Year of Release: 2025
Director: Tom Gormican
Starring: Paul Rudd, Jack Black, Thandiwe Newton, Steve Zahn, Daniela Melchior, Selton Mello, Ione Skye, Ice Cube, Rui Ricardo Diaz, John Billingsley, Sebastian Sero, Diego Arnary, Dan Silveira
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 3
Watch it on Amazon
Synopsis and Review
Co-writer and director Tom Gormican made a name for himself with his sophomore directorial feature, "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent", starring perennially busy Nicolas Cage and Pedro Pascal. This take on "Anaconda" is, much like the film previously mentioned, another meta take on the film industry, and winks an eye at the whole notion of film within a film. The film follows a group of childhood friends, Doug, Griff, Kenny, and Claire, who are at a juncture in their adult lives, where they feel displeased at how those have evolved. Griff who is an actor who has never broken through, reaches out to his friends, stating that he has obtained the rights to "Anaconda" from Sony Pictures. The group decides to get a loan, travel to the Amazon rainforest to make a low-budget version of "Anaconda" with Griff and Claire starring, with Doug writing and directing. They soon secure help from local Brazilian teams, including Carlos who is a well known snake handler, and Ana, a woman who is the daughter of the boat rental operator. Things start off inauspiciously when Griff accidentally kills the pacified snake they're using in the film, leading both Griff and Carlos to go locate another one in the jungle. Carlos is attacked by another anaconda, and even though the dangers are now very real, Doug decides to keep shooting, and in the spirit of improvisation, adds Ana to the film, making her much more of a central character, creating friction with Griff in the process. Turns out Sony is also remaking Anaconda, and both teams cross paths in the Amazon, which prompts a honest conversation between the friends. As it turns out, Griff made it all up, getting the rights from Sony and all. He is vexed, and decides to leave his friends and join the actual Sony film crew. However what he encounters on that set, isn't what he thought of.
The original "Anaconda" which came out in 1997, directed by Luis Llosa, was met with unanimous vitriol upon its release, though it had a great cast which included Jennifer Lopez, Eric Stoltz, Owen Wilson, Danny Trejo, Jonathan Hyde, and even the controversial Jon Voight. Tom Gormican uses this well established premise of "bad movies we love", to create a comical homage to that film, attempting to simultaneously create a satire that illustrates how studios these days will remake nearly anything for the sake of reducing risk when bringing new material to a difficult film and audience market. While the attempt is thoughtful and smart in principle, this film's script would have benefited from a Charlie Kaufman revision, since it quickly devolves into something that is quite similar in tone and execution to what the original "Anaconda" was all about. Trying to make this type of satire is always difficult, many of the "film within film" related cliches and jokes don't necessarily resonate with everyone, one only has to remember the tepid response "Last Action Hero" from John McTiernan had in 1993, and that one featured a script from respected scriptwriters such as Shane Black and Zak Penn. This version from "Anaconda" manages to stay afloat mostly due to the chemistry of Paul Rudd, Jack Black, and Steve Zahn (Thandiwe Newton seems very lost most of the time). It's a film that desperately wants to be unpretentious, but also smart, and funny in a meta kind of way - it tries to be many things, and sadly for the most part they don't necessarily work the best way. The cast tries to make this film into something funny and tongue in cheek, which the aforementioned trio succeed in doing, but for the most part this is a rather forgettable endeavor. The production team is unremarkable, which is also something that can be said for this film.
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