movie review
ANACONDA
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Running time: 100 minutes. Rated PG-13 (violence/action, strong language, some drug use and suggestive references). In theaters Dec. 25.
Who would have thought that 1997’s “Anaconda,” in which Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube and Jon Voight run from a giant snake in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest, would leave a significant enough cultural mark that 28 years later a movie would be made about… “Anaconda”?
Not me!
Its animatronic main character was nominated for Worst New Star at the Razzie Awards, for God’s sake.
Well, that is the whole shtick of Jack Black and Paul Rudd’s lighter-than-air comedy called, um, “Anaconda.”
Four childhood friends whose adulthoods haven’t gone at all according to plan decide to grab hold of their lives by remaking their favorite Eric Stoltz non-classic.
How does such a preposterous idea come about?
One of the easy-viewing flick’s biggest belly laughs arrives when Rudd’s Griff, a lowly background actor, abruptly announces to his pals at a diner, “I own the rights to ‘Anaconda’.”
The bombshell is spoken in the same tone as Richard Attenborough saying, “I own an island off the coast of Costa Rica,” in “Jurassic Park,” only so much dumber.
In less than a minute, Kenny (Steve Zahn), Doug (Black) and Claire (Thandiwe Newton) are all onboard. Why not? They scrape up $10,000 for their insane indie.
Doug, Black doing Black, who has been unfulfilled working as a wedding videographer, quickly pens a screenplay. “A spiritual sequel,” he says. What the writer-director titles it will tickle any movie fan who follows Hollywood’s incessant habit of remakes and reboots: “The Anaconda.”
You know, like “The Batman” and “The Suicide Squad.” Just tack on a “The” and you’re golden.
The script ready, the nerdy quartet jets off to Brazil with a camera and a dream.
Beyond that core scenario and a couple in-jokes, director and co-writer Tom Gormican’s movie does not send up or satirize showbiz whatsoever. A Christopher Guest film, this is not. I didn’t even sense a palpable connection to the original. They clearly went to great lengths not to alienate anybody who has somehow managed to avoid seeing “Anaconda.”
Once in South America, the reboot becomes a pretty common jungle adventure hoisted up by the charms of Rudd and Black and a consistent supply of chuckles. Given the sorry state of studio comedies this year, things could’ve gone a lot worse. See: “Love Hurts.”
Where Gormican’s movie veers off the path of hilarity and into subpar action is when the group is put in real peril by a pack of local criminals that’s trailing their boat.
Couldn’t have cared less about them, including Daniela Melchior’s femme fatale Ana.
It’s the same old “Romancing the Stone” model.
The baddies amp up the stakes, I suppose, but who needs ’em when you’ve got a forest full of giant fanged reptiles? The visiting friends aren’t portrayed realistically and neither are the thugs. Everybody here is heightened. So there is no humor mined from the contrast.
What did a far better job with frivolous actors encountering legit danger in nature was “Tropic Thunder,” the Hollywood comedy Black also appeared in back in 2008. “Anaconda” falls well short of that.
That said, whenever there’s a lull here, a big laugh soon comes along with the force of a boa constrictor that conceals the flaws.
An extended sequence featuring Black and a pig carcass is the sort of riot only he can pull off.
A lot of the other extreme sight gags — especially the movie’s most jaw-dropping one — result from the real serpent the filmmakers are forced to rent on the cheap.
A snake handler named Santiago (Selton Mello, who’s odd but not hilarious), lends them the genuine article and they act beside the frightening animal with pretty much no safety precautions. What you assume will happen does not.
Though, needless to say, at various points a boa definitely noshes on some delicious humans.
Really, though, just remember what you’re at: A meta-comedy sequel to a movie in which the most famous line is, “When you can’t breathe, you can’t scream.”
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