Anaconda

 

This review may contain spoilers!

Anaconda is a parody/spiritual successor to Anaconda (1997). In this feature, a band of filmmaking hopefuls make an unprecedented bid to reboot the cult classic Anaconda film franchise. Unfortunately, after an on-set accident with the trained snake, they must venture into the Amazon jungle to find a substitute.

I must admit that, despite a story that makes no sense, this film is absolutely hysterical in places. I found myself often laughing at the strangely specific material surrounding Hollywood, as well as the bizarre references and Easter eggs that called back to the original Anaconda. This is a film that is at its strongest when it plays to absurdity; that's why Steve Zahn is here.

The special effects for the feature actually hold up rather well; I found the ridiculousness of the giant CGI anaconda to be effective due to the effort given to the design. The post-production for this movie must have been an absolute blast, or this is an editing team with a wicked sense of humour. Each scene feels well and truly cut with a strong punchline in mind, not to mention the many scattered, hilariously dramatic transitions throughout.

Jack Black, who played Doug McCallister, is really the glue of this film; Black understands the comedic intent of this movie the most and does a lot to push this story along. Paul Rudd, who played Ronald Griffin Jr., hasn't found his strongest role here, but is having fun in it; Rudd and Black have some undeniable charm when paired with one another. Steve Zahn, who played Kenny Trent, is an absolute scene-stealer in this; Zahn's unpredictable and chaotic brand of comedy really stands out. Ice Cube, who played himself, really has some fun hamming up the gangsta archetype; Cube is here to look tough and draw laughs doing it.

However, the best performance came from Selton Mello, who played Santiago Braga. I have to believe that Mello studied the famously bad performance Jon Voight gave for the original Anaconda to give us Santiago. This snake tamer feels entirely too wild, too unlikely to be true. Mello is hamming up every scene with a strange lilt to his voice and musings that wander nowhere at all. He feels so deeply immersed in the fictional snake world of the Amazon that you almost want to believe in his eccentricity. I loved the wild bursts of emotion; his scenes around grief were particularly brilliant and really cemented Mello as the funniest amongst a strong comedic cast. Mello constructs a real parody character of Voight, a true snake man to the end.

This film is about amateurs remaking a cult classic film franchise, and the art is imitating the process a bit. A lot of this movie feels very half-baked; the ideas only loosely connect with one another. There are whole story moments that only happen because the writers want us to go that way, not always because the moment has been well set up or because it makes sense for the characters. The characters themselves aren't always 'in the room', sometimes a moment of adlib will remind you the scene is being steered by the performer and not the script. There is a subplot weaving through this comedy that is an attempt to lend something serious to the film. This storyline revolves around illegal gold miners in the Amazon; it's a distracting script element and doesn't really advance the story along. This is a film that is hard to believe in the moment you think about it for too long. The characters couldn't achieve the sort of expedition they set out on, and they certainly couldn't function in the moments following. This film mainly wants to have a conflicted comedy bromance between Black and Rudd with an Anaconda movie sort of around that premise. As a whole, the premise for this movie alone is so specific that it becomes hard to imagine who is out there clamouring for the parody reboot of Anaconda that is also a meta-commentary on Hollywood. This is the sort of movie that looks like it was probably fun to make, but it never really had the vision to be a major comedy player.

This movie has a few good visual gags here and there, but for the most part, this film is shot with a simplistic vision. Everything that needs to be held onscreen is done so, but there are very few moments of inspiration or playfulness with the camera. Beyond a comedic rendition of the original Anaconda theme by Jack Black, the score for this film is a bit of a basic horror lean. The soundtrack is a really scattered use of music in a hopeful effort to find that funny musical moment that will stick.

Thandiwe Newton, who played Claire Simons, seems to struggle in the setting of a comedy film; Newton seems out of her element in the environment of a comedy feature. Daniela Melchior, who played Ana Almeida, is a performance that feels entirely on the periphery of the actual film; Melchior's antagonist role is entirely forgettable and unnecessary. Jennifer Lopez, who played herself, is one cameo too many; where Ice Cube's felt functional, Lopez's cameo comes off as being tacked on.

Weirdly niché, awkwardly slapped together and probably more worthy of being in the 'so bad, it's good' pile than the original Anaconda. I would give Anaconda a 3.5/10.