Four middle-aged friends head to the Amazon to remake Anaconda and reawaken the spirit of their youth in the very funny but flawed Anaconda, from Tom Gormican.
Because I love all of you and hate myself sometimes, I watched all five previous Anaconda movies in the lead-up to this version. I know I didn’t need to, Anaconda 2025 is its own thing, more of a meta-commentary on remakes and the joy of creation that just happens to be based around th 1997 campy classic.. At its heart, Anaconda is a loving tribute to filmmaking and finding your creative niche. Let it be said: after the first and its biting cheesiness, the other 4 are atrocious and not in the fun way, even with crossing over with alligator attack series Lake Placid (I enjoy the first and elected not to watch 2 – 4 of that series). So I went through some movie Deep Hurting to get to Gormican’s take on Anaconda. It’s not all that great, but it is far from the cinematic pain. Ultimately, I felt the same as Gormian’s precious film, the Nic Cage-based The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, a great idea that doesn’t quite come together, but the sum is less than the parts: great sequences across a messy film. Anaconda is funny, very funny even, due to the hilarious and charismatic cast earning solid comedic laughs at every turn, but the film holding up those laughs is a mess, gradually losing focus of plot and story.
The story, also written by Tom Gormican with Kevin Etten, is a clever take on a remake or exploration of a property. Instead of remaking directly, Anaconda is a meta-remake, commenting on the ideas of remakes with the original existing and loved by the new characters. Doug, Griff, Kenny, and Clarie are four high school friends who used to make movies and wanted to continue into their adulthood. Unfortunately, life got in the way. Griff, played by Paul Rudd, moved to LA and landed a few small roles. Jack Black’s Doug makes wedding videos, and longs to make more creative endeavors, with his attempts shut down by his clients; Steve Zahn’s Kenny used to work for him but was fired for too many bad decisions. Thandiwe Newton’s Claire is an unhappy lawyer, fresh from a divorce. Meeting again at Black’s birthday party, Rudd pushes them to remake a college favorite of Anaconda after watching their high school Bigfoot movie (this movie in a movie is so charming). Of course they do, otherwise we don’t have a movie. They head off to the Amazon, meeting with a weird snake handler, Santi, and their “boat captain,” Ana, a woman on the run from gruff men, who has stolen the boat. There’s also another Anaconda remake going on. And I almost forgot, a giant murder snake. That set up is the hanger on which the laughs are draped.
Anaconda is a comedy first, of the “idiots on an adventure” sort, horror/action second. It’s a weird take, and hard for me to reconcile sometimes. Make no bones about it, if there is a joke to be had, or a sequence to be played out, some great banter to explore, the film will stop to play out the skit, as if wrapped up by the titular creature. The story side of your brain says, “Go! You are all in immediate danger!” The comedy side says, “This shit’s funny, shut up.”
And that shit is very funny. Continually. Paul Rudd, Jack Black, Steve Zahn, and Thandiwe Newton play off one another so easily, building up scenes, gaining connections, and earning solid belly laughs. Gormican corrals and works his actors very well. We all know these actors are incredibly charismatic and funny. Well, didn’t know it for Newton: she’s more known for serious roles, but she slides right into the established comic actors as if she’s been right along with them on their rise from the 90s to today. They play to type, but very well. Paul Rudd playing the charming schlub, Jack Black with his chaos goblin energy. I’ve always found Steve Zahn to be an underrated actor, and he gets so much of the troubled “happy to be here” type. He nearly steals the movie from the incredible back and forth of Black and Rudd. Special points to Selton Mello as the snake handler. He’s odd in just the right wrong ways, operating in a fully different sphere than the rest. Also, hats off to an underappreciated performance, Ione Skye. I always love her. I loved the various unspeoken references to Jurassic Park. The humor comes fast and furious in visuals, commentary, building up in writing, and in unexpected ways. If you’re coming just to laugh and turn it all off, it’ll be the perfect dumb fun watching the interplay of committed and fantastic comic performances.
However, if you want the movie to be coherent as a script and plot, you might be left annoyed. There’s the main story of the team making the movie, but in ways that do not add up, leaving dots unconnected into just how it all flows. There’s also the story of their captain, left frustratingly off-screen, leaving a massive cypher of a character, “okay, she’s there. We know there’s more to her story, but I guess shrug.” A frustrating nothing until needed. Another remake of Anaconda is on the river, leading to issues with the group. And oh, a giant snake that wants to eat everyone. If you forgot about the titular character, don’t worry; I often did. Each of these plots comes and goes, almost forgotten when not on screen. In danger one scene? It’s gone the next. Some setup in this line? It might be paid off. It’s like they wrote and filmed three different B-plots and used parts of them all.
Yes, the film is dumb, and aware of it, but there is a nice through line. There’s something to be said about the undercurrent of the whys of it all. Creation. The love of it. That’s the crux, the impetus of the characters. It’s a joy to see their eyes light up at revisiting the high school film they quartet made, and the sheer love to recapture that excitement of youth to remake Anaconda in their own way. The soul and love that drive creatives to follow dreams, the feeling of putting something entertaining together. There’s fun in “we did it, no matter the way.” Interestingly, there’s plenty of talk about studios losing the soul of IPs to make money, the loss of the creative process by the clueless, and the commodification of cinema. Good on Sony to poke at the industry. But it pushes the ability to pick up those deferred dreams. It’s never too late to break the rut, to repump the creative well.
On the technical end, Gormican brings a lot to Anaconda. While the more dialogue-based humor scenes remain pretty point-and-shoot to let the actors fly, Gormican fills the rest with some very pretty and special shots. It comes together well with the cinematography by Nigel Bluck, with a credited second unit of Richard Bluck and Matt Toll (gathering those wonderful expanses, I suppose). Editors Craig Albert and Gregory Plopkin keep it pumpting and snappy, running through quickly with a comic beat. While the movie on the whole might stop, ignoring the story needs and tension to let a scene play for laughs, the individual sequence, regardless of the whole, plays punchy and fun, getting just right for the sketch of the moment.
Finally, the titular snakes look great thanks to ILM. While obviously effects, they work with nice detail and blend well, a far cry from the terrible CG snakes of the other films in the series. They have a weight and meld into being notably solid. There are a few practical effects that work well enough, to boot.
Anaconda is a bit of a mess. It’s a charismatic and consistently funny mess. It has committed actors giving great comedy; it’s not a cynical toss out of a semi-remake. I hate saying “turn your brain off” as I feel it’s a cheat. But if you can ignore the frustratingly loose story beats and needs and focus only on the interplay and laughs, Anaconda is a great respite from what could be a stressful holiday season. Need a good laugh to escape your family? Check it out. Gather your favorite cousins. Prepare in the way you know best (wink) and laugh before Uncle says something dumb at dinner.