Congo (1995)
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An expedition team and a gorilla must navigate a dangerous jungle to find a lost city and its hidden treasures.
The story
After a remote camera shows a camp destroyed and strewn with corpses, a team is sent into the Congolian rainforests to find a missing expedition and the ruins of an ancient civilization where diamonds might be located. The team includes a primatologist with a mountain gorilla that can communicate via sign language. They must navigate the dense jungle and face the threat of an undiscovered and violent gorilla species that lurks near the ruins of the lost city of Zinj.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
Searching for rare blue diamonds to power a communication laser, a team led by Karen Ross, a former CIA operative, enters the Congolian rainforest. They are joined by Peter Elliott, who brings his sign-language-capable gorilla, Amy. The group travels through several countries before their plane is shot down, forcing them to trek through the jungle. They eventually reach the ruins of the City of Zinj, where they discover that the inhabitants bred a species of gray gorillas to guard a mine. After several members are killed by these aggressive apes, the survivors reach the mine. Karen finds a large diamond and uses it to power a laser to defeat the gray gorillas as the volcano erupts. In the aftermath, Karen destroys the company's satellite to keep the diamond's location secret, and Peter reunites Amy with her own kind of mountain gorillas.
- First release year
- 1995
- Runtime (minutes)
- 108
- Production countries
- United States
- Original languages
- English
- Directors
- Frank Marshall
- Writers
- John Patrick Shanley · screenplay
- Cast and characters
- Laura Linney · Karen Ross; Dylan Walsh · Peter Elliott; Ernie Hudson · Captain Monroe Kelly; Tim Curry · Herkermer Homolka; Grant Heslov · Richard; Joe Don Baker · R.B. Travis; Bruce Campbell · Charlie Travis; Taylor Nichols · Jeffrey Weems
- Genres
- science fiction; action; adventure
- Themes
- exploration; survival
- Tone and mood
- action; adventure
- Premise and plot tags
- lost world; treasure hunt; monster
- Source material / true-story basis
- 1980 novel by Michael Crichton
- Reception
- The film received negative reviews but performed better than expected at the box office. It was described as a 'suspenseless adventure' with 'campy' elements, though some critics enjoyed it as a 'goofy' adventure.
- Reported review scores
- Rotten Tomatoes · score: 24% · scale: percentage · review count: 54; Metacritic · score: 22 · scale: 100 · review count: 19
- Awards and nominations
- Saturn Awards · Best Science Fiction Film · nominated
- Production trivia
- A video game based on the film was released for Sega Saturn in 1996.; A Williams pinball machine based on the film was produced in 1995.; The film was originally envisioned as an homage to classic pulp adventure tales.
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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