Anaconda Is A Deeply Unpleasant Action-Comedy Reboot

Credit where it’s due: Sony’s new Anaconda is an innovative bit of IP laundering. It follows four high school best friends who reunite in middle age to remake their favorite movie from 1997 — Luis Llosa’s original, considered a cult classic, but by no means unimpeachable — only to find themselves in a predicament similar to the movie’s premise. However, this initial spark is where the not-a-reboot’s delights begin and end. Despite featuring comedy heavy-hitters like Jack Black and Paul Rudd, the film is nearly devoid of laughs, seldom coheres in its straightforward action-thriller moments, and is also, on occasion, visually unpleasant in a way that favors home viewing. Streaming, A.I. and studio cannibalizing haven’t destroyed the theatrical experience yet, but maybe they should.

In the opening prologue, we see a mysterious young woman, Ana (Daniela Melchior), escaping through the Amazon as armed gunmen give chase. Before long, one of these assailants is scooped up by a giant anaconda snake, in a manner that feels half-way between a jump scare reveal and matter-of-fact presentation. Right from the get-go, the presentation feels half-baked and noncommittal, setting the tone for what’s to come.

This somber introduction has all the audiovisual stylings of an action B-movie, but Anaconda soon pulls out of this cinematic mode for its more comedy-centric scenes, like a video game cut scene returning to game play. The contrast lessens, the depth of field increases, and the performances take on that studio comedy tone, where every actor is trying to out-improvise the other. This is where we meet Doug (Jack Black), a frustrated Buffalo wedding videographer insistent on ignoring his clients’ run-of-the-mill suggestions, in favor of his more stylized genre throwbacks — or what he calls “wedding films.”

When Doug’s wife and kids throw him a surprise birthday party, his old friends all show up, including Griff (Paul Rudd), a struggling actor; the recently-divorced Claire (Thandiwe Newton), who Griff once dated; and Kenny (Steve Zahn), an alcoholic and Doug’s former co-worker. As they reminisce over the lo-fi short films they made as kids, Griff reveals that, through a strange happenstance, he’s acquired the movie rights to the group’s old college favorite, Anaconda, and he wants them all to find creative fulfillment by shooting a shoestring budget remake in Brazil. After some convincing, Doug relents, agreeing to write and direct, while Kenny shoots, and former sweethearts Griff and Claire star as attractive adventurers. Cue the first of several montages set to “Anaconda” by Niki Minaj.

All in all, it’s not a terrible place to start, given its focus on people re-igniting their creative spark. However, the film that follows is anything but inspired. Ana, the woman from the prologue, ends up the group’s boat captain as they film, and she brings the other, more traditionally dramatic half of the movie with her, as the anonymous mercenaries give chase, forcing Doug to re-write on the fly. Before long, one giant serpent gets involved — or maybe it’s two. It can be hard to tell sometimes. The film can be visually incomprehensible, making it unclear who some characters’ dialogue is directed towards, or even who’s actually in a given scene on the river boat, where much of the story is set. Ana, for instance, seems to disappear from the movie entirely, despite most definitely being aboard the vessel, which doesn’t exactly bode well for a conflict in which Doug ropes her into the movie at his friends’ expense. What does he see in her? Is he attracted to her? The story feels too improvised to have an answer, which is especially ironic for a film that pokes fun at Hollywood productions kicking off without completed scripts.

Is Anaconda at least funny? It can be, given Jack Black’s typically off-the-wall energy, but the comedy is also far too sardonic for a film that begins in sincere territory. Then again, director Tom Gormican also helmed the 2014 romcom That Awkward Moment, one of the most accidentally mean-spirited films of its ilk (“Should I go to her father’s funeral, or would that be too awkward?”), so perhaps it’s no surprise. There’s no sincerity to any of the central characters, or to the actors’ performances. Rudd’s doe-eyed charm is buried beneath a strange performance where he veers into rubber-faced, Jim Carrey territory, but without the elasticity. Zahn plays a complete moron, and his addiction is hammered home as a point of amusement. Newton is, well, she’s present too, but isn’t given much material to work with. Together, the quartet are left struggling to figure out an on-screen dynamic that works, as each actor veers between straight-man and funny-man practically at random. Sure, these lines shouldn’t be etched in stone, but you can also feel the desperation with which they’re flailing as they try to figure it out, as though the movie were lighting up “LAUGH NOW” signs for a studio audience, instead of presenting them with recognizable human behavior to be amused by.

The one exception is a minor character they meet in Brazil, the snake handler Santiago (I’m Still Here’s Selton Mello), who brings his own serpent for the shoot. He’s the closest thing Anaconda has to a character that isn’t snarking about the movie’s meta premise, and he’s locked into a weird and affectionate performance that makes his dynamic with his pet snake rather endearing but the movie keeps cutting away to Black, Rudd and co. rolling their eyes at him. This irreverent tone is also totally incongruous with a story of underdogs rekindling their creative flame, but who has time to think about themes in a goofy comedy… Wait, scratch that. The goofy comedy has the time, and loads of it, given its never-ending jokes about the characters trying to figure out a theme for the film they’re making. This isn’t Tropic Thunder, where the filmmaking in-jokes are justified by the story’s industry adjacency. It’s Anaconda, a movie that thinks it’s making fun of everything Hollywood does wrong, but really, it’s just exposing its own flaws ad nauseam.

Were the film at least competent when it springs into action, it would be easier to forgive. Unfortunately, it’s visual sludge, with haphazard staging that obscures not only anything that would be scary or thrilling, but any action-comedy beats as well. Worse yet, it cuts so often from complete darkness to blinding lights (or the white glow of Doug’s laptop screen as he pens his screenplay) that the film becomes genuinely painful to watch in a theater. Then again, perhaps squinting through action set pieces helps distract from how sloppily assembled the whole thing is.

In Anaconda, the jokes, action scenes, and story at large seldom adhere to the concepts of setups and payoffs, so the whole thing feels artificially generated, as though there was no human intelligence at the wheel. It takes smarts to make a movie about dumb people in over their heads, but the self-reflexive premise is its only semi-interesting fixture. Everything else about it is downright miserable.

Anaconda opens in theaters December 25.