Line #17 YMMV/Congo


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2	* AwardSnub: While the gorilla costumes are somewhat debatable, some people argue that the rest of the special effects should’ve been enough for an Academy Award nomination.
3	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Music/JerryGoldsmith to the rescue again, with a little help from Lebo M. (and Music/JamesNewtonHoward).
4	** The movie’s main theme [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIGiHxklK38 “(Feel) The Spirit of Africa”]] sets the mood right from the get-go with its tribal drums and chanting. Really makes you wonder why the hell the Razzies nominated it for Worst Song!
5	* CriticalDissonance: While the film has only a 24% Fresh rating on Website/RottenTomatoes, Joel Siegel praised the effects and action and Creator/RogerEbert called it "a splendid example of a genre no longer much in fashion, the [[JungleOpera jungle adventure]] story."
6	** The film opened at #1 at the box office with $24.6 million, and went on to gross $81 million in the US, and another $71 million overseas, for a total of $152 million worldwide, just over triple its $50 million budget.
7	* FountainOfMemes: [[PunctuatedForEmphasis Stop. Eating.]] '''[[PunctuatedForEmphasis MY SESAME CAKE!]]'''
8	* HamAndCheese: Creator/TimCurry as Herkimer Homolka, a "Romanian philanthropist" who is "[[VampireVords Travelink de vorld and doink goot!]]" '''''The book had no equivalent character.''''' Same with Creator/BruceCampbell. And Creator/DelroyLindo. It's like somebody realized what a lame movie they were making out of a boring book and said "Hey! Let's get some awesome over-actors to keep people's attention!"
9	** Ditto Creator/ErnieHudson as Munro; the "GreatWhiteHunter" of the group though he "happens to be black!" So damn cool he almost makes the film worth watching for his performance alone. Creator/RogerEbert went so far as to compare him to Creator/ClarkGable.
10	* HarsherInHindsight:
11	** The scientist character saying that chopping down the rain forest won't change the world's climate. Thirty years later and global warming/climate change is a thing, and Michael Crichton [[Literature/StateOfFear went on to write a whole novel about how it wasn't]].
12	** In the movie, Munro says at one point, "Quite frankly, the twentieth century sucks. Maybe the twenty-first will be better." Since the release of the movie, the world has gone through equally troubling times.
13	** In the novel, Japanese business is one of the antagonists, opposing ERTS by working as part of a consortium with Dutch and German interests. This was back during the height of the Bubble Economy of Japan. By the early 1990s, Japan's economy collapsed, making it less of a powerhouse today than it was during the setting of the book.
14	* HilariousInHindsight: The statement that a 'worldwide network enabling billions of computers to communicate with each other' is theoretically impossible.
15	** ERTS equipment being described as "amazingly sophisticated", for example a portable computer with 186k memory. By 2020s standards, even 186 ''megabytes'' would be considered woefully underpowered.
16	* MisaimedMerchandising: This is a PG-13 movie that features gruesome-looking gorillas tearing people apart and crushing their skulls. It had a toyline courtesy of Kenner, complete with toy versions of said gruesome-looking gorillas. There’s also its Taco Bell tie-in.
17	* SugarWiki/NoProblemWithLicensedGames: Both the UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn FirstPersonShooter and the PC AdventureGame were met with mostly positive reception from critics and players alike. The Saturn game in particular is a BroadStrokes adaptation that keeps the basics (finding diamonds in the jungle while fighting killer gorillas) while not using any of the less popular aspects; in many ways it's a spiritual precursor to ''VideoGame/FarCry2'' (you even start by needing to find malaria medication). The [[Pinball/{{Congo}} pinball machine]] is also well-regarded, with the biggest complaint being that it was a good game done in by a bad license.
18	* OneSceneWonder:
19	** Creator/DelroyLindo as Captain Wanta (see ''Fountain Of Memes'' entry above).
20	** Creator/BruceCampbell definitely leaves an impression in the opening.
21	** Creator/JoePantoliano as Eddie Ventro.
22	* PresumedFlop: A lot of people tend to refer to the movie as an embarrassing flop that tried and failed to ride the coattails of Jurassic Park but in reality, while the movie didn’t do as much money as Spielberg’s movie, it actually placed at #1 on its first weekend and made over $150 million worldwide on a budget of $50 million.
23	* SoBadItsGood: Between the terrible dialogue and a handful of fan-favorite actors hamming it up for all it's worth, it's a ''very'' entertaining film.
24	* SpecialEffectsFailure:
25	** It's quite painfully obvious that all the apes in the film are men-in-suits. At least [[Creator/IndustrialLightAndMagic ILM]]'s matte paintings, miniatures and animation are good.
26	** Justified in that while computer animation in 1995 could make smooth or scaly creatures rather easily (i.e. Film/{{Jurassic Park}}), trying it with hairy creatures (the filmmakers' first attempt) made the gorillas look cartoony.
27	** Towards the end, there is a short CatScare, with a few birds flying suddenly over the group, when they enter the temple for TheReveal. But the hand of someone throwing them, not quite off-screen and clearly visible, makes it hilarious.
28	* TearJerker: Amy has a small one when she realizes her knowledge of sign language makes her different from the other gorillas, [[StrangerInAFamiliarLand the very gorillas she was meant to be released with.]]
29	* TookTheBadFilmSeriously:
30	** Creator/DylanWalsh is pretty much the ''only'' actor for whom this is the case - as can be seen in HamAndCheese above, ''everybody else'' knew exactly what kind of film they were making and acted accordingly.
31	** A special mention should go to Creator/ErnieHudson, who is clearly having fun and aware that the film is being filmed like a comedy (despite the plot being not), yet also gives all to make Munro look cool, and succeeds.
32	* VindicatedByHistory: The [[Pinball/{{Congo}} pinball game based on the movie]] sold poorly back in the day due to the film not turning out as well as hoped, but pinheads now regard it as an excellent pinball game that failed through no fault of its own. Its rarity ensures not many people will get to play it, sadly, but at the very least, it's now highly regarded by pinball fans who ''did'' play it.
33	* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: The escape from Zinj as it crumbles down because of the volcano eruption is a magnificent display of practical effects, as it combines a set that was buit to move up and down to simulate an earthquake, some really convincing miniature work and super-imposed lava flow that a lot of people assumed it was CGI because of its fluidity but it was actually a very clever practical effect that was later digitally edited to look like lava.
34	* WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids: Well, the movie is rated PG-13, so it’s not exactly for kids[[labelnote:note]] Kenner toyline notwhistanding, see above[[/labelnote]] , but there’s a suprising amount of blood and gore. Especially glaring since ''Film/MortalKombatTheMovie'' was released that same year, infamously also had a PG-13 rating and yet it was nowhere near as bloody as this.

Context YMMV / Congo