ANACONDAS: THE HUNT FOR THE BLOOD ORCHID

[ 1/2] (One and one-half stars)

No snake charmer. Running time: 93 minutes. Rated PG-13 (action violence, scary images and some language). At the Empire, others.

WHY anyone felt the need to film a sequel to 1997’s mediocre “Anaconda” – best known for Jennifer Lopez’s hilariously earn est performance – is a mystery.

But the biggest problem with the corny horror film “Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid” is that its titular reptiles are about as scary as jellied eels.

The supersize snakes don’t even make an appearance until the movie’s midway point – and when they do, appalling special effects render them merely risible.

(The most effective horror moment, naturally, is an understated shot of a river from above in which one of the enormous slithery creatures is seen wending its way between its unwitting victims.)

Meanwhile, time drags as a cast of characters straight out of Central Casting bicker and flirt with one another, and director Dwight Little tries in vain to ratchet up the tension by scaring his jungle adventurers with leeches, spiders and – gasp – a monkey.

None of the eclectic original cast, which also included Jon Voight, Owen Wilson and Ice Cube, is here. Instead, we have an instantly forgettable group of actors inhabiting shopworn stereotypes – the Brawny Skipper, the Blonde Babe and the Brainy Brit.

The latter is Dr. Jack Byron (Matthew Marsden), a mercenary scientist who is hell-bent on tracking down the orchid of the title, a rare flower that blooms for only six months every seven years and is said to contain “the pharmaceutical equivalent of the fountain of youth.”

He sets off for the jungles of Borneo, taking with him a handful of adventurers including his comely research assistant, Sam (KaDee Strickland, employing a wobbly Southern accent); his entrepreneurial partner, Gordon (Morris Chestnut); and an unbelievably annoying computer geek (Eugene Byrd).

The rainy season has left the rivers dangerously swollen and the only boat owner mad enough to brave the wilds is Bill (Johnny Messner), the skipper of a rust bucket named the Bloody Mary, whom they inevitably find in a bar.

He is lured by the promise of large sums of cash, a recurring theme in a film with the unofficial motto: “Greed is not good.”

When white-water rapids reduce their boat to matchsticks, the crew is forced to bushwhack their way through the jungle, which is, as Captain Bill warns, “all green all the time.”

The characters are fairly predictably picked off one by one by a pack of enormous – and lustful – anacondas, all drawn to this particular neck of the woods by a female in heat.

Four screenwriters provide only remnants of the colorfully overwrought B-movie dialogue of the original “Anaconda.” Mostly, it is the studied seriousness of the delivery that provides the laughs, along with the idea that the PG-rated horror can be multiplied by simply adding more snakes.