Congo
Michael Crichton has an air of respectability, credibility and intelligence to all his movies, even if you can't tell exactly what it is and even if it's been dismissed by critics - as this one has – as being Saturday matinee fluff. A bit contrived and psuedo-scientific, but tense and suspenseful enough waiting for the promised beasties – in this case mutated white killer gorillas.
A team of scientists and adventurers have travelled to the deepest darkest Congo to find what happened to earlier colleagues who've gone missing. They all want different things for different reasons, and their travels lead them to a secret lost city where the ground is littered with fist-sized diamonds, guarded by the army of horrible monster apes. A strange and loosely entwined group of characters (Tim Curry hammering yet another nail in a once prestigious image) and decent effects and set pieces make for an unremarkably entertaining romp.
Could have been a lot shoddier and a lot more cartoonish under lesser creative direction than Crichton's (and director Marshall, longtime main squeeze of Spielberg producer team).