The entertainment industry is an ebb and flow of trends that eventually outstay their welcome until they finally fail to create enough revenue to be lucrative investments.
We have long suffered at the hands of studio executives who think nostalgia bait is the best thing since sliced bread, but the use of the formula for reimagining intellectual properties with bankable actors, throwaway cameos and not-so-subtle references is well beyond saturation by now.
The latest result of this tired trend is the meta requel of Anaconda, which sees a group of friends who were obsessed with the 1997 film as kids finally decide to throw caution to the wind and make their own remake because mid-life crises make people do strange things.
You already know what is about to ensue, not only because the trailer shows you the entire film – including a twist that now has no impact on the viewing experience whatsoever – but also because this ground has already been trampled to death with the likes of the recent Jumanji and Minecraft films as far as Jack Black is concerned, and most mainstream comedies starring Paul Rudd in the last few years.
Jack Black is Jack Blacking and Paul Rudd is Paul Rudding, all in that overly tired fashion the two comedy stars have been utilizing for some time now whenever they can phone in a performance in exchange for a paycheck, and the supporting cast around them also underwhelm, which is not so much due to a lack of talent, but rather because they are not given sufficiently interesting material to work with here.
You also see the gags, jokes, cameos and references coming from a mile away, which may be what some viewers are still interested in, but the problem is that this has all been done much better in other films, both wihin the framework of the nostalgia and meta subgenres, as well in the original films being churned through the nostalgia mill.
As such, the concept is not without potential, as reimaginings of even goofy subjects such as 1997’s Anaconda may be elevated when seen through a different genre lense, but that requires them to be well-written meta concepts executed with some degree of panache to make them memorable, and that is unfortunately not the case here.
Similarly, writer and director Tom Gormican is no stranger to farce either, as his absurd The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent approached the meta concept in such an endearingly preposterous way that it was difficult not to like the exquisite nonsense on display in the self-aware Nic Cage meta comedy from 2022.
Much like Paul Rudd utilizes his comedic acting talent to its full extent in the masterfully unnerving cringe comedy Friendship, if you are desperate to see Jack Black make a fool of himself in a jungle that is actually entertaining, you will be substantially better off giving 2008’s Tropic Thunder a watch for the unhinged cacaphony of nonsensical delight that film sincerely is instead of the woefully underwhelming slop that is Anaconda.
Extras include featurettes and deleted/extended scenes.
Verdict: 3 out of 10.
