Publication Date: 12-25-2025

Anaconda (2025) review

Dir. Tom Gormican

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★

What is the original 1997 creature feature Anaconda to culture? A diasterpiece of trash with a cast of 1990s mainstays? An unfairly maligned gem? A masterwork of camp? Who can say?

That’s a question that should’ve been answered by Tom Gormican’s Anaconda. Screenwriters Gormican and Kevin Etten (Workaholics) went to great lengths to craft a meta-reboot to the Jennifer Lopez/Ice Cube thriller, but don’t have an answer as to why they even bothered. The trailer for Anaconda sold me from the jump. It appeared cut from the same cloth as the 21 Jump Street reboot. If you’re going to bother reviving a property with lore that isn’t revered as gospel by a legion of fans, you might as well take the piss out of it. Alas, this is a merely serviceable outing rendered partially rudderless because the project lacks a purpose, other than to keep IP alive (and yes, that’s a conversation between the characters in the film too).

Gormican’s film takes place in a world where the aforementioned Lopez/Cube Amazon thriller exists. It was one of the favorites of childhood friends Griff (Paul Rudd) and Doug (Jack Black), who have grown up to lead doldrum lives as a background extra and a wedding videographer, respectively. Shortly after the pals, including Kenny (Steve Zahn) and Claire (Thandiwe Newton), regroup in their hometown of Buffalo, Griff reveals the plan: he acquired the rights of Anaconda so the quartet can travel to the Amazon and remake it on a shoestring budget

Gormican and Etten bring the material the same level of tongue-in-cheek, industry-driven humor they did with The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, which was an overlong showcase of Nicolas Cage as a contemporary meme. When Anaconda is about the slapdash process the four friends bring to shooting the movie itself — including hiring a snake wrangler (Selton Mello), shooting scenes with the real-life anaconda, and assessing over how to stretch their $9,000 loan to sustain production — it’s amusing enough. When the plot thickens and the group become unwilling participants in chases, gunfire, explosions, it devolves into another soulless action movie.

Too often, the damn snake moves too fast to process what it’s doing. The fact that the core four are such a tight-knit group, it becomes obvious early on that desperately few characters will be biting the dust in amusing ways.

On the plus side, Paul Rudd and Jack Black have palpable chemistry. Rudd is a charisma merchant and Black is a one-man party. Sidebar: Hollywood knows that throwing the veteran comedy actor in the middle of the jungle is the golden ticket to untold millions, IE: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and A Minecraft Movie. The reunion of Black and Steve Zahn, even as a one dimensional goofball, recalls Saving Silverman, which was once a pillar of Comedy Central for those of us who spent much of the early aughts in front of a TV. Thandiwe Newton is the voice of reason at times, but the depths of her character amount to being a divorced lawyer who once dated Griff.

Anaconda does indeed have moments of inspiration, most notably the sequence when the crew, under the impression Doug was killed by a snake, straps a deceased pig to his corpse in order to steer the serpent in a different direction. Even if you’ve seen the trailer, trust that you have not seen the best part of the scene. In addition, the remixed version of Sir-Mix-a-Lot’s classic “Baby Got Back” that consistently drops the needle on the bar “my anaconda don’t” is, I’m sorry, absolutely invigorating, and part of a solid montage early into the movie. There are a couple familiar faces in cameo form because of course they are, and they do elicit a smile.

Alas, in the grand scheme, however, this anaconda don’t.

My review of Anaconda (1997)
My review of Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid

Starring: Paul Rudd, Jack Black, Steve Zahn, Thandiwe Newton, Daniela Melchior, and Selton Mello. Directed by: Tom Gormican.