Directing: C+
Acting: C
Writing: C
Cinematography: B
Editing: B-
Special Effects: B

I wonder how many people are going to see the 2025 Anaconda without ever having seen the original 1997 film? The friend I went to see this with, and I both fall into this category. And it would seem that to say your mileage may vary is an understatement: my friend laughed so hard she was crying. I, on the other hand, vacillated between feeling embarrassed that I occasionally laughed at some of this movie’s knowing stupidity, and being genuinely annoyed by some of the straight up lazy filmmaking.

Ironically, I was tempted to say I might have been better off just watching the original—except that film has a score of 37 on MetaCritic; this one has a score of 44. This was an improvement?

There are just too many things in this movie that are nonsensical. Over and over, the giant anaconda in this movie lunges at people, or moving vehicles—and misses. Is this snake on sedatives? Maybe this is something that also happens in the original film; I wouldn’t know. I can’t gauge how much in this movie is knowingly leaning into its lack of logic. There are some who note that Paul Rudd and Jack Black are both 56 years old, but we’re supposed to believe they loved the original Anaconda as kids—even though they would have been 28 when the film was released. There is a very brief line in which they say they were in college when the movie came out, so I guess maybe they’re playing six or seven years younger than their actual ages?

I knew about this age complaint going in, and was actually ready to give it the benefit of the doubt: this is a movie that’s all about being a fun, dumb monster comedy, and maybe this was part of that. The homemade film we see that these characters actually made as kids was actually called Squatch, about a monster Sasquatch. And yet, apparently, the dream they’ve had all their lives is to reboot Anaconda,

Well, Griff (Rudd) convinces his friends that in his time pursuing acting in L.A., he met a relative of the original writer of the source novel (the 1997 Anaconda was actually an original script) who gave him the rights. After some initial protestations by Doug (Black), who is ostensibly the most responsible family man of the bunch, two other friends, Claire (Thandiwe Newton) and Kenny (Steve Zahn), join them in a hairbained scheme not only to shoot their version of Anaconda, but to literally travel to Brazil to shoot it in the Amazon.

Kenny, a guy from their hometown of Buffalo who calls himself “Buffalo sober” (only beer and wine, “and some of the lighter liquors”), is the cinematographer. Griff and Claire are starring in the film, and Doug is both directing and writing. There are several shots of Jack Black “writing” the script, which basically inolves him looking intently at a laptop screen and raising and lowering his eyebrows.

I love a meta approach, and Anaconda frequently has characters referring to the movie they are making, and thus also the movie we are watching, as “a reboot” or “a spiritual sequel.” They even encounter another film crew on the river. Some of this is mildly amusing, but the meta aspect, as with just about every aspect, could have been done much better. Just about everything in this movie is forced, and not in the quirky, endearing way it’s clearly intending.

Inevitably, this group of characters comes across not just a giant anaconda, but illegal gold miners. They meet a local woman named Ana (Daniela Melchior, honestly giving the best performance) who proves to have a surprisingly significant part. By the end there will be cameos by more than one cast member from the original movie.

Aside from fans of the first movie, I’m not quite sure who this one is for. Why did I see it, then? The trailer made it look like silly fun—which was very much how my friend took it in, and she had a blast. My problem is that I have seen too many other movies that achieved the vibe this one is going for, with far greater cleverness and wit. I won’t begrudge a group of people just having fun, but I still hope for something more than utterly brainless. Okay, utterly mediocre, I guess is better: I did get some good chuckles here and there, which balanced out the oppressively bad parts to an average of mediocrity. The sequence with Jack Black and a boar strapped to his back actually was pretty funny.

The thing is, there’s silliness, and there’s well-executed silliness. It’s a difficult thing to do well. There’s a scene in which Doug is lying on a bed and instead of pointing with his finger, he lifts his leg to point with his toes, putting his foot unnaturally close to the camera. Anaconda could have used a lot more of that kind of silliness. It spends way too much time on these friends being earnest about following their dreams and how much they enjoy making things together. Like, who cares? Isn’t this supposed to be a movie about a giant killer snake?

This was why I enjoyed Cocaine Bear, which wasn’t as popular with others who felt it was too one-note: that movie absolutely delivers on its promise. It’s about a bear on a rampage while high on cocaine. There’s no token earnestness in that movie. I rather wish Anaconda had been more like it. There’s a few fun scenes in which the snake actually swallows people, but there’s also a lot of scenes in which some of those people are trying too hard to be funny and not quite getting there. I’m looking at you, Selton Mello, as Carlos Santiago Braga, the snake handler.

When Anadona steers straight into its ridiculousness, it almost works. It even has surprisingly good visual effects for this kind of movie (a critical qualifier). But the performances almost across the board are oddly unnatural, all of them feeling under-rehearsed. Is that part of the gag? If it is, it’s too subtle. The gags in this movie should only be obvious, like when they’re talking about their movie’s story and they keep repeating the word “themes!” This movie has no coherent theme, except its own superficialities. This might have worked really well as a ten-minute short, actually. That makes this movie about ninety minutes too long.

Overall: C+