Critique: Megaboa (Film)

Doctor Malone and a bunch of university students go into a rainforest and are terrorised by the ‘megaboa’, an unknown species. Dr Malone gets bitten and they have to wait for rescue.

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

As the megaboa is the main attraction, one would have thought its creation would have been perfected. Not so.

The snake moved far too fast. Sure some snakes and slither fast but that’s usually seen in the desert winders: the megaboa’s form of locomotion could never reach those speeds.

We have an arial shot of the tree branches moving in big motions, with the implications that it’s caused by the megaboa. Yet when we saw the snake in the trees from below, the branches don’t move at all. Why the inconsistency. To be honest, I’m not even sure the megaboa was big enough to move the branches at all.

When they use a tranquiliser on the megaboa, only its neck goes floppy. The rest of the body stays in the tree. Either it’s all stiff or it’s all floppy.

The size (length and thickness) of the megaboa was so inconsistent. It’s much smaller in the trees and even when its on the ground it never looks the same size twice.

When the megaboa sheds its skin in the sulphur pool, it does it really quickly. This isn’t feasible. Nor is the fact that it’s still alive. Its skin was now bright red. Snakes don’t really change colour when they shed their skin. Maybe I can be optimistic and say the sulphur caused the wounded colouration?

 

Doctor Malone was a problematic character. The acting wasn’t great. Neither were the dialogue or his thinking process.

When Doctor Malone is bitten by a spider, he says, “Wa-ow, wa-ow.” No one would make that sound at all.

Dr Malone asks for a student to help him up and all she does is hold his hand. She doesn’t pull him up or really stabilise him when he did it himself.

Dr Malone compares burning of spider bite to drug withdrawal. That’s an interesting comparison.

The drone student spent a lot of time making a walking stick for the doctor. Yet when they go for a walk, they leave it behind, even though he’s struggling to walk. Why bother making him a walking stick if it’s not going to be used? Especially as he testing it and said it was good.

When Dr Malone shouts, “It’s alive! It’s alive!” it sounded so staged.

 

The behaviour of other characters was likewise suspect.

The students call Rita to organise their evacuation. Every person she calls hangs up on her mid sentence. This was mass rudeness. So for this reason it was unbelievable.

The team don’t have any antibodies or antihistamines. They’re a doctor and a bunch of clever students. They’ve gone into a rainforest, a place of venom, poison and disease. How did no one think to bring antibodies or antihistamines with them? How did the trip organisers not think to pack them? This is basic health and safety, not to mention common sense.

 

Acting and dialogue were areas the film could have improved on.

Jason’s dialogue was so cringy.

The first guy who gets caught by the megaboa throws his head around like he’s having some kind of fit. It was truly awful acting.

Grace’s scream at the massive spider was really pathetic. Bad acting, bad directing, or both?

As she’s flamethrowing the small snakes, the military lady screams, “Go back to whatever circle of Hell you came from. Die!” Firstly, that’s overkill. (Particularly shouting ‘Die’ at the end.) Secondly, they’re small, regular snakes, not massive ones, so they’re not unnatural enough to come from Hell.

 

This is a great example of how not to make a film. So in that regards it would be useful for people who want to get into the film industry. But for me it had no value. There were cave paintings of tribal people killing megaboas. This was a really nice touch. In fact, it was the only descent touch. The plot had so much potential but every area of the film let it down.