If you only have time to see one movie set in Brazil, see “The Secret Agent” (2025). “Anaconda” (2025) is a meta, reimagining reboot, a spiritual sequel and seventh in the franchise. Believing that they have the rights to “Anaconda” (1997), a group of childhood friends decide to leave Buffalo and head to Brazil to make a movie, but nothing goes according to plan, especially when they encounter an enormous snake eating anyone and destroying anything that crosses its path on land or in the river. This uneven sequel is not dumb enough to sustain laughs, not technically credible enough to raise the stakes and not interesting enough to be entertaining.
Unemployed actor, Ronald “Griff” Griffen Jr. (Paul Rudd) decides to go home to celebrate his childhood buddy, Doug McCallister (Jack Black), and gifts an old VHS tape of a movie that they made with Griff’s former flame and freshly divorced Claire Simons (Thandiwe Newton) and substance addict Kenny Trent (Steve Zahn). Though individually, the “Anaconda” cast is talented, thety have little to no chemistry. When Newton appeared on screen, I actually went, “Oh nooooooooo,” not because I was not happy to see her. I love her, but they took a transcendently gorgeous woman, stuck a bad wig on her and called it a day. Let’s hope that she did it for a change of pace, not for lack of roles because out of the entire cast, she is top of the list for being better than the material. To add insult to injury, at the eleventh hour, it is revealed that her character is a lawyer, which makes her character retroactively dumber considering the plot’s trajectory, which is not the reason that anyone sees this movie, and if it is, run the other way.
Zahn does not get enough work, and among the front and center ensemble, he is probably the one most genuinely funny without seeming as if he is straining. He can inhabit ridiculous characters, and he does not get enough work. In a fair world, he would be the lead, and “Anaconda” would be a funnier film. If a bit is funny, it is because he set it up. He is the only reason that his character is not forgettable. Kenny would otherwise feel like a fourth wheel and deserve to be on the cutting room floor. With Doug as his boss, Kenny is an unreliable employee without malice, and the Buffalo sober schtick in Black’s hands works because of Zahn’s ability to embrace the absurd organically.
Black is decent in this one and is at least recognizable as a person who would exist in the real world, but he has become the poster boy for crap movies that people enjoy because of the lack of plot and mid-spectacle. He is the gap that exists between success and being good. Doug is the heart of “Anaconda” as a family man who settled for a decent, safe but soul killing life with his supportive wife (Ione Skye) and his adoring son, Charlie (Sebastian Sero). Skye fixes her face to analyze her character’s husband to solve him as if he is a puzzle that needs assembling, which is why, out of all the characters, his inner life is prioritized and desperately needs to be reinvigorated. Just when he is back to his old self, he gets drunk on movie magic and begins to lose sight of his friends. These beats sound as if it adds substance to the film, but it does not feel visceral though theoretically relatable. The funniest bit starts with him unconscious and seemingly dead, which is either a correlation or causation. It is the one moment in the movie where it seems as if there would be consequences, but nope. What does it say about a movie that it becomes more hilarious if Doug dies?
Rudd is Rudd: always affable, handsome, a pinch of smarm and a dose of Teflon. Make Griff slightly meaner and more pathetic, and Rudd could just reprise his role in “Friendship” (2025). Griff is supposed to have an intense attraction to Claire, but Fiyero had more heat with Glenda. For people experiencing a mid-life crisis, they act more like middle schoolers probably to keep the rating low and the ticket sales high, which is fine, but the actual lack of heat feels like acting neglect. How can someone not seem attracted to Newton? Griff is somewhat poignant and would be awful if another actor took the role. Griff loved acting because he played with his friends, not appreciated the actual craft, which he struggles with.
That “let’s make a show” energy never works because it takes a meta-approach to filmmaking without saying something incisive about film. “Anaconda” is no “Scream” (1996). At most, it captures the Kickstarter joy of making a film as a group activity devoted to a shared love, but does not convey the same frisson as “Song Sung Blue” (2025) when the characters are sharing their devotion to singing. If you did not know that Sony Pictures was the company that made this film, you will when the credits roll because Sony is mentioned so often, it could be part of a drinking game. The whole movie feels like a weird infomercial for the franchise and Sony. The best result of this storyline is seeing Selton Mello, who played the dad in “I’m Still Here” (2024), get a chance to dog walk everyone else in terms of being reliably funny and kooky as a snake wrangler, Santiago Braga, for his precious snake, Heitor.
There is a B storyline with a perfunctory environmentalist message about gold miners polluting the Amazon Forest and killing animals. Paulo (Diego Arnary) chases Ana (Daniela Melchior), who decides to hide out as part of the movie crew. Like a lot of the storylines, it gets introduced then dropped abruptly. What happened to Ana’s partner? He was smart enough to disappear and not have to watch too much of “Anaconda” unlike the people in the theater. They provide the action and could have been erased entirely from the script.
Would I have enjoyed “Anaconda” more if I had watched the original? No, I would have hated it more. There are tons of Easter Eggs that even I recognized, including an appearance from Ice Cube and another which will be a surprise. It briefly elevates the movie but is not scalable. I love a creature feature, but the sizable snake feels perfunctory to keep the movie going but is not genuinely frightening like the original.
“Anaconda” can be funny, but the humor is theoretical like typing “LOL” in a text while stone-faced. It fails to build on its successes and does not know how to sustain the humor from one moment to another. It is too long with too much dead time in between bits so the funny needs to be revved up again. “Anaconda” needed to be dumber to be funner. It is going to make so much money, and people are going to love it, but there were stronger comedies in 2025. Not a good way to close the year.
