THE STORY – A group of friends are going through a mid-life crisis. They decide to remake a favorite movie from their youth but encounter unexpected events when they enter the jungle.
THE CAST – Paul Rudd, Jack Black, Steve Zahn Thandiwe Newton, Daniela Melchior & Selton Mello
THE TEAM – Tom Gormican (Director/Writer) & Kevin Etten (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 99 Minutes
Well, it’s here. We have arrived at yet another property selected for reintroduction into the culture through another film. However, it’s not just a regular old reboot or simple remake. This one has to have a meta-commentary on its storytelling. It has to acknowledge the original while forging its own path ahead. Obviously, by this point, the need to become inventive has already made the practice stale. When jokes about that fine line make it into a modern rendition of “The Naked Gun,” you know that the formula is already becoming mundane. However, what is a studio to do? Not dig up a thirty-year-old property and sell it to an audience that has the smallest of chances to show up based on nostalgic appeal? That’s no option in today’s marketplace, and that’s why “Anaconda” has become the latest product from this assembly line. While it aims to create a profoundly silly venture, it stumbles due to a very stilted execution.
This film takes the approach of existing within a world where the 1997 film “Anaconda” is an actual movie that was released. Watching it is an experience that intensely fascinates a group of young friends who, inspired in their youth to make amateur films, have a passion for filmmaking. Decades later, Doug (Jack Black) is struggling with his mundane life, while Ron (Paul Rudd) is desperate to reignite the flame of their friendship. During lunch with two other old friends, Kenny (Steve Zahn) and Claire (Thandiwe Newton), he proclaims, somewhat dubiously, that he has obtained the rights to the original film and pleads with them to collaborate on their own remake. They gather what little funds they can and head to Brazil, hoping the location’s authenticity will help them craft their film. Yet upon their arrival, they soon discover a giant snake lurking in the jungle, and hijinks ensue as they try to survive the deadly animal’s attacks.
The tongue is placed firmly in cheek for this retelling, which makes sense given director Tom Gormican’s background, which skews toward comedic sensibilities. Even his most recent film, “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” is another nod to the self-referential. If one were inspired to take this route for this particular entry, he would seem to be an ideal choice. And when it comes to the comedy itself, there are a handful of moments that elicit a smile. Some of the visual gags are effective, like presumably dead animals that come back to life at the moment of peak comedic timing. Others are fourth-wall-breaking winks that comment on the absurdity of choosing such a property to remake in the first place, chastising a predictable Hollywood studio system that has run out of ideas. One of the subtler but more effective jokes is the official title of the film being “The Anaconda,” an amusing reference to the addition and removal of articles to give the new entry a sense of singularity and homage. Some of the latter attempts come from the lazy excuse that acknowledging a cliché is the same as resolving the pedestrian trope. Still, when one fixes the camera on these actors long enough, they are bound to produce some amusement.
However, those quips can only carry you so far, and eventually, the humor starts to stagnate. The improv becomes easier to spot, and the comedic delivery begins to fall flat. As a comedy, its attempts are mediocre at best, mainly relying on cheap jokes and nods to the original property. The biggest issue lies in Gormican’s inability to properly capture a sense of engagement with the spectacle. This is still a creature feature, and even among the laughter, there should be an engrossing tale of a gigantic, dangerous animal on the loose. But this anaconda barely makes an appearance, and when it does, the sequences are short and too frenetic to be impactful. Even action set pieces without the snake are shoddily assembled, with awkward editing. Whatever strengths the humorous tone of this narrative may offer are watered down by a hollow script and subpar action that fail to create a more captivating atmosphere.
For their parts, Black and Rudd are compelling enough here, even if the archetypes they embody are familiar. Black is called upon to deliver broader antics that showcase his large personality, while Rudd is tasked with delivering sharper lines through his striking yet subtle expressions. It’s not the most novel of dichotomies at play, but it’s easy to become endeared by their performances. There’s a more outlandish turn from Zahn, who is actually the most effective player, embodying an eccentric character that consistently pulls the focus away from the rest of the cast. His goofy persona is a perfect match for the material, even if said material resorts to excruciatingly bad urine jokes. Unfortunately, Newton doesn’t carry her own weight and struggles to make her role feel impressive. The writing definitely hamstrings her, and the same goes for Daniela Melchior and Selton Mello. Both are Brazilian natives who find themselves attached to the group; still, their characters are poorly defined, often painfully dull when called upon to be funny, and become unnecessary tangents meant to fill space in an empty story.
If one is forced to dig back into this franchise and resurrect it, there are only so many avenues to choose from. The series has already had multiple sequels that attempted to maintain the same world-building, with poorer results, so this direction was inevitable. Still, this new “Anaconda” does have some occasionally clever bits, and a smile can indeed stretch across your face from time to time. But those moments are fleeting, buried under a sea of other jokes that don’t land and a cash-in on nostalgia that is never really warranted. The actors are fine, but their utilization is inconsistent, and with a severe lack of dazzling spectacle, the film becomes a languid exercise. Whatever amusement is found here is either too forced or too shallow to be worthy of investment.
