Publication Date: 12-21-2025

Anaconda (1997) review

Dir. Luis Llosa

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★

I didn’t truly start enjoying Anaconda until the final forty minutes. It’s difficult to do a creature feature well, and this is a film that straddles the line of being eerie and unintentionally funny. Perhaps when a swampy snake thriller is led by Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube, that’s the result you should expect.

The story revolves around a documentary crew — Terri (Lopez), Danny (Cube), Denise (Kari Wuhrer), Gary (Owen Wilson), Warren (Jonathan Hyde), and Steven (Eric Stoltz) — venturing out into the jungle hoping to garner footage of a rare tribe called “Shirishama.” While traveling on the Amazon River, the crew finds a stranded boater named Sarone (Jon Voight) who knows about the tribe, but acts very unsettling throughout most of the first half.

Sarone is searching for an anaconda, and is hoping to catch one alive in order to obtain a very large sum of money. He gets the whole crew involved, and doesn’t really care who lives or dies. The thought of being out in the middle of the jungle is creepy, and it serves as the foundation for the kind of seedy, campy aesthetic Anaconda achieves early.

Background scenery is pushed to the foreground here. We get beautiful shots of swamps, incredible angles of towering trees, and even some strong underwater shots. Director Luis Llosa explores every possible angle of the setting so that not only is this a creepy B movie, but a stylish one as well.

Oddly enough, one of the most underwhelming parts of Anaconda is indeed the titular snake. There is a scene where many snakes flood the boat of our documentary crew. Unable to distinguish real from fake due to the small stature of the beasts, my only guess is that they were in fact real. When the anaconda makes his first appearance, it looks undeniably animatronic. From there, the CGI used when the beast swallows its first prey is pathetic. Anaconda was made with a budget over $40 million, so this snake’s feeble execution suggests (1) maybe the hefty budget didn’t get them very far after all, or (2, the much plausible explanation) it was supposed to look cheap and fake to give a nod to old creature-features we’ve grown accustomed to watching on MeTV’s Svengoolie on Saturday nights.

Jon Voight is probably the highest point in the film. His unsettling interactions with the crew rub off on the audience. His face alone reminds me of Gary Busey on a bad day, or Nick Nolte after one too many. The other members of the documentary crew, like Ice Cube and Owen Wilson, are severely underused, and but their presence is enough for personal satisfaction.

The final scene where its two on one with the anaconda is great popcorn fun, and after the film you feel you’ve spent an hour and a half back in time. Unfortunately, Anaconda was blown out of proportion once the sequels came. After the first two theatrical films were released, the series devolved into Syfy schlock. We even got a crossover involving Anaconda and Lake Placid, stupidly titled Lake Placid vs. Anaconda, as if a lake is fighting an animal. The unfortunate reality of a surprisingly successful B-movie is it usually serves as the basis for several unnecessary sequels.

My review of Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid
My review of Anaconda (2025)

Starring: Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Jon Voight, Eric Stoltz, Owen Wilson, Jonathan Hyde, and Kari Wuhrer. Directed by: Luis Llosa.