Anaconda 1997, Congo 1995, King Kong 2005, The Lost World: Jurassic Park 1997, and Godzilla 2014
Several keywords that best describe this lineup is suspenseful, terrifying, loud, exciting, action-packed, brilliant, engaging, and ultimately it's the perfect prelude into the release of Jurassic World. Starting small with giant snakes roaming free in the tropical landscape and building up to Godzilla is a great transformation from where the marathon begins. The movies all play a similar formula with corporate greed or poachers wanting to obtain either the creatures or the items their protecting for personal gain. The first movie Anaconda starring Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, and Jon Voight centers around a documentary filmmaking team who stumble across a shipwreck and rescue a stranded hunter played by Voight. Little does the crew know that this insane hunter has alternate plans of his own and takes the entire National Geographic film crew hostage in his quest to capture a live Anaconda that's worth a million dollars. Anaconda has become a cult classic since it's release spawning two sequels and earning a status that places it among the most enjoyable bad movies ever made. The second movie in the lineup is the 1995 blockbuster thriller titled Congo starring Ernie Hudson and Tim Curry. Based on Michael Crichton's best selling novel and also the writer behind Jurassic Park and The Lost World, Congo centers around killer gorillas in Africa that hunt a team of explorers sent to investigate the disappearance of the original team under suspicious circumstances. Like Anaconda, Congo is another case of a film that's cheesy entertainment and works as a cult classic because of the absurdity of it all. Neither films got good marks from critics or audiences but they work because of their entertainment value within all the cheese. The third film of the lineup is the critically acclaimed remake of the 1933 original. Peter Jackson's King Kong centers around a film crew going on an expedition to Skull Island to make a movie but instead find themselves encountering a hostile tribe, extinct dinosaurs mysteriously living on the island, and a giant gorilla named King Kong. Jack Black stars as Carl Denham, the arrogant hollywood director who cons the cast and crew into going on the expedition to Skull Island. Nominated for four academy awards, King Kong was a box office and critical success upon it's release in December 2005, setting a standard for hollywood remakes showing they too can be great films. Why Andy Serkis wasn't nominated for his phenomenal performance as Kong and Naomi Watts as Ann Darrow is one of the big mysteries in the history of the academy awards. The fourth film in the lineup is the Steven Spielberg box office smash sequel to the 1993 classic Jurassic Park. The Lost World: Jurassic Park stars Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcom from the first movie, returning to lead a rescue mission to save his girlfriend on a second island full of dinosaurs with her being played by Julianne Moore. Whereas the research team led by Dr. Malcom has no intentions of bringing the dinosaurs back to the island, the second team that arrives has plans to capture and take the dinosaurs back to the mainland after former head of InGen company John Hammond loses control of it to his slimy nephew. Lost World opened to box office records making a stunning 92 million it's first weekend but suffered from reviews less favorable than those of the original. Although the film drew criticism for large number of plot holes and poor character motivations, the visual effects earned itself an academy award nomination for best visual effects. The fifth and final movie in the lineup is the 2014 blockbuster remake Godzilla. This film places Godzilla against two other powerful creatures as they make their way across the world from Japan to San Francisco, leaving a path of chaos and destruction along the way. Unlike the rest of the creatures in the previous films, the ones in Godzilla pose the greatest threat to mankind and represent societies ignorance and scientific arrogance in creating such dangerous creatures.
So what do all of these movies say when all are put together for an exciting evening. The message basically says that some animals are not to be messed with or resurrected. Some expeditions should not be carried out and that the greed of companies like InGen in Lost World can put mankind's existence in jeopardy. There is a reason why Anacondas are in locations so far away from civilization, why killer Gorillas in Congo are not to be messed with, why islands like Skull Island and Site B from King Kong and Lost World should never be visited, and why science should be better understood to avoid the creation of monsters like Godzilla.
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