Anaconda: Movie Review

Cast: Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Thandiye Newton, Steve Zahn
Director: Tom Gormican

The 2025 version of Anaconda is an odd piece of film-making.

Wanting to be a comedy first and foremost, it fails to deliver a large number of laughs, despite some genuinely funny moments.

Jack Black and Paul Rudd star as best friends Doug and Griff, who’ve drifted apart over the years. The pair has always dreamt of remaking their all-time favourite movie Anaconda, thanks to a love of gonzo film-making in their younger years.

But when Doug, who’s now stuck making wedding videos and wanting to be more, catches up with his pal, who’s a failing bit part actor in Hollywood, fired for overplaying his scenes, they, coupled with a midlife crisis, decide to give it a go. Especially when Griff tells him they have the rights to the film.

So heading to the jungles of the Amazon, along with friends Claire and Kenny (Thandiye Newton and Steve Zahn, largely overlooked) they start filming. But when they cross paths with an on-the-run Ana (Daniela Melchior) and a large anaconda, things get more complicated.

Unsure if it wants to be a meta-nod to the original or mocking the cheesy quality of the Jon Voight, Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez-starring vehicle which became a cult hit, the 2025 Anaconda suffers from a crisis of confidence. As it slithers between comedy, knowing winks to the audiences and commentary on who owns IP these days, coupled with Black’s manic OTT performance and Rudd’s easy-going charm, the film itself sheds as many skins as its own snake, before ultimately devouring itself ouroboros style.

The mix of tones doesn’t help matters and for every low-level gag there is, there’s a smart one hiding in the background, trying desperately for air. As the low-rent CGI anaconda continues to slither on and off screen, things take a turn for the less-ambitious (although one questions whether this is a nod to the B-movie madness of the original or a budgetary necessity.

Most egregiously, Newton is criminally overlooked in this bro-heavy story outing, a fact that seems more ironic than intentional.

Ultimately, the film collapses on itself, delivering a just-above average time depending on how many drinks you’ve had. And no matter how often they show montages of Black’s character trying to write a script, the film never works as a tribute to its roots or a modern-day satire on filmmaking.

It should have been hiss-terical – instead, it’s anything but.