Don’t call it a remake. Don’t call it a sequel. Don’t even call it a reboot. “Anaconda” is like nothing you’ve seen before, while also being exactly like something you’ve seen before: Namely, the 1997 movie “Anaconda.”
Director and co-writer Tom Gormican’s comedy takes place in a world in which that original “Anaconda,” starring Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube, exists. His cleverly meta, high-concept premise is that childhood best friends Griff (Paul Rudd) and Doug (Jack Black) love the movie so much that they want to redo it, albeit on a shoestring budget. But as they travel on a boat through the Amazon with a crew that includes lifelong pals Kenny (Steve Zahn) and Claire (Thandiwe Newton), they eventually find themselves under attack by an actual anaconda.
It’s an amusing idea … until it isn’t.
“Anaconda” operates in the same self-aware lane as Gormican and co-writer Kevin Etten’s previous film, 2022’s “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” starring Nicolas Cage as Nicolas Cage, commenting on his own movies. It’s an inspired idea, even though a lot of the industry inside jokes may go over most moviegoers’ heads. The playfulness of this self-referential structure gives the movie a zany energy off the top that it ultimately can’t sustain.
The original “Anaconda” was a silly movie that knew it was silly. This new “Anaconda” begins life as a silly movie but eventually turns earnest, and that’s when it becomes less compelling. When it’s about the cheesiness of the filmmaking in the scrappy movie within the movie, it’s good for consistent laughs. The dialogue is terrible, and the acting is worse, despite everyone’s delusions of creating great entertainment.
Rudd’s Griff moved to Los Angeles with dreams of stardom, but despite his self-serious commitment to his craft, he’s still struggling to book bit TV parts. Black’s Doug, meanwhile, stayed in their hometown of Buffalo, New York, and channels his artistic instincts through hilariously elaborate wedding videos. Remaking “Anaconda” will finally allow them to set aside their what-ifs and fulfill their aspirations.
Black and Rudd enjoy a snappy, lively chemistry that makes their friendship seem real. (And for those fans of “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story,” this feels like a reteaming of their intentionally terrible Paul McCartney and John Lennon.) But Zahn, as their cinematographer, is stuck playing a clueless goofball, which provides maybe a laugh or two. And the versatile and talented Newton goes criminally to waste as the woman Griff had a crush on, who always starred in their childhood home movies. She’s a divorced lawyer, and that’s the extent of her personality.
But once “Anaconda” evolves into a standard action movie with real chases, explosions, and gunfire, it takes on a generically glossy sheen that makes it forgettable. A subplot involving the boat’s captain (Daniela Melchior) and a bunch of bad guys who’ve been mining gold illegally in the region serves as dull filler. Griff and Doug toss around notions of “themes” and “stakes” to add tension to their low-budget endeavor, but the actual threat that emerges doesn’t provide such substance.
And while the trailers have already ruined the one truly inspired cameo in this new “Anaconda,” a second one toward the end is painfully unfunny (like, jaw-droppingly so) to the extent that it will make you wonder what everyone involved was thinking when they shot this scene. Similarly, a mid-credit sequence is a needless afterthought and adds nothing.
Still, if you want crazy snake action, “Anaconda” delivers. The quaint, low-tech effects of the 1997 original have been updated significantly here. You may even see a twinkle in the anaconda’s eye. At least he was having a good time the whole way through.
