given how incredible the scenery is when they're hiking along those cliffsides. And finally, I'm sure that some of the jungle scenes, such as when they first land in the Congo, were shot at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden.

I don't know how accurate the movie's depiction of Africans is (Double Toasted really ragged on it when they talked about Congo in one of their "Bad Movie Roasts" but, as much as I really like those guys, I sometimes get tired with how they look for race in everything), especially when it comes to the poorer and more primitive people you see, like the small village during the opening and the so-called "Mizumu" or "Ghost Tribe," whom the group meets during their journey. And if I'm wrong in my assessments, I sincerely apologize; I've never been to

Africa once in my whole life. But, from what I can see, save for how over-the-top the hospital interrogator and Captain Wanta are, it seems pretty respectful. The porters who accompany the expedition, especially Kahega, Monroe's second-in-command, prove to be very competent and able to handle weapons well, and except for Claude (who did have a reason to be annoyed at Richard for making assumptions about people from Mombasa when he's never been there himself), none of them have a chip on their shoulder regarding the white people in the 

group. One part that I really like is when, in order to calm Amy before they get on the river, Peter starts singing California Dreamin' to her, and the porters join in, showing how cultured they are, and aren't just the stereotypical African natives who only know local songs (which they are heard singing on the plane). Also, the Mizumu may seem, at first glance, to be stereotypical primitive bushmen, especially with the chant they say over Bob Driscoll's body. But after their first appearance, where they come off as kind of 

spooky, with two of them silently watching the campsite from the jungle, they prove to be very affable, introducing themselves and speaking to Monroe in a pleasant, friendly manner. They even share a laugh with Monroe when he tells them that he's the one in charge, as he explains to the others, "I'm black. I should have luggage on my head." And they're more than willing to take them to see Driscoll, whom they say is "dead," although they turn out to have various definitions of it. Again, I may be speaking out of ignorance but, from other movies I've seen, this could've been a lot worse.

As for settings in the "modern" world, so to speak, TraviCom Headquarters in Houston has a really unique-looking exterior (Kaiser Permanente Medical Center and Hospital in Baldwin Park, California), especially that angled building on the left, and the interiors are dimly lit and high-tech, with the control room, whose security code is constantly changed, feeling kind of like a smaller version of the control room in Jurassic Park. And while that computer equipment may be very outdated now, I still think it's a pretty cool set. At the university in Berkeley where

Peter and Richard work with Amy, you see this nice room inside a trailer, with a kitchen area in the back of it and some decor akin to that of a kindergarten classroom. This is where Amy does her finger-painting, the results of which are taped up along the walls, while the next room, with jungle textures painted along the walls, is where she sleeps. And there's a large assembly hall location where they present her before an audience in order to get funding. When the group first arrives in Africa, they drive 

from the airport through an overcrowded town, with a slum-like area where people are painting on a wall near a burning barrel. You also get a couple of noteworthy interiors here, such as this hospital examination room, where Peter and Richard are interrogated after being detained, whereas Karen, Monroe, and Homolka are brought before Captain Wanta at the much fancier and more comfortable Hotel Leopold (although that doesn't matter when Wanta is interrogating them and forcing them to bribe him).

My personal favorite setting in the movie, however, is the Lost City of Zinj, as it feels like a place that was designed to appeal to my personal sensibilities (major kudos to production designer J. Michael Riva, who'd previously worked on The Color Purple, The Goonies, The Golden Child, Scrooged, and the Lethal Weapon series, among others). I just love ancient, abandoned ruins out in the middle of the jungle, covered in vines and foliage, and with hints and clues to the civilization that once called them home, and Zinj is the absolute definition of such a place. It 

looks so cool and mysterious, as well as ominous, with the stone faces carved into its immediate exterior, and beyond that, past some vine-covered stone corridors, is the actual city, built around the diamond mines. When they first arrive, the team explores a temple near the city, roaming some corridors whose walls are decorated with hieroglyphics that repeat endlessly, and which lead into a large chamber with hot air and steam coming up through large fissures in the floor. Though Homolka believes this spot leads to the diamond 

mines, he's out of luck when he finds that every passage is either a dead-end or has caved in. The next day, when they head into the ruins of the city itself, they find more hieroglyphics which tell the story of how the people of Zinj domesticated gorillas and bred them to be violent, only for it to take backfire on them. This place also happens to be above the diamond mines, which the group finds accidentally when the floor gives way beneath them from Mt. Mukenko's impending eruption. The tunnels they 

find down there lead into the mine, which is a very surreal place: basically a canyon with a stream running through its center, with the right side filled with diamonds littering the ground, while the left has a wall full of large openings and alcoves where the ferocious grays watch over the gems. In the back is a chamber housing a huge diamond, as well as a spot with the bones of the grays' past victims, which is also where Peter and Karen find Charles' body.

In the book, the gray gorillas are said to be hybrids of gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans, a detail that the film sidesteps in favor of simply saying they were bred to be violent and eventually killed the very people who made them. Thousands of years later, they're still ferociously guarding the city and the diamond mines, brutally killing anybody who's unlucky enough to stumble across the place. That includes not only humans but also normal gorillas, whose bones the group find in a pile inside the city. While they're also not as intelligent as they were in 

the book, where they were able to fashion and use crude weapons, and had a complex manner of communicating with each other (a holdover from their trainers' teachings), they do prove to be quite cunning in the scene where they attempt to attack the group's campsite near Zinj. As Monroe notes, they test the camp's perimeter, as they're fired upon by the automatic drone guns set up by Karen, and after they realize they can't get past the laser barriers she set up, they retreat. The next morning, the team find no 

bodies, despite knowing that they hit a good number of them. Speaking of which, while they don't seem to number into over a hundred, like in the book, there are still dozens of them, as seen when they come out in full force after Homolka makes the mistake of trying to take the diamonds. And when you finally get a good look at them, you see that they're ugly as sin, with deformities that are likely a result of inbreeding. And when Amy comes in and saves Peter just when they've got him surrounded, the grays are totally confused when she not only viciously gestures at them but also speaks, telling them to go away.

Wanting to prove that Rick Baker wasn't the only person in town who could do convincing apes, Stan Winston vied hard to work on Congo, saying it was, "Kind of a proving ground for me, or, at least, that's what I had wanted it to be. I wanted to show the world that we could do gorillas, too, and do them well." As you can probably tell from that quote, he was disappointed in the final film. Not only did he have misgivings about what they did with Amy, as mentioned earlier, but he felt the grays didn't come off as well as they could have, saying, "As wonderful as

these characters were when we were looking at them at the studio, as wonderful as they could have been, they wound up looking like a bunch of guys running around in gray fur suits, mainly because of the limitations of the set and lighting." He was also disappointed that the details given to each of the individuals (they designed twelve in all) didn't read on film, due to how little they're onscreen and how quick the glimpses of them are. Personally, like Amy, I think the grays look cool. Even though I know

they're guys in suits, and they do sometimes look it, I find this much more appealing than if they were a bunch of CGI apes running around. As impressive and convincingly lifelike as the CGI apes in the Planet of the Apes reboot films are, watching Congo still makes me pine for those days when they still tried to do creatures and monsters in movies with suits and animatronics, even if only partially.

In addition to Amy and the grays, Winston and his studio also had to create the small troop of mountain gorillas that the team comes upon, particularly the big silverback who charges at Peter and makes a display of aggression in front of him. I think the silverback himself looks pretty good, both in design and the suit actor's performance, whereas the other two gorillas with him are just okay; they don't get focused on enough to give much of an impression, either way. And Winston's studio created a big, animatronic hippopotamus for the scene where a very angry hippo 

attacks the group when they're traversing across a still section of the river (this is the movie that made me realize how dangerous hippos actually are). Again, I think that creature is pretty well done for the most part, helped immensely by the water and the scene taking place at night. That said, there are, admittedly, some shots of it where you can tell it's a type of machine that they're simply raising in and out of the water, and pushing towards the raft.

Even more so than Jurassic Park, Congo is quite bloody and violent for a PG-13 movie. Right at the beginning, when Charles' team gets attacked, you get a close-up of his friend Jeffrey's ripped out eyeball when it's tossed at him and he picks it up, and you then see the grisly aftermath of the grays' attack on the campsite. While there's not as much blood throughout the movie until we get to the third act, it still has some intense moments, like Amy's nightmare, when original team member Bob Driscoll dies from shock at the sight of Amy and when the 

hippo attacks their raft. And once the team reaches Zinj and encounters the grays, we get a lot of shots of people being beaten and brutalized by them, as well as the horrific aftermaths of their attacks; one man's very bloody, severed head getting tossed at the group and hitting the ground at their feet; lots of bones of past victims, as well as Charles' still fresh corpse; and the grays themselves get shot up, dismembered by laser blasts, and burned alive by the lava streams during the eruption.

While the creature and gore effects are all practical, I would've assumed that the volcanic eruption during the climax, especially the lava flows, were done digitally. But, it turns out, no. They were actually well-done miniature effects that were matted into the live-action footage, and between that, the shaking earth, the shots of the ground being torn open and rising upwards, and Zinj itself collapsing, as well as other moments, like the planes being shot down, the visual effects are quite the tour de force, save for maybe some not so great moments of blue screen work. The only instances of CGI that I can pinpoint are maybe some shots of the TraviCom satellite in space and the diamond-powered laser.

The movie begins with some very picturesque shots of the sun rising over a landscape in Africa (not unlike the opening to The Lion King, and there's a good reason for that, as I'll talk about later), as the three vehicles making up the initial TraviCom expedition appear on the horizon. Stopping at a village, they unload their equipment, as well as hire some porters, and trek towards Mt. Mukenko. They set up camp near its base, while Charles Travis makes satellite contact with headquarters in Houston, Texas. 

Telling Karen Ross that he's found alluvial traces of the blue diamond they've been searching for, and giving a demonstration of the communications laser using the alluvial as a power source, he asks that they link back up in an hour so his friend, Jeffrey, can share in the glory when they tell R.B. Travis himself. Charles goes and finds Jeffrey by the edge of the stream where they found the sample, and he tells Charles that he's found something else. He tells him to jump into the water, before doing so himself, 

swimming towards a small opening under a vine covered wall across from them. Setting his backpack on the shore, Charles reluctantly jumps in after Jeffrey and follows him. On the other side, they come ashore to find the outskirts of the ancient ruins, hidden from aerial view. As they're taking it in, and the place shakes from the volcano, Charles tells Jeffrey to come back so they can talk with Travis together. Jeffrey heads up into the structure to get his bag, and after a cut back to Houston, as Karen tells Travis what Charles has found, we see that Charles is 

still waiting for Jeffrey. After calling for him and getting no response, he sits down on the stone steps and starts snacking. Suddenly, something hits his side and he picks it up, thinking that Jeffrey is playing a prank. But then, he sees that what was tossed at him was a ripped out eyeball. Hearing a growl behind him, he turns and screams at what he sees.

Back in Houston, Karen, Travis, and Rudy, the head of security, are still waiting for the transmission in the control room. Travis tells Rudy to activate the camp's remote camera, and when he does, the image of an apparently empty site appears on the big screen. He then tells Rudy to pan the camera, when they see that everybody there has been massacred, when something runs past the camera. Karen tells Rudy to scan backwards and activate the thermal readout, which reveals the images of seven dead people. They also

hear a bizarre scream over the speakers, when the creature comes right up to the camera and knocks it over onto the ground. As everyone watches, it comes at the camera again, this time killing the transmission completely. Following Travis' violent eruption over this, he orders Karen to go down to the Congo herself and see what happened, as well as find the diamond and Charles.

The next major sequence doesn't happen until Karen, Peter, Homolka, Richard, and Amy arrive in Uganda. At the airport, after they've meet Eddie Ventro, he drives them across the runway, when a group of men in fatigues run past them. Seconds later, there's an explosion on the opposite side of the airfield, followed by some other men running to the site, wielding assault rifles. After Eddie stamps their passports, he meets up with Monroe Kelly, who tells him that the president's car just got bombed. Pulling

out a handgun, he commandeers a covered truck that drives past, forcing the driver out and having him run off. He has the group pile into the back, and tells Eddie to get him a specific type of aircraft. As another man takes the wheel, Monroe joins the group in the back as they drive across the airfield. When they head towards the gate, it's pulled shut, as a soldier talks with the driver. In the back, Richard panics at the sound of the voices shouting at each other in the local language and almost bolts, but Monroe restrains him, clamping his hand over his mouth. Within seconds,

they're allowed through and drive on. They pass through a small town filled with people, and come to another gate. Like before, the driver speaks with a guard, and they're just about to be let through, when another soldier peeks in the back and sees both Karen and Amy. He speaks to the guard, and he orders the driver to disembark, as the truck is surrounded by armed men.

Following the scene with Captain Wanta, Karen gets Peter and Richard out of the hospital where they were being interrogated. They drive on through the night, passing through another checkpoint into Tanzania, and reaching a secluded spot where a cargo plane is waiting for them. There, they also meet Kahega, a friend of Monroe's whom he says is a very nice guy. Eddie shows up again, delivering a bunch of equipment, before seeing them off. They're soon in the air, and Monroe takes a banana, breaks it in half,

and puts a pill in it, before giving that half to Kahega. Just as everyone is settling in, however, the Zaire military fires upon them for violating their airspace. The rocket they fire explodes behind the plane but it's enough to make the passengers realize they're in trouble. Knowing things are going to get hairy, Monroe gives Amy the half of the banana with the pill, telling Peter it's, "Gorilla Prozac." On the ground below, the troops pursue the plane, while onboard, Karen grabs and loads a flare gun, kicks open the

plane's emergency exit, and fires a flare. This manages to divert the heat-seeking missile away from them, and Monroe, seeing what she's up to, grabs one himself and joins her. They both fire flares, exploding two missiles in midair, but it's obvious that this is only delaying the inevitable. Everyone starts grabbing and slipping on parachutes, before dumping the cargo out of the plane. Handing Peter a parachute, Monroe, while slipping his own on, offers to take Amy. Peter says he doesn't want to risk her getting hurt, but Monroe informs him that he doesn't have a choice, as

the pilot and copilot have already gone. The main group begins jumping out, starting with Homolka, who has to have Kahega push him out the door (he holds onto its edges and asks him to push harder), followed by Karen, Peter, whom Kahega asks if he wants to be pushed too, and Monroe while holding Amy. The equipment lands safely on the ground, thanks to their own parachutes, followed by the people. Once they've all come down, they see their plane get blown apart in midair when a missile hits its mark.

The group begins the journey through the rainforest, eventually setting up camp in a clearing at a high altitude. There, Karen covertly contacts Houston, telling them that she's getting a clean signal from Charles' laser, while Travis shows her some analysis done on the image of the mysterious creature, telling her that he's been informed it's something new. He also tells her that the area around Mt. Mukenko is going to erupt soon. After the team spends the night there, listening to a chorus of monkeys hooting and 

hollering due to its being mating season, they have to trek through the rain the next day. And when they finally try to set up camp again, one of Karen's tents gets washed away by flood waters. In the midst of this, Kahega stands nearby, smoking, when he turns and sees a venomous snake slithering through some branches towards him. However, he quickly whips out a large blade and beheads it in one clean stroke. The next morning, after Amy wakes up early to get a banana out of the cooler, and Peter awakens to find a 

leech on his crotch, which he burns off with one of Monroe's cigarettes, he sees a pair of men standing in the jungle behind Karen. Monroe tells them that they're, "Mizumu, the Ghost Tribe," and there are probably many more that they can't see. Speaking to them, one of them tells Monroe that there's a dead white man in the jungle with a certain symbol on his clothes. The Mizumu draws the symbol in the dirt, and Karen recognizes it as the TraviCom logo. They take the group to the spot where the "dead" man's body is being chanted over in a ceremony by the 

tribe, one which Monroe says is meant to call to his soul and have it return to his body. Once the chanting stops, the group is led to the man, who's lying in a circle on the ground. Recognizing him as Bob Driscoll, she finds he's in a catatonic state. They sit him up, trying to get him to respond, and he does regain consciousness and seems to recognize Karen. But then, he sees Amy approaching and begins screaming in absolute terror, before his eyes roll up in the back of his head, his body shudders, and he slumps over. Examining him, Monroe is shocked to find that he's dead. Confused, he, Peter, and Karen turn towards Amy, who stands innocently nearby.

Reaching a river, the team inflates some rafts and begins heading downstream, initially hitting some pretty rough rapids. Once they get past the whitewater, the river becomes much smoother, although Karen becomes frustrated and concerned when the laser's signal stops. By nightfall, they're quietly rowing through a very still, calm stretch of water, when something bumps the underside of the raft that Peter and Amy are sleeping in. Peter wakes up from this, and looks out across the water to see 

some patches of bubbles approaching them. Seeing it as well, Monroe comments, "No problem," and speaks to his men in their language, prompting them to load up and point their weapons at the water. They see the bubbles nearby again, when a hippopotamus suddenly emerges from the water behind one of the porters and knocks him into the water with a moaning bellow. He grabs the raft in his mouth and shakes it back and forth, then lunges up at another raft. Monroe tosses a gas canister at the hippo, only for him to 

submerge, then resurface and go for another raft. As Monroe shoots at him, he grabs the raft that Peter and Amy are in and shakes it as well. Monroe shoots the hippo and appears to kill him, as he submerges and doesn't reappear. They quickly paddle for shore, and shortly after they make it, they see a plane in the sky above. Like their own plane, they've been hit by the Zaire military and, as they fly away, it's clear they're going to crash eventually. The next morning, the group heads on to Mt. Mukenko, with Amy becoming increasingly excited as they approach it. After they've

camped on a slope overlooking a valley, which seems to be Amy's home, Monroe tells them that they've come to something of a fork in the road. In the end, everyone decides to follow the path that Amy takes them on, which leads them down into the valley and more rainforest. There, they find the wreckage of the plane they saw, and Karen realizes it was another team sent by Travis.

They continue on until, at one point, they stop at the sound of a loud roar up ahead. A huge silverback gorilla emerges from the foliage just a few feet in front of Peter, who's leading the group. Knowing that he mustn't run, Peter stands still, looking at the ground, as the silverback charges at him, then roars and makes an aggressive display in front of him. Their eyes meet and the silverback, with a loud growl, heads back towards the foliage. That's when Peter turns and sees that Monroe and everyone else hid in the brush behind him. Coming out and joining him, 

they watch as the silverback roars at them and pounds his chest from the edge of the foliage. Peter tells Amy to try to communicate, as two other gorillas join the silverback. She signs, "Hello. I'm Amy. I'm Amy. Good, good, good. Amy," with her voice-pack turning it into speech. Confused at this, the gorillas move off, and Amy, crushed at this rejection, exchanges a sad glance with Peter, who opts to remove her glove. They head on, when Kahega trips and falls, activating an alarm. Karen traces a line that tripped him to the

device emitting the alarm and switches it off. She says it's a perimeter alarm, which the first team set up near their camp. A few feet away, they find what's left of the campsite, but both the equipment and the dead bodies are completely gone. Up ahead, Kahega chops his way through the brush and goes through an apparent dead end. Instead, he finds the stone corridor that leads them to the outskirts of the city of Zinj. They head on through and come upon the city itself, and decide to investigate a temple off to the right, as Kahega found a candy-bar wrapper there. Richard, however, opts to stay outside and look after Amy, and Monroe tells two of the porters to stay out there with him.

After failing to make friends with the porter named Claude, Richard, left by himself, goes to find Amy, who wandered off. He stops at one point when he hears some growling behind him, and slowly turns around with a frightened look on his face. Meanwhile, in the temple, they come to a chamber that proves to be a dead-end for both Karen and Homolka's individual searches. The place then shakes and Monroe figures they'd better get out while they can, when they hear Richard yelling, "Help me!" He comes stumbling down the steps, screaming

hysterically, and when he enters the light, they see that he's been seriously beaten. He falls to the floor, dying from shock, when up ahead, the silhouette of a gorilla-like creature comes bounding in. It runs at them and tosses what turns out to be a severed head, which hits Homolka in the chest and drops to the ground. The creature charges at them, snarling ferociously, and Karen fires on it. While she kills it (because of the low frame rate, it can be hard to tell), another one comes up behind Monroe and grabs the side of his face. Kahega manages to drive it away

with a flare and Monroe fires at it as it runs into the darkness. Hearing the sound of more of them roaring in the depths of the place, the group goes to leave, when another gorilla figure jumps down in front of them. This time, it turns out to be Amy, and Peter stops them from firing on her. They then quickly go back up the stairs leading out of the temple. Amy lingers, taking a look at the dead ape, and joins the others, unaware that she's being watched from the shadows. Outside, they find the brutalized corpses of the two porters who were left with Richard. Again, they hear the killer apes roaring in the distance, and Karen glances at the stone heads on the city's outer wall.

Come nightfall, after they've set up camp, everyone who can handle a gun loads up, while Karen sets up a laser barrier and sensor-activated sentry guns. Peter, after comforting Amy, who's very frightened, walks over and talks with Karen, when one of the guns goes off. Everyone leaps to their feet, guns pointed at and a searchlight illuminating the bushes around the edge of the camp. Peter puts Amy inside a tent, as Karen activates some spotlights that bathe the surroundings in a bright, purple glow. After a few seconds of silence, another sentry gun goes off, followed by a

third, as the group hear rustling in the bushes and catch glimpses of the gorillas. Karen activates the laser barrier, and another gun goes off, as they start to realize that these creatures are intelligent as gorillas but are infinitely more aggressive. Karen punches some keys on her laptop, revealing thermal images of several gorillas coming at them from straight ahead. Sure enough, one of them blunders into the lasers, and chaos breaks out as both the people and the turrets open fire on them. The jungle is literally lit up with

gunfire, and they're able to make out the gorillas running amongst the foliage. The only ones not outside are Peter, who's comforting Amy in the one tent, and Homolka, who's been hiding in another this whole time. Then, just as suddenly as it began, the shooting ceases, as the gorillas appear to have retreated. A small tree, dislodged from all the shooting, falls over, knocking over onto one of the sentries, causing it to briefly fire at the campsite. Once it's stopped, Karen checks the laptop and

confirms that the gorillas are gone. Homolka then comes out of his tent and tells them that he has translated the hieroglyphics they saw on the wall in the temple: "We are... watching you." Everyone takes in that ominous warning, as the scene transitions to the next day.

Peter awakens to find that Amy has gone missing, and Monroe tells him that two of the porters, as well as Homolka, have left as well. Monroe opts to first find their missing comrades, then Amy, and get out of dodge. Elsewhere, Amy attempts to connect with the silverback and his clam, but doesn't have much luck, as she gets a short charge and a roar from the big male. She keeps trying, though. Meanwhile, the group heads back towards Zinj, armed to the teeth, with Karen making Peter take a handgun for himself. Inside, they find more hieroglyphics, telling the story

of how the people of Zinj domesticated gorillas into guard dogs for the mines. From that, they're able to surmise that the gorillas then turned on their trainers. They also find a large pile of gorilla bones, with Peter examining a skull and finding it was crushed. The place begins to shake, as Mt. Mukenko gets ever closer to eruption, with smoke billowing out of its crater. Inside, the shaking leads to the exit getting blocked off and a porter crushed beneath a heavy statue. The floor gives way beneath the group and they fall into a series of underground tunnels.

Homolka appears, telling them that the tunnel he was in has caved in completely, while Kahega lights a flare and they try to find another way out. While Amy heads back to the deserted campsite, and retrieves her glove and backpack from the tent, the group find their way into the diamond mines. As they look about, Peter figures that the hieroglyphics that said, "We are watching you," referred to the gorillas' trainers. Homolka, meanwhile, is ecstatic when he finds that the ground in front of them is literally littered with

diamonds, picking one of them up, blowing dirt off it, and kissing it. Peter warns him to not touch them, seeing the gray gorillas watching from the alcoves in the wall across from them. While everyone else worries about getting out, Homolka grabs every diamond that he sees, further agitating the grays. Spying an opening with a sort of blue glow inside it on the opposite side of the chamber, everyone heads towards it, while Homolka is still too preoccupied with the diamonds.

That is, until he comes face-to-face with an ugly and very angry gray gorilla. As he snarls at him for taking the diamonds, Homolka turns to go another way, only for another gray to jump down in front of him, cutting him off. Dropping the diamonds to the ground, he turns to run, when another gray comes out of an alcove behind him and whacks him right in the middle of his back. He gets swarmed by grays as he collapses to the ground, while everyone else turns to see what's happening. One gray uppercuts him, smashing open his mouth, as Monroe and the porters 

open fire on the gorillas; they also have to fire on some that jump down behind them. Homolka tries to run, but gets his feet knocked out from under him. The grays circle around him, until one finishes him off by bringing his huge fists down onto his skull. More grays appear, with both Karen and Peter joining in firing upon them. The group heads towards the opening in the rock wall, firing back on the charging grays. One porter is grabbed, dragged onto the ground, and his head is smashed in, while Monroe sends Peter and Karen through the tunnel beyond the

opening to see if it leads to an exit. In the midst of the battle, Kahega's rifle is wrenched out of his hands by a gray that leaps at him. He takes out his blade, and Monroe tries to help by firing on the grays, but Kahega is knocked to the ground, drops his blade, and one of the grays kicks it away before he can grab it. He tries to get back up, but one gray uppercuts him, knocking him onto his back, and they then swarm and beat him to death. Monroe is so saddened by this that a gray manages to leap over him and enter the tunnel

behind him, though he quickly manages to kill the gorilla. In the back of the tunnel, Karen and Peter come upon a chamber full of human skeletons, as well as the bodies of both Jeffrey and Charles, the latter grasping a blue diamond in his right hand. The place shakes violently, as Mt. Mukenko begins to erupt, and the two of them run back to the mouth of the tunnel. Monroe keeps shooting the grays but warns the others that they're running out of rounds. Karen then yells, "Buy me two minutes," and runs

back into the tunnel. Peter and Monroe hold off the grays, while Karen goes back to the bone-room, pulls the laser out of Charles' backpack, and prepares to load the blue diamond into it. While reloading his gun, Peter is grabbed and pulled into the midst of the mine. Immediately, the grays charge at and surround him, but just as they're about to kill him, Amy appears on a ledge above them and roars. She makes her way down and jumps into the fray, roaring and signing at

the grays, "Ugly gorillas! Ugly! Go away!" The grays are utterly baffled at this, and Amy manages to back them off with an intimidation display. She then embraces Peter protectively, saying, "Mother. Peter, hug Amy,"; seeing this, Monroe says, "Maternal instinct. Long may she reign."

By this point, Karen has rejoined Monroe with the laser, and loads the diamond into it. She declares that they're getting out and, as for the grays, "Put 'em on the endangered species list." She fires the laser, blowing off one gray's hand, then runs into the middle of the mine and fires it again, managing to slice one gray completely in half. She yells for everyone to climb up to where Amy came in, as she continues blasting the gorillas. They climb up along the craggy wall, as the eruption truly begins. Lava explodes through the cracks in the floor, while a wave of it

comes in through the one tunnel, burning the grays alive. Some of them try to leap up the side of the wall with their alcoves, but end up jumping to their deaths. Up on the surface, everyone runs back through the jungle and the city of Zinj, as the lava begins to engulf the ruins and the ground splits apart. At one point, Peter has to jump across a huge crack, grabbing onto the edge of a chunk of ground that rises up with Amy atop it. Hanging precariously over a river of molten lava, Peter climbs up onto the ledge and joins Amy. The two of them run as the ground breaks apart

behind them, while up ahead, Karen and Monroe have to jump across another huge crack in the ground. They look back, searching for Peter and Amy, as they watch Zinj burn down. Peter and Amy tumble down the side of a gradually rising chunk of earth, stopping themselves by grabbing onto some plants to avoid falling into a river of lava below. Peter holds onto Amy, as she tries to pull them both back up, while on the other side of the gap, Karen uses the laser to down a tree and create a makeshift bridge. Amy sprints

across the tree first, followed by Peter, who trips and falls onto it due to the violent shaking. But, they both make it to the other side and the four of them run for higher ground, as the burning ruins of Zinj completely collapse behind them.

The group runs all the way back to the wreckage of the plane from the other night. Karen tells Monroe that inside the wreck should be a case containing a hot-air balloon and he goes to retrieve it, while she uses the equipment to contact Houston. She succeeds, but when Travis confirms that he only cared about her finding the diamond all along, she makes good on her promise to make him pay for it. She puts the TraviCom satellite's coordinates into the laser and, saying, "This is for you, Charlie," fires it into space, completely destroying both it and TraviCom's future.

Meanwhile, Peter meets back up with Amy, who wondered off when they reached the site. The two of them reconnect, and Amy reveals that she's managed to bond with the silverback and his troop. She then runs off to them, as Karen and Monroe join Peter there. Peter realizes that Amy is home and this means it's time to say goodbye. And after they're momentarily distracted by Mt. Mukenko's ongoing eruption, they turn to see that Amy and the other gorillas are gone. Peter wonders if Amy will be 

alright, and Monroe tells him, "They know what to do. It's us I'm worried about." They head back to the site, with Peter saying a final goodbye to Amy, and then, they're airborne in the balloon. Amy watches from nearby, while up in the balloon, Karen has Peter toss out the diamond that powered the laser. The movie ends with the wind taking the balloon away, while on the ground, Amy goes off with her new family.

When development on Congo began in 1980, Michael Crichton knew he wanted Jerry Goldsmith to do the music, as Goldsmith had scored The First Great Train Robbery. But then, production never took place in the 80's and Crichton left altogether. When the movie was finally made in the 90's, James Newton Howard was originally tapped to do the music, and did come up with some material, mainly the Mizumu's tribal chant, but then left the movie. His replacement was none other than Goldsmith, as if he was fated to do this movie all along. In any case, I'm glad he did, as the music is one of my favorite things about Congo. It really leans into that traditional African native sound, which is a kind of music that I've always loved listening to since I was a kid, as it spurred my imagination just as much as settings and stories like this film. The score is mostly built around a song that's heard over the opening and ending credits called Spirit of Africa, which Goldsmith composed and is performed by Lebo M, who was also involved in the music for The Lion King, most notably in writing and singing the iconic "Nants' Ingonyama" that that movie opens with (thus, it's small wonder why Congo's opening may remind you of The Lion King's). Incidentally, that song got nominated for a Razzie, and all I can say is that the Razzies can seriously kiss my ass, because that's a wonderful, beautiful song. Various instrumental versions of it are heard throughout the score, and it also becomes something of a heroic piece for scenes like when Amy saves Peter from the grays. The music also tends to have a nice, adventurous, traveling sound to it for the many scenes where the characters are trekking through the Congo, but Goldsmith doesn't forget to be mysterious and suspenseful when he has to, either, like when the group first explore the city of Zinj. The music often becomes full-on horrific whenever the grays attack, but during the scene where they're attacking the campsite during the third act, it's very subtle and unsettling, highlighting the eeriness of their rustling in the darkness and undergrowth around the camp. And finally, there are some touching bits of music for the scenes between Peter and Amy, like when she's initially rejected by the mountain gorillas.

Is Congo peak cinema? Not really. Is it a ridiculous story with a number of bizarre concepts and some over-the-top performances that, perhaps, takes itself more seriously than it should? Oh, yes.  Does it live up to the standard that Michael Crichton set with Jurassic Park? God, no! Is it an awful piece of trash that people should steer clear of? Absolutely not. For all of its faults, it is a very entertaining, fast-paced adventure movie, with some exciting and even genuinely tense sequences and setpieces, a cast of likable and memorable characters, especially Ernie Hudson as Monroe Kelly, an adorable and well-realized character in Amy the gorilla, beautiful locations and cinematography, awesome production design, great practical creature and visual effects, and a wonderful score by the legendary Jerry Goldsmith. It may not be high art but, as I've said many times before, you don't have to be in order to be fun, which Congo certainly is.