‘Anaconda’ Movie Review: Self-Aware Goof On An Already-Goofy Snake Movie Mostly Falls Flat
Photo from Sony Pictures Releasing
From Jeremy Kibler
More of a curiosity than an outright success, 2025’s Anaconda sets out to be a meta-comic goof on the 1997 big-snake blockbuster starring Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, and a pony-tailed, Cajun-accented Jon Voight. That Anaconda could never be confused with being called high art or being thematically complex, but it still belongs in the highest echelon of rewatchable, well-made, competently acted creature features that take themselves seriously yet know how to be fun and thrilling.
This not-really-a-reboot is more overtly goofy, and in concept, the self-referential, “let’s-make-a-movie!” approach is a clever way to go about reinvigorating an IP. Starting with promise, Anaconda gets by on its absurdly inspired idea for a while with the good will of its actors, until it all becomes a sillier, lamer, and too-routine version of the thing to which it’s paying homage — perhaps like an anaconda eating its own tail.
Childhood best friends Griff (Paul Rudd) and Doug (Jack Black) have come a long way since making violent, profanity-ridden movies on a shoestring in Buffalo. Well, they haven’t really; Griff is a struggling actor in Los Angeles and Doug is at least a family man (an all-too-brief Ione Skye plays his cheerleading wife) who’s pretending he can make a good life out of being a wedding videographer. Griff and Doug reunite, along with pals Claire (Thandiwe Newton) and Kenny (Steve Zahn), and when Doug drops that he has the rights to the Anaconda franchise, the four agree to a crazy idea: rent a river boat on the actual Amazon and reboot the movie as a self-financed, run-and-gun shoot. The friends do it, until they run into a nasty anaconda.
Continuing to occupy their meta buddy-comedy lane after Nicolas Cage-starrer The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (where Cage did, in fact, play himself), writer-director Tom Gormican and co-writer Kevin Etten at least aren’t slavishly replaying the ‘90s property. This being a broader comedy, there are several chuckles involving the amateur filmmaking process. The insider humor—Hollywood recycling IP as a “reimagining” or a “spiritual sequel,” and the spitballing of themes and aspirations to be “social horror”—is knowing and amusing, mostly of the smile-and-nod variety. The costume designers also get points for the Jurassic Park nods, and at least Paula Cole’s “I Don’t Want to Wait” gets a second life. It’s just the follow-through in execution that falls flat most of the time.
Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Thandiwe Newton, and Steve Zahn all make amiable company in this flimsy, slapdash action-comedy that lifts a lot from Be Kind Rewind, Tropic Thunder, and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (which have all coincidentally starred Black). Both playing variations on character types they’ve honed by now, Black and Rudd do have a lively chemistry, and their estranged friendship rings true. Newton is game and always lovely, even in a pretty thankless part as the divorced lawyer who’s also Griff’s longtime crush. Zahn can be reliably zany—and perhaps the couple of Saving Silverman fans will enjoy the reunion between Zahn and Black—but he never rises above one note as fourth wheel Kenny, whose uncontrollable addiction is the extent of his personality. An offbeat Selton Mello might actually steal the most laughs from our comedically inclined actors as snake handler Santiago.
If anything, this Anaconda works as a stupid, enjoyable-enough diversion. Then again, for a movie that jabs at Hollywood movies making up their third acts without a fully completed script, this one doesn’t quite earn that wink when it feels like a lot was thrown at the wall. A major subplot involving a woman on the run (Daniela Melchior) and gold-mining bad guys is a superfluous and contrived distraction, most of all from the threat of the snake. Pee-shy jokes? A lot of the scares are stylized after Samuel L. Jackson’s Deep Blue Sea speech. Also, how do the CG effects—28 years removed from the original movie—look worse? Full of both clever ideas and missed opportunities, Anaconda is just never as much fun as that central premise.
Rating: 2.5/5
Anaconda is currently in theaters.
