Snake prattle: ‘Anaconda’ flawed but meta fun reboot of snaky 1997 cult comedy
“Anaconda” — 2.5 stars
Why do studio killjoys sadistically ruin our entertainment experience by revealing a film’s key surprises and plot twists in trailers and commercials?
Call them the grinches who stole a Christmas Day movie.
Specifically, Tom Gormican’s meta-comic “Anaconda.” It contains two key shockeroonie surprises, both revealed in the trailers that then go on to undermine most of the twists and surprises remaining.
I scrupulously avoided trailers and ads with the hope of watching Tom Gormican’s “Anaconda” without spoiler pollution.
Even so, the telegraphed, suspenseless jump-scares and — to more-experienced filmgoers — obvious setups signal that this “Anaconda” has higher priorities, suggesting it aspires to out-meta the much edgier “Tropic Thunder.”
Jon Voight, playing an affected Paraguayan snake hunter, turned Luis Llosa’s critically unappreciated 1997 “Anaconda” into a cult hit by simply improvising a sly wink at co-star J-Lo — this, after being swallowed, partially digested and regurgitated by a giant snake.
Here, Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Steve Zahn and Thandiwe Newton come winking, blinking and nodding their way through moments of sporadic hilarity and effectively low-brow grossness as early midlife crises propel them into a grand, global adventure.
“Anaconda” opens with a traditional action sequence in which a giant snake attacks people in the Brazilian jungle. Why reveal the titular monster so quickly? Have these filmmakers learned nothing from “Jaws”?
Doug (Black), a frustrated wedding videographer with Hollywood dreams, and Griff (Rudd), a struggling character actor who can’t keep a job, are life-long best buds who have made home movies together for years.
When Griff reveals he has obtained the remake rights to one of their all-time favorite films, “Anaconda,” they resolve to go to Brazil and make their own version.
(This follows after an actual theatrical sequel, “Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid,” two television sequels and a crossover feature with “Lake Placid.”)
Griff and Doug recruit their friends Kenny (Steve Zahn), an unreliable mess-up, and supportive Claire (Thandiwe Newton) to be additional cast and crew members. Off to Brazil they go.
They rent a large boat, not knowing that it has been stolen by Ana (Daniela Melchior), a mysterious young woman on the run from two presumably villainous pursuing bad guys.
As Doug hammers out a constantly evolving screenplay, the crew is joined by a strange Brazilian snake handler named Santiago, underplayed by Selton Mello, hitting a sublime deadpan tone between Black’s standard-issue overeffusiveness and Rudd’s lackluster reserve.
(Here’s a thought: Would this casting have been more interesting if Rudd and Black had switched roles?)
When Santiago’s own beloved pet anaconda can’t complete its thespian responsibilities (if you’ve seen the trailer, you know why), the search is on to find a replacement reptile star deep in the Brazilian jungle.
The crew has no clue what awaits them. We do. We saw it in the opening scene.
Santiago delivers a chillingly graphic description about how the anaconda crushes its victims, bone by bone until the pressure explodes their eyeballs.
Despite this horrific, false foreshadowing, that never happens. This anaconda swallows humans like the T-Rex chowing down on the attorney in “Jurassic Park,” and it moves with the speed of those alien critters in “A Quiet Place.”
Plus, this monster snake has to be the most inept killing machine in creature-feature history, at least when it comes to making sure its victims are actually dead.
At a meta-merciful 1 hour, 40 minutes, “Anaconda” could have used one more pass through the editing software to tighten up the fun stuff in a series reboot that prefers scares over suspense and fulfilling expectations over exceeding them.
And If you are one of the many who saw the “Anaconda” trailer and said, “Wow! I gotta see this movie!” you should probably know something:
You just did.
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A Sony Pictures theatrical release. Rated PG-13 for suggestive references, language, drug use, violence. 100 minutes.