RIOTUS

I was not feeling the idea of a new Anaconda movie being released in 2025. I was fine with it dying in direct-to-DVD and SyFy channel movie fate. I remember back when the original came out, the big thing for me was that Ice Cube survived a horror movie. This was back when Black folks did not survive any type of horror movie besides the few made by Black filmmakers. It was a joke, but between this and LL Cool J in Deep Blue Sea, it was like Hip Hop was powerful enough to stop monsters. Looking back, having J.Lo, a Latin woman, be the “final girl” and survive too was pretty major. Folks were on the come-up. I never watched it again or gave it much thought besides that. Then I heard not only were they making a reboot, but it was going to be a comedy. I was like, man, what is they doing!

To my surprise, this ended up being one of the most enjoyable movies I’ve seen this season and maybe all year. I’m happy to be wrong, and you know what, I should’ve never doubted the power of Paul Rudd and Jack Black, and add in Steve Zahn and Thandiwe Newton, and my prejudgment really missed the mark. This movie is about a group of friends who’ve been friends since childhood and are going through a challenging part of middle-aged adulthood, where things are not going the way they all thought they would. Rudd plays Griff, a struggling background actor in LA whose highest point in his career was being in a few episodes of the TV procedural SWAT. After losing a role, he goes home to attend his best friend Doug’s (Black) surprise birthday party. After watching the horror movie they made when they were kids, Griff uses Doug’s unhappiness with not following his dream of becoming a filmmaker to uproot his life and go to Brazil to make a new Anaconda film together.

I love how the movie uses all the movie enthusiast/film bro terms by these two working on this new version of Anaconda, talking about themes, arcs, motivation, etc, all the stuff that folks who love movies these days throw around. Stuff I’m even guilty of throwing around. Movies about making movies are great. This movie, because of Jack Black, has moments that reminded me of Be Kind Rewind with the whole purposely amateur film-making parts. Having this movie not be connected to the story of the old movie, but about that nineties movie, was a wise choice to work the jokes into. While the giant snake isn’t scary and at times looks like the same level of CG as was in the original movie, it worked for me and feels on purpose.

I found all the performances good and genuinely funny. It’s great to see Newton getting to be funny every once in a while. Zahn steals a lot of scenes he’s in with just how simple his character, Kenny, is. He’s a great sidekick character. Daniela Melchior as Ana Almeida is much as you’d expect of her character once you see her. She doesn’t get to do much other than be a straight person to the others’ silliness. Selton Mello, as Santiago Braga, is fun and brings a different type of humor to our main group. He has some great chemistry with everyone. The cameos were okay, but for me it was the jokes of having these folks making a movie and then ending up having to fight a snake in the most silly way possible that had me rolling over in the screening. Maybe not for others, but for me, Anaconda is a fun and hilarious comedy and great counter-programming for the holiday season.