It’s hard not to watch this new take on Anaconda and not think of Tropic Thunder, since both are about a group of filmmakers (one sanctioned by a studio, the other decidedly not) making a film and somehow getting into region-specific trouble that is far worse than the trouble the characters were meant to encounter. Does that make sense? Let’s pretend it does.
Not so much a sequel or reboot, but more a passionate love letter to the original 1997 Anaconda, this new film is about two childhood friends who decide to remake one of their favorite films after one of them, a largely failed actor named Griff (Paul Rudd) claims he has acquired the rights to the cult favorite and wants his filmmaker buddy, Doug (Jack Black), to travel with him and a small crew to the Amazon to direct it. Doug is reluctant to revisit his movie-making dreams, especially with a wife (Ione Skye) and kids, but eventually he agrees, and their adventure begins.
Along with camera operator Kenny (the very funny Steve Zahn) and actor/producer Claire (Thandiwe Newton), this midlife-crisis-fueled team head to the Amazon in Brazil to find a boat and meet snake handler Santiago (Selton Mello), whose sizable anaconda/best friend is well trained and ready to star in this latest production—certainly more than anyone else on the crew. But when a mishap with the snake derails the production, they’re almost ready to give up until they discover that there’s a real, much larger anaconda slithering around nearby. They decide to stick around and incorporate the real snake into their film, preferably at a distance. But art and life don’t always line up how you want them to. They also unknowingly get involved in a battle between local gold mining companies who are hollowing out the rain forest and resistance fighters, including Ana (Daniela Melchior), who is posing as their boat captain but also getting pulled into their movie.
The production is met with mishap after mishap, including rights issues coming into question when the filmmakers run into the studio-sanctioned sequel production team; a rift between Doug and Griff when Doug attempts to write Griff’s character out of the story and replace him with Ana; and Doug getting eaten by the giant snake (that’s not a spoiler, trust me). Director/co-writer Tom Gormican (The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F) does a pretty solid job keeping the meta jokes at the center of this very silly movie. Obviously, Black and Rudd are good at being funny even without a good book, so with the script for Anaconda having a few pretty funny moments, they are able to elevate the material and up the laugh quotient far higher than you might expect. And it helps that Zahn takes what could have been the highly disposable part of a goofy drunk and does far more with it than anyone will expect.
Anaconda has a lot of energy, a PG-13 rating (as the original did), and highly likable actors playing characters who are easy to root for. And once the snake stuff kicks into high gear in the final third of the movie, even the action sequences are pretty enjoyable. The stakes might seem low, but a fair number of characters die, so there’s still a sense of low-level tension throughout. The film is hardly a masterpiece, but I was never bored, I remember smiling a lot, laughing big a couple of times, and just generally enjoying myself. I’ll likely never watch this again, but it’s a passable way to kill 100 minutes between Christmas and New Year’s Day.
The film begins playing in theaters on December 25.
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