Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Congo

Top positive review

great gorilla movie

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 9, 2023

Quite interesting...never 2nd guess any animal, WILD or not. Don't go in someone's backyard without permission and protection... never let greed win you over or else trouble starts to brew.. I like gorillas, I think all animals are smart, just need time and proper care.... learn to love 'em like you would do with a family member

One person found this helpful

Top critical review

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Vic Mclendon

Mediocre

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 8, 2023

The movie doesn’t do justice to Michael Crichton’s book of the same name.

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65 total ratings, 35 with reviews

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From the United States

J. S. Wahl

Another hollywood abortion of a good story / book.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 1, 2019

Verified Purchase

Why does hollywood feel compelled to fundamentally alter stories in all the worst ways when those stories come from books? There's hardly any story out there that has a movie and a book and the movie is better. The books are better 99% of the time. Let me give you an example.

I recently reread Congo by Michael Crichton. In it a corporation is hired to find blue diamonds in nature for use in super conductors. (Note that Congo was written in the late 1970's, before the vast, vast majority of people had even heard of super conductors.) The expeditions have to cross the deepest and darkest sections of Africa. Military Coups. Cannibals. Revolutions. Other corporations trying to beat them to the diamonds.

Then, only when they've beat the other corporations to the location with the ultra valuable diamonds, *SPOILER ALERT* do they come across a species of hyper-intelligent almost-gorillas. These almost-gorillas are so intelligent that they literally have a spoken language.

How much of Crichton's great book do we see in the movie? Practically none of it. A story of corporate greed and the almost-human monsters that haunt our nightmares is watered down to a few laser effects and people in gray gorilla suits. *Yawn*.

19 people found this helpful

Helpful

Charles van Buren

A really silly movie.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 4, 2017

Verified Purchase

A great idea for a classic African adventure movie along the lines of King Solomon's Mines. A great cast for a movie. Great filming locations for a movie. Fine movie photography. And it all resulted in one of the silliest big budget adventure movies ever made. The technology concerning lasers, satellites and the telecommunications industry is remarkably inaccurate. The information about diamonds and their use in lasers is wrong. For instance, near the beginning of the movie, an actor holds a rough diamond to his naked eye and proclaims it a flawless diamond. Ridiculous. In fact it seems most of the would be "facts" shown in the movie are instead ridiculous. The trivia list accompanying the streaming of the movie has the longest list of goofs I have ever seen in a major movie and I noticed goofs that are not even on the list. I suppose the director is ultimately responsible for this mess. Though the script writers can not escape some of the responsibility.

I am going with two stars instead of one because of Ernie Hudson's performance. He at least seemed to be enjoying himself with some of the best lines in the movie. It is possible for a viewer to also enjoy this thing by putting the brain in neutral and pretending to know nothing like Sergeant Schultz in Hogan's Heroes.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

S. Augusto

Ernie Hudson should have played Lando Calrissian

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 30, 2016

Verified Purchase

At some point during the first days of shooting, Laura Linney must have been like, "Bruce Campbell as my ex-fiance? Tim Curry and Grant Heslov? S***, I'm in a B movie! When am I going to be in something good, like 'The Truman Show'?" Is the book as racist as this movie? Fictional African countries with supposed multiple governments in a year; didn't Crichton know a good respectable central African country has a dictator who's been there for two decades at least? And the "Congo Air Force" is not two guys firing poorly developed SAM missiles at 1960's prop planes. I think there was a plot to this story until it fell apart the moment they invented tribes that don't bathe and sit around doing what in the future will be described as "Avatar praying". After that, I have no idea what mishmash I was watching.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Jennifer B.

Bad Screenwriting

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 16, 2019

Verified Purchase

Monroe is probably the only character who was written well into the movie. Of course, it is not the book and we all know the book doesn't matter in regards to the movie. It is awkward, sci-fi original-like, and boring to watch. Stopped watching it because it was so bad, then saw a review that said Tim Curry was in it and decided to stomach the rest to see how it went. Do yourself a favor and skip watching if you are looking for a good suspense/action film. Read the book if you like the idea of the story, better use of your time.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

All around poor.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 24, 2017

Verified Purchase

It seems like everything on Amazon gets four stars. Not quite Oscar material? Four stars. Okay B movie? Also four stars. I can't believe Congo is rated four stars here. It's terrible. If you like it for nostalgia, good for you. I just saw it for the first time and it's boring, cheesy, and ridiculous. No real thrills, super predictable, .... laser battles with gorillas? I guess my biggest concern is that they couldn't decide whether to aim for pure goofball comedy or Jurassic thrills. It lands awkwardly in the middle. No tension, minimal laughs, poor effects. Not worth your time.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Yiannis P

Men in Gorilla Suits

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 8, 2016

Verified Purchase

A sort of remake of King Solomon's Mines, with elements of modern technology. A script encouraging totally idiotic dialog, a safari membership with multiple goals (find the perfectly pure diamonds to power lasers, but also repatriate a talking gorilla), and a predictable selection and order of who gets killed, make this film a 1990s production with a 1950s mentality. Not recommended, except for middle schoolers. 2 1/2 stars.

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Craigh

Sorry to say I turned it off about a half hour in because it was just so bad..

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 23, 2014

Verified Purchase

Started watching this movie, based on an old recommendation by Roger Ebert, who thought it was an overlooked comedy few people got. Sorry to say I turned it off about a half hour in because it was just so bad...I do plan to finish it one day soon and hopefully the movie that Ebert was talking about will be in there somewhere.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Cham

Awful movie

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 17, 2017

Verified Purchase

This movie is just awful! 2 stars because it makes a great gag gift for the person I gave it to who hates this movie, too. They laughed, when they opened this gift.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Beth King-mock

Laura Linney was the best part of this movie.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 23, 2016

Verified Purchase

Michael Crichton was a wonderful writer of scifi. Sad that Hollywood never understood that. This was probably the best they could do to stay close to the book, but the book was still better.

Helpful

Amazon Customer

not very good

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 20, 2019

Verified Purchase

lack of action special effects are really bad

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‹ See all details for Congo

5 star		79%
4 star		12%
3 star		6%
2 star		1%
1 star		2%

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Congo

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