Directed By: Tom Gormican

Runtime: 1hr30min

 

It’s almost shocking how much Anaconda has going for it. Co-written by director Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten (the team behind the mostly clever Nicolas Cage metacomedy The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent), the film has a clever premise and sports an A-list comedy cast headlined by Paul Rudd and Jack Black (with co-stars Steve Zahn and Thandie Newton). And yet, apart from a few mild chuckles here and there, the film just kind of trods along as if trying to reach an agreed-upon running time before rolling the credits. There’s nothing awful about it, but there’s little to recommend it, either. In a year in which comedy has struggled to regain its place in movie theatres, Anaconda doesn’t make a strong case for making the trip to the cinemas in search of laughs.

You wouldn’t guess that from the set-up, however. Rudd plays Griff, an actor who’s struggled since a career-peak multiple-episode run on TV show S.W.A.T. Back home in Buffalo, Griff’s old friend Doug (Black) is experiencing his own frustrations, thanks to a job as a wedding videographer that doesn’t match his long-ago filmmaking dreams. When Griff and pals Kenny (Zahn) and Clair (Newton) gather in Buffalo to celebrate Doug’s birthday—which doubles as an occasion to break out one of the movies they made together as teens—Griff lays a surprise on them: he has the rights to the 1997 film Anaconda and would like the four of them to travel to the Amazon to remake it themselves. All they need is a boat, a snake, and a couple of locals to handle each.

 

There’s a lot of potential in that scenario that Anaconda unfortunately leaves unrealised. The film’s best moments feature Black attempting to create a blockbuster on a minuscule budget, but we’ve already seen that done better in other movies.  Black is reliable as always, but the film asks little more of him than to play the sort of character he’s played before. Same for Rudd and Zahn, who’s quite good as an eccentric sidekick, but when is he not? (Newton does her best to bring a severely underwritten role to life.) It’s as if everyone seemed to think that all the film needed was to assemble the right pieces and the rest would take care of itself. And with pros like these, they almost do. But who needs to see an almost-good version of what’s been actually good in the past? (One final mystery: are the poor effects a purposeful homage to the 1997 Anaconda’s effects? On second thought, who cares?) I won’t remember this one in a month. 

 

3/10 Don’t bother unless you really like Jack Black 

 

Bolu
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Boluwatife Adesina is a media writer and the helmer of the Downtown Review page. He’s probably in a cinema near you.