Directed By Tom Gormican

Starring – Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Steve Zahn

The Plot – Four childhood friends (Black, Rudd, Zahn, Thandie Newton) are going through a midlife crisis so they decide to remake their favorite horror movie from the 1990s in the Amazon. When a real giant anaconda shows up, they get more than what they bargain for and their comically chaotic movie making turns into a life-or-death situation. The movie that they’re dying to remake? It might just kill them, literally.

Rated PG-13 for violence/action, strong adult language, some drug use and suggestive references.

ANACONDA – Official Trailer (HD)

POSITIVES

Remaking a notoriously so bad it’s entertaining film from the 90’s probably wasn’t going to work, regardless of the mastery assembled behind the lens, but Gormican and fellow screenwriters Kevin Etten and Hans Bauer are wise enough to not intrude upon the legacy of the original film, instead opting to materialize a film that is part re-imagining and part satirical spoof towards an overcrowded industry that seemingly ships these films out like hot cakes. As a result, that original film works as a movie within the movie, here, which not only allows the film several refreshing call-backs in dialogue and score, which hardcore enthusiasts of that original film will recognize with ease, but also the freedom to blaze its own trail to an adoring audience, free from expectations and inevitably unfair comparisons between the films that do neither of them justice. The satire is without question the single most compelling element of this screenplay, ideally how it paints a very obvious picture of the lack of ingenuity stemming from an out-tapped industry, and how brainy studio executives manifest these bewilderingly ridiculous ideas while stitching together the corporate kind of jargon pertaining to themes and categorizing that have made movies almost a parody of themselves by 2025 standards. While the writing and limitations of a PG-13 rating keep the humor from ever realizing the extent of the material’s potential, this version of “Anaconda” feels like it holds a place in the hearts moviegoers who revel in movies about making movies, and as a result we have an entirely self-aware re-imagining with a surprising amount of brains to the unforeseen heart that the script balances in the movie’s center, with the dynamic between these four friends enriching a sweet sentimentality to how movies drove the ambitious desires of kids who decided to point and shoot during their own adolescence. Because this is a Tom Gormican film, led by comedic heavyweights like Black, Rudd, and Zahn, the movie obviously doesn’t delve entirely into the sweetly saccharine, at any point in the 94-minute excavation, but it does preserve an empathetic underlining to the integrity of these characters that is effortlessly easy to be charmed by, even if they’re not exactly the sharpest tools in the proverbial shed, and the fun elicited from the montages assembled throughout their moviemaking breed authenticity into the lived-in kind of chemistry that each of the leads share exceptionally with one another, leading to some solid performances that helps to take the sting out of some of the unfulfilling comedic material that doesn’t always meet them halfway. Black and Rudd exude the kind of counterbalancing of chemistry that paints a very affectionately juvenile essence to their friendship dynamic, with Rudd’s abruptly blunt observational improvisation helping to alleviate the catastrophic means he was bemused by in “Death of a Unicorn”, and Black’s manically wiry deliveries conjuring the mad scientist of a creator within his character, that feels like a passionate movie fan brought to life, before our very eyes. Lastly, the technical merits are the last thing on the minds of moviegoers yearning to experience another snake-rattling journey into the Amazon, however the artificially manifested C.G snake in the movie’s title constantly maintains an air of legitimacy throughout the duration of the film, with meticulous editing and distanced framing that offer more than a few vivid depictions of the creature, without entirely sacrificing its dimensions. The C.G itself isn’t awful, especially in the ways Gormican defines the heft and influence of its slithery motions, but the post-production filmmaking certainly helps towards keeping the snake from being a glaring distraction to what transpires physically with these characters, and it’s clearly evident that the movie’s 45 million dollar budget was enacted to bring such a surreal character to life, seamlessly.

NEGATIVES

Unfortunately, the single biggest measure of this film’s success is its comedy, especially with so many comedic heavyweights assembled under one roof, and that is regretfully also its single biggest detractor, as I found very little about this movie pleasantly engaging, with regards to springing laughter. Part of my problem with the material certainly stems from an overly revealing series of trailers that not only spoiled some of the film’s biggest surprises, but also contained with them the boldest gags of the entire movie being spent for marketing, but there’s clearly an overall absence of creativity or originality that grounds the gags before they’ve ever had a chance to take off, and it requires the limitless charisma from Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Or Steve Zahn to conjure audience responses from material so void of momentum-building pay-offs, with much of my near sold-out theater defining disappointment from the piercing silence that continuously hung over our heads like an inescapable fog. On top of this, the script itself, even beyond comedic intention, feels a bit sloppy and erratic, specifically during the tail end of the second act, where an illogical twist redefines a couple of the supporting characters, with the kind of noteworthy impact of a fart after chili. Obviously, this aspect is where the film ties itself genetically to the make-up of its predecessor, helping to reshape the conflict in ways that attempts to pull the rug out from underneath the audience, but in the same ways that said predecessor didn’t receive enough time post-twist to feel the influence of such a delivery, so too does the twist leveled here, and it points to a bigger problem in the film’s barely hour-and-a-half runtime, in which the script can’t fitfully pace itself to the many individualized arcs that it assembles to the movie’s creativity. Such an example also pertains to a love arc established between Paul Rudd and Thandwie Newton’s characters, in which the script takes ample time fleshing out the assorted history of their chemistry, before developing it absolutely nowhere in the rest of the film’s duration. It almost feels like some scenes were omitted from the finished cut of the movie, requiring the film’s on-screen text during the ending to fill in the gaps of what was evidentially sacrificed, and specifically in the case of Newton, totally undercuts the means of her characterization and development, on account of minimized exploration that is regretfully never pursued. Newton isn’t alone in her periodic inclusion, as even the titular creature barely resonates until the film’s final set piece, making the movie’s whole framing device feel superfluously aimless in the direction of the storytelling, all the while wasting away the opportunistic spectacle in ways that directly strip away the urgency and preconceived stakes of this daring mission. When the snake does appear, we’re subjected to the kind of transparently telegraphed jump scares that exploit the well of laziness so often that each ensuing jolt feels all the more watered down by its redundancy, leaving the laughs and even the thrills far inferior from its problematic predecessor. Finally, as previously indicated, “Anaconda” is a movie about making movies, and similar to the ways movies about stand up comedy are rarely ever funny, so too does this movie even feel like it scratches the surface, with regards to its depicted filmmaking, requiring a complete suspension of disbelief towards viewing this as a cinematic achievement within this fictional world. Considering Black’s directing only has one camera, featuring a single attached microphone, and nothing else, there’s concerns with how this movie was even coherently filmed in three weeks, let alone how it eventually became the celebrated achievement that the public viewed it as, and while debating logic inside of an “Anaconda” reimagining makes anyone who debates it look like an idiot, I can’t in good conscience approach this movie on eye level with its own establishing aspects, leaving me wondering how awful this film within the film would feel, especially considering what I’ve seen of it is laughably awful.

OVERALL
“Anaconda” wraps itself around some compellingly original ideas that helps to evade the typical remake formula of contemporary cinema, but ultimately takes a bite out of bewildering, on account of flimsy storytelling and limited laughs, that slither away the expectations of its audience. While Jack Black and Paul Rudd dedicate themselves endlessly to the mayhem of this production-gone-wrong, even elevating unmemorable material with charismatic improvisation, it’s a film that, for good or bad, isn’t half as memorable as its idiotically iconic predecessor, feeling more like student film, and less like “Tropic Thunder”

My Grade: 5.8 or D+