Anaconda 2025 Has a Killer Premise—So Why Isn’t It Funny?

On paper, this sounded like my kind of ridiculous: four lifelong friends pushing 50 decide to remake 1997's 'Anaconda' on a micro-budget by literally flying to the Amazon with a bank loan and a dream. That kind of shameless, go-for-broke premise can be comedy gold. In practice? Not so much.

The premise that should have slithered

The setup is catnip for movie nerds. One of the guys believes he has the rights to remake 'Anaconda,' so the old crew dusts off their teenage filmmaker fantasies and heads to the jungle to shoot a scrappy reboot. There is precedent for DIY remakes going viral - the most famous being that shot-for-shot 'Raiders' project a bunch of kids made in the 80s, which even spawned a heartfelt doc years later. So yes, the idea is silly, but in the right hands it can work.

'The problem? It just isn't funny.'

The laugh drought

In a packed theater, the jokes barely drew air. One guy near me was howling at everything, but he was the exception. With this cast, you expect at least a few accidental laugh-out-loud moments to sneak through. Instead, the movie feels strained and weirdly timid.

Director Tom Gormican is once again aiming for a clever, self-aware comedy that winks at Hollywood while also being a movie-movie. He tried that with 'The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent' and only half-landed the plane. Here, the landing gear never comes down. The core buy-in - that these four would uproot their lives and tromp into the Amazon because one of them supposedly secured the 'Anaconda' rights - is a hard sell. You need leads who can play credibly naive without feeling dumb. That does not happen.

The crew and who they play

• Jack Black is a wedding videographer who never let go of his director dreams.
• Paul Rudd is the estranged buddy who became a middling Hollywood actor now scraping by as an extra.
• Thandiwe Newton plays a newly divorced lawyer roped back into the gang.
• Steve Zahn is the lovable screwup behind the camera.

No one here reads as gullible enough to make the premise feel organic, and that sinks a lot of the humor before it starts. Rudd, usually a sure thing for charm-to-laughs conversion, is given almost nothing to play. Black keeps trying to goose the energy, but it is like bailing water with a thimble. The one person who consistently pops is Selton Mello as a snake handler the team hires - he even owns a pet anaconda - and he nearly steals the movie just by being oddly specific.

PG-13, holiday-safe, and defanged

This plants its flag as a PG-13 holiday romp and then settles for soft jabs where it needed sharper teeth. For a movie built around a reboot, it has surprisingly little to say about reboots. For a movie riffing on 'Anaconda,' it barely nicks the original. There are cameos, and yes, you can probably guess them, largely because the trailers already did the spoiling.

When the snakes finally show up

Once the mutant, man-eating anacondas enter the chat, the tone goes off a cliff. The film tries to juggle splattery mayhem with goofball comedy and fumbles both. Ironically, the dead-serious 1997 'Anaconda' is unintentionally funnier than this version that is desperately trying to be funny on purpose.

Bottom line

I miss big-screen studio comedies. When one hits, there is nothing like laughing in a room full of strangers. 'The Naked Gun' recently scratched that itch nicely. I was hoping this would do the same. It doesn’t.

Rating: 4/10 — Not good.