Going into Anaconda, I thought some creative folks were up to something that could be a lot of fun.
First off, I thought Jack Black and Paul Rudd might be playing themselves as they try to reboot Anaconda, a decent ’90s cult horror flick that featured Jennifer Lopez and, most hysterically, Jon Voight, getting puked up by a very large snake. With Tom Gormican—the man who directed Nicolas Cage as himself in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent—at the helm, the ultra-meta approach made perfect sense. What an outrageous idea!
Nope. Rudd and Black aren’t playing themselves; instead, they are playing two old friends who really loved the movie Anaconda and want to reboot it so they can re-live the glory of their adolescence. That doesn’t make any sense, because the original Anaconda came out in 1997, when both actors were well into adulthood. Whatever.
Rudd plays a struggling actor, with Black playing a wedding-video director. After they find themselves with the remake rights to Anaconda, they put their lives on hold to head to the Amazon. While there, they get a real snake handler and plan to deliver a “guerilla filmmaking” version of the J-Lo snake thriller, on a shoestring budget.
This could’ve been the setup for a crazy horror film, constantly winking at the audience, but Black and Rudd are apparently too big in Hollywood to really push the envelope—so the director plays it way, way too safe.
The result is a movie that has no idea what it wants to be. It’s afraid of itself. Is it a spoof of Hollywood moviemaking? No, not really. Is it a comedic take horror movies? No, because it isn’t funny or scary. Is it a chance to splash Rudd and Black on a poster with the word “Anaconda,” hoping that the five remaining fans of that movie might bite? Well, they got me, because I paid to see it, with a glimmer of hope in my heart.
One would think that with Rudd and Black on set, somebody would know how a joke works, and how comedic bits should be timed out—but Gormican’s direction is so flat-footed, neither of the leads lands any great funny moments. Only Steve Zahn, playing an alcoholic pill-popper, enters the realm of almost funny. Thandiwe Newton is in the cast. She doesn’t have a single memorable moment.
While the original barely snuck by with its PG-13 rating (I thought it deserved an R for violence), this one should probably be PG at the most (but it’s PG-13). The original had necks and bones breaking while being squished by snakes, the POV from the inside of a struggling head going into a snake’s mouth, characters reacting as they horrifically die, and much more. This “reboot,” or whatever the hell it is, barely has a snake in it. Its most memorable visual is Paul Rudd in a fancy safari hat.
It’s hard to see talented, likable guys like Black and Rudd desperately flailing, searching for a single discernible, credible laugh. Neither gets there, and the blame has to fall on the director. These are guys who can be funny just standing there. Even at their worst—and both have made stinkers—they can still have the appearance of capable comedians. Here, they look like they’ve never been in in a comedy before. They must be sitting in the aftermath of this catastrophe ruminating on what the hell happened. I’m guessing they’ve ruled out a sequel or ever working with Dormican again. No more snake movies with Steve Zahn riding shotgun.
There are a couple of late-movie cameos that will register with next to nobody, because nobody really remembers the original Anaconda. This mess needed to stay on the shelf. Rudd and Black were hilarious on the press tour for this film. My advice is to watch a few of their junket interviews, and pretend the movie was good without actually watching it.
Let’s hope this is the cinematic low point for everybody involved. I don’t think a career could survive anything worse than this. It’s a good thing Rudd still has Marvel, and Black has Jumanji and Minecraft. They are going to have to fall back on that shit.
