by: Dr. Boogie

...CONTINUED

Hammett is trying to sell a pair of rhino horns, but the buyers don't like his asking price. He counters by telling them to "go find an ATM teller. One that dispenses respect." Part of what makes Hammett such a great character is the way he tosses out completely nonsensical lines like that with such incredible confidence. The two buyers are overcome. They pay Hammett the full $30 grand for his horns.

Almost immediately after he gets the money, two thugs try to roll Hammett. Hammett takes it all in stride, though, even going so far as to answer his phone mid-beating. It's a call from Pinkus, and Hammett immediately deduces that they didn't reinforce the cages and the snakes escaped. Pinkus chides him, "this is serious!" Buddy, he just told you exactly what happened without even being there. Was there anyone who didn't recognize your lab was a huge deathtrap?

Pinkus wants him to lead the team. Hammett is interested, but first things first.

He uses the confusing phone call to headbutt one of the thugs, and tosses the other through a window. Right onto an angry mountain lion, judging from the cuts on his face. Classic Hammett.

Not everyone is happy about Hammett joining the team, though. Grozny in particular seems to have some beef with the guy, but the director opted not to explore this. As Grozny gets the other trackers ready to move, Hayes shows up. She just let her friend get killed by a giant snake, and she wants to join the trackers so she can let even more people get killed. They agree because hell, they've already got a bureaucrat on board. What's one more huge burden?

There is some good news: the male snake has a tracking device planted on it, and Pinkus has the tracker. That should make the search much easier. At least for one of the snakes...

On their way to the snakes, Grozny offers Hayes a tiny gun to protect herself. If he had seen how well she used that dart gun, he might've thought better about this. Pinkus reassures her that she won't need one, so long as she stays with Nick. You see, Nick was once a professional boxer, which is a great skill to have when you're fighting a giant snake. Needless to say, Hayes can't grab that gun fast enough.

The trackers in the other jeep are filling the time by telling stories about anacondas hypnotizing people. These stories do not interest Dragosh, played by Jeffrey Tambor's younger brother, Spike Tambor. He doesn't like snakes, which I assume means he's afraid of them, in which case this is a good mission for him to be on.

Elsewhere, a farmer is wondering why his goat is making so much noise. He grabs his shotgun and goes to investigate, but wouldn't you know it; someone got his goat. The barn is the only hiding spot, so he marches inside and does his best to play the part of victim. There's no goat on the ground floor, but maybe the goat climbed up the ladder into the hayloft. He climbs up and starts prodding piles of hay with his shotgun. That doesn't seem dangerous enough, so he sets the gun down and reaches in with both hands.

A POV shot with the wavy "anaconda" filter seems to signal his impending demise, but then the loft collapses. The missing goat shows up to comfort the farmer. For a moment, it looks like the farmer has avoided a grisly death, but then he remembers his discarded shotgun. He climbs partway up and decides to reach for it. This time, it's the ladder that breaks, and the farmer is knocked unconscious.

The farmer awakens to find the male anaconda devouring him. I can't help but think the anaconda got a little lazy going after this guy. Seems like it had more difficulty going after that goat.

Later, the trackers make their way to that very same farm. Pinkus informs the group that the tracker is showing the snakes are nearby, and that the signal could be "anywhere within 100 yards." So, the snakes are either far off in the woods, or directly in front of them.

Grozny orders Pinkus and Hayes to stay with the jeeps while the rest of them search for the snakes and whoever owns the farm. After almost two whole minutes of waiting, Hayes declares that she is tired of waiting. She arrives in the barn just in time to see Dragosh unload an entire clip into the hayloft because he saw a chicken. You know, something just occurred to me: The inconsistent dress code, the wild, inaccurate gunfire... these guys aren't professional trackers. Pinkus just picked up a bunch of people from the bus stop because he thought the tracking devices would make tracking the snakes foolproof.

The trackers regroup in light of this screw up and Nick reports that there wasn't anyone in the farmhouse. He suggests the owner may have gone to get supplies, when that goat makes another surprise appearance...

Only this time, the goat is half-digested and falls out of the ceiling. It's a strange enough sight on its own, but instead of a simple "thump", the falling goat carcass is accompanied by an extremely bizarre noise. It almost sounds as if that goat was shat out by the devil. Whatever it is, Nick is correct in stating that it is "slightly disturbing."

The trackers are a bit put off by this. Hayes explains that the anacondas puke up food they don't like. It's worth mentioning that in spite of this revelation, not one of the trackers so much as glances upward to see if maybe a giant snake is puking on them right not.

Outside, one of the trackers makes a shocking discovery.

One of the snakes has shed its skin. And with that skin, it also shed the tracking device. How could Wexel Hall have not foreseen this? They've got a fucking snake expert on staff!! Maybe next time, instead of hiring a herpetologist full time, they can just ask a third-grader to tell them everything they know about snakes.

Now their only plan for finding the snakes is circling the drain. Grozny announces that it's time for Plan B. I assume he means emergency contraception, as these people are a great argument in favor of it. But no, as it turns out there is no Plan B. I've got one for you, Groz:

1. Get killed.
2. Shoot wildly at giant snakes.
3. ???
4. Profit!

Hey look, Grozny's already getting into it:

I mean, seriously, even a cursory glance at the ceiling inside that barn would have revealed the 60 ft snake they were looking for. The snake drops Grozny and makes a break for it, the trackers firing wildly as it goes. Sadly, the storm troopers from Star Wars were better shots than these people. They continue firing even as the snake circles back and slithers onto the top of the barn. Dragosh, forgetting that he's shooting at a killer mutant snake that impaled his boss like nothing, loses sight of the snake and goes back to check on Grozny.

Just a reminder, Pinkus reassured Murdoch that these were "professional trackers". Sure, this would normally be a pretty stupid way to die, but this was only the beginning...

Still standing, Dragosh's headless corpse turns towards the jeep and shoots it until it explodes.

You may have to read that sentence a couple times before it makes sense. Believe me, it didn't make any more sense watching it happen. The other trackers arrive just in time to see the explosion. At this point, Nick assumes command and orders the others to follow him, saying, "we end this now!" I genuinely thought he was going to take the entire team and lead them to their deaths in the woods, thus ending it (i.e., the movie) now. I wanted to believe him. Oh, how I wanted to believe him.

Hayes and Pinkus stay behind to help Grozny. Hayes is sure that she can save Grozny's life by screaming at Pinkus, who tries his best to help as he whines out line after line. It gets so bad that you can still hear Hayes' nagging when the scene switches to following the trackers behind the barn. Allow me to paraphrase:

Hayes: "Get me this. Get me that. Shut up! HURRY!!!"
Pinkus: "Waaaaaaaaah!"
Grozny: "I'm dead."

Believe it or not, Hayes' first aid kit and degree in herpetology couldn't repair the grapefruit-sized hole in Grozny's chest. She tries her best to save his life, way harder than she tried to save the life of a guy she actually knew and liked.

Meanwhile, the trackers split up to find the snake and still manage to lose it. It, in turn, circles around to the farm yet again. This time, it has Hayes in its sights.

Here's the thing about CGI: if the thing you're rendering doesn't look good, don't let the camera linger on it, and especially don't show it close up. Here, the director does both. Is this finally the end of the movie I've been hoping for?

All of a sudden Hammett arrives to save the day and rescue this band of losers. I've never been so happy to see David Hasselhoff before.

Seconds after he arrives, Hammett calms the hysterical Hayes, rounds up the wayward trackers, produces a backup tracking device, and formulates a specific plan for catching the snake. And Grozny didn't even have a Plan B!

The trackers split into two groups and go after the snake. Pinkus, meanwhile, decides to stay at the farm, perhaps believing that if the snake does eat him, it will be disgusted by his whining and vomit him back up.

Hayes goes with trackers Victor and Sofia to run down the snake in one of the remaining jeeps. Ostensibly, this seems like a waste of time since there is only a single narrow road cutting through the dense forest, but somehow they manage to keep the snake in their sights... for a little while. Eventually, the snake does what it always does: lose the hunters, circle around, and strike.

The snake vomits blood onto Victor's face. Judging from his screaming, the blood seems to be doing more than just disorienting him. Sofia decides that the best way to help clean the blood out of his eyes is to drive into a stump and flip the jeep. Professional trackers...

Oh, and she wasn't wearing her seatbelt. She gets ejected from the jeep and breaks her leg. Victor is dead from something; the wreck, the blood in the face, I don't know. Hayes seems fine, apart from a bloody nose.

So now they have no transportation, both of the "trackers" are out of commission, and there's a mutant anaconda nearby. It's a tense scene, though that tension is somewhat undercut by the sight a crew member wandering in the background.

When you're shooting a movie and a boom mic accidentally dips into the corner of the shot for a second or two, that's a goof. When you have members of your crew walking through the middle of your shot, that's when you're supposed to yell, "CUT!"

Anyway, the snake shows up and devours Sofia. Hayes contemplates waiting in the jeep until the others show up, but the snake shows up to taunt her again. Then again, maybe it's trying to decide if it would be worth it to kill her, seeing as she'll probably wind up doing the work for him like Sofia and that farmer. Suddenly, the jeep catches fire, and the decision is made for her.

Fleeing from the now exploding jeep, Hayes falls in some mud, spazzing out in such a way that she winds up covered in the stuff. Moments later, the snake catches up and starts mad dogging her once again. Just like the first time, Hayes' bacon is saved when Hammett arrives to shoot at the snake. He calms her down once again, and she spits out some nonsense about the snake not being able to see her because of the mud. Why would she say something like that when the snake was acting the same way it did when it saw her at the farm, sans mud? Because she's confusing this movie with Predator, which I would rather be watching right now.

Hammett ignores her stupid remarks and takes her back to the farmhouse to get cleaned up. Amazingly, Pinkus is still alive.

There's still more of Anaconda 3 to see!
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