Anaconda isn't just a bad film; it's the kind of disaster that in the past would have rightfully ended careers.
In its marketing, Anaconda makes it clear that it is not a remake of the similarly titled giant snake film from the 90s. To its credit, that much is true. But "cynical cash grab" doesn't fit a poster as well.
The nonsensical plot revolves around four childhood friends who've each hit a dead end in their lives. Griff (Paul Rudd) is a talentless actor and blowhard who can't even hold down a background part. Doug (Jack Black) is a wedding videographer pretending he's a misunderstood genius. Claire (Thandiwe Newton) is recently divorced and looking for an easy out in her childhood stomping grounds. Kenny (Steve Zahn) is an alcoholic and drug addict kept around so Griff and Doug have someone to berate.
They're all terrible people.
From the outset, it's clear their dreams of making it big are delusional. They're not even people who we'd want to succeed. When Griff springs the idea they should remake Anaconda because he now miraculously holds the rights, it feels more like desperation and ignorance than the pursuit of lifelong dreams the film tries to paint it as.
So the four friends fly down to the Amazon to film their version of the "classic" creature-feature from the 90s. Why the Amazon and why just the four of them? Answering that would demand giving the script more attention than the writers ever did.
They meet up with Ana (Daniela Melchior), a mysterious beauty on the run from ill-defined armed men, who decides to pose as a riverboat captain for the crew. Since apparently nobody needs gear, food, or a semblance of logic, the party sets off into the jungle without so much as glancing at their transport.
From there, Anaconda hits every interminable note a film like this needs to fulfill contractual obligations. Not that familiarity is a sin. In fact, in the hands of a good director and competent script, even the most outrageous setup can lead to brilliant results. Just ask Tropic Thunder, another film about idiots out of their depth making a film in a hostile environment.
But Anaconda fails at every turn to make a case for itself. It isn't funny enough – or at all – to be a lighthearted comedy about chasing dreams. Nor is it scary or thrilling enough to be a monster movie. It's just mean, cynical, and thoroughly repugnant. The kind of film made by people who think they're better than the material they're making fun of.
Each aspect of this disaster feels misguided. The characters are hateful, the plot is incoherent, the jokes fall flat when they aren't outright mean, and the effects are dire. Poor Daniela Melchior looks like she doesn't know why she's there, and the audience shares that sentiment. Take her out of the film and nothing changes.
At one point, a character remarks how remaking Anaconda is lazy and the studio must be running out of ideas. Griff and Doug constantly remind others that their film is a "spiritual sequel" and not a remake. Yet the first chance the film gets, it brings back the cast of the original for distasteful cameos as if the ironic worship of a cult movie is a defining characteristic.
On top of that, Anaconda is so poorly directed it can't even muster a single interesting action sequence or coherent scare. It makes the 1997 original look like a work of art by comparison. At least that one had vision, no matter how misjudged.
A little over halfway into the film, right after brutally making fun of an addict for being who they are, Anaconda settles in for an extended joke about Steve Zahn pissing on Jack Black. He can't do it standing up nor if anyone is watching, so the crew has to form a human stool for him to sit on and pee.
At some point, somewhere in Hollywood, someone sat down to write that scene. It went through multiple drafts, proofreading, and feedback. It got a budget and a cast and crew of professionals who gathered together for weeks to film it. Years later, other filmmakers can gaze upon the horror and realize that if something as insipid as this can get financing, perhaps anything can.
Maybe that's all the motivation we really need.
