Anaconda
Jack Black and Paul Rudd plunge into the Amazon rainforest to remake the critically derided film of the same name.
Monster mash: Thandiwe Newton, Jack Black, Paul Rudd and Steve Zahn
Image courtesy of Columbia Pictures.
by JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
There is an argument for remaking bad films and making them better. But it doesn’t always work. The once aspiring film director Doug McCallister (Jack Black), now reduced to shooting wedding videos, still yearns to make a great horror movie, even if it has a nuptial theme. However, Doug’s clients seem to be looking for something more on the romantic side. Then Doug’s old childhood friend Griff (Paul Rudd), now a failed actor, reveals that he has acquired the rights to Anaconda, a clichéd, melodramatic ‘thriller’ from 1997 that featured Jennifer Lopez and a 40-foot animatronic snake that terrorised a film crew. Notwithstanding, in Doug’s eyes this is an awesome opportunity to reimagine a cult classic with an indie (read: low-budget) slant, starring Griff.
Of course, Jack Black is no stranger to the jungle (cf. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) or to films about filmmaking set in the jungle (cf. Tropic Thunder) and here he recycles his wide-eyed mania that many of his fans find funny. Initially, though, it is Paul Rudd who sparks the laughs as a vain, gutless and frequently cancelled actor whose catchphrase is “who gives a shit?” (even when exposing his friends’ children to inappropriate material). He’s actually a rather unsympathetic character who has turned his blunders into an art form, although he is nowhere near as annoying as their old friend Kenny (Steve Zahn), whose alcoholism doesn’t seem to count in New York state as he dubs himself “Buffalo sober.” And so these three misfits set off in the Brazilian rainforest to realise Doug’s hastily keyboarded screenplay, which Griff thinks is a masterpiece.
In the early stages of this Anaconda, which might appeal to film geeks, there are a few chuckles until the sheer weight of the stupidity of these losers gets unbearable. The comic beats are predictable and the set-ups increasingly more implausible, so there’s little to invest in. Like the first Anaconda, the film is rife with clichés (why do film characters always chuck away a perfectly good Zippo when starting a fire?), and the inevitable real anaconda (with its own plot-driven, variable speed limit) is just as unrealistic as the one in the first film. It’s a sign of desperation when a pointless gag is extended beyond its comic efficacy, such as an argument about how to introduce a headbutt into a scene. As for the previously estimable Thandiwe Newton, she is given little of note to do here other than to utter the standard line, “Oh, my God, we’re going to die!” The background score by David Fleming, though, is not half bad.
Cast: Paul Rudd, Jack Black, Steve Zahn, Thandiwe Newton, Daniela Melchior, Selton Mello, Ice Cube, Ione Skye, Rui Ricardo Diaz, John Billingsley, Sebastian Sero, Diego Arnary, Dan Silveira, Jennifer Lopez.
Dir Tom Gormican, Pro Brad Fuller, Andrew Form, Kevin Etten and Tom Gormican, Screenplay Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten, Ph Nigel Bluck, Pro Des Steven Jones-Evans, Ed Craig Alpert and Gregory Plotkin, Music David Fleming, Costumes Alice Babidge, Sound Randy Thom, Dialect coach Anezka Sero.
Columbia Pictures/Fully Formed Entertainment-Columbia Pictures.
99 mins. USA. 2025. US Rel: 25 December 2025. UK Rel: 26 December 2025. Cert. 12A.
