Anaconda Review: Snakes Down the Drain

It may be hard to believe, but Anaconda, the absurd snake-fighting action-horror flick with Ice Cube, Jennifer Lopez, and an out-of-his-mind Jon Voight, has spawned four sequels and a Chinese remake. Now it’s the subject of a somewhat meta comedy-horror that has glommed on to the series like a tick on a poorly maintained pet python.

It’s definitely not a flat-out reboot, since the original definitely exists in this new Anaconda – not the events of the film, but the film itself, which failed actor Griff (Paul Rudd) and his childhood backyard moviemaking bud, Doug (Jack Black) grew up loving. With their lives stagnating, they grab their old friends, burnout Kenny (Steve Zahn) and recently divorced Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and depart snowy Buffalo, NY, for the sweaty depths of the Amazon where they’ll make a zero-budget remake of Anaconda with a live anaconda.

Anaconda isn’t without charm, but it is without mirth. It’s impossible for a movie with the ever-endearing talents of Jack Black and Paul Rudd to be completely alienating, but then it’s hard to enjoy a movie that mishandles their talents so egregiously. Not quite so egregious, though, as wasting one of the few recent performances by Steve Zahn to receive a theatrical release, even if he is burdened by one of the most dead-end character arcs in recent years.

Maybe this would have been saved if director and co-writer Tom Gormican had kept closer to the original setup of a bittersweet story of some old friends on a fool’s errand. There’s a kind of light tenderness there that could have at least provided some sense of narrative continuity. Moreover, Gormican and co-writer Kevin Etten proved they can handle an eccentric tone with The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Instead, their Anaconda keeps collapsing into messy sight gags and wacky diversions, like a subplot about illegal gold mining, that add up to nothing. Worst of all, it feels like no one could tell Jack Black “no.” There are moments so broad, so ridiculous, that you can almost hear the pitch meeting in which the School of Rock star went, “OK, but what if I tape a wild boar to my head? Eh? Eh?”

Maybe even that would be less of an issue if every moment of the film seemed disjointed from anything that went before. Like how mysterious boat captain Ana (Daniela Melchior) just seems to disappear from the very small boat for long stretches, or the complete lack of weight to the supposedly reignited flames of passion between Claire and Griff.

The original Anaconda was not good: at the time, more than one review noted that Eric Stoltz was the luckiest member of the cast because his character was in a coma for most of the film. But it’s at least a cheesy pleasure. Anaconda 2025 tries to be a horror-comedy, but it’s neither funny nor scary, dumping its one good jump scare in the first two minutes and even that’s a red herring. It tries to one-up the original by featuring a ridiculously giant anaconda that’s so big it wrecks any vestige of the idea that this is somehow “real life” for Griff and Doug. The snake is also so poorly rendered by the VFX team that it would embarrass the producers of Anaconda mockbuster MegaBoa.

By the time the final act slithers on the screen, Gormican has abandoned any sense of originality and just props the film up on nostalgia-manipulating cameos and clumsy, overused needle drops. Those moments barely cover some astoundingly inept filmmaking, from shot composition to editing, that will make you wish you were watching Anaconda 3: Offspring instead. OK, maybe it’s not that bad, but Anaconda – both this film and the whole franchise – should just slip back into the swamp.