The Snake That Bites Its Tail

We felt like we were a little alone in the world, but we had a good time in front A Solid Gold Talent. A feature film playing on self-awareness with Nicolas Cage in his own role involved in an action film parody. The project had its weaknesses and struggled to sustain length, nevertheless, it demonstrated a sincere love for Cage’s filmography. Enough to push us into the arms of this new Anacondasigned by the same director and co-writer, Tom Gormican.

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We have a certain tenderness forAnaconda from 1997. It first scared us when it came out (I was too young to watch it, I had nightmares about it for weeks), before seeing it again some time later to appreciate all the substantial Nanaresque marrow of a film bringing together Jennifer Lopez, Ice-Cube and a giant snake. A horrific film that becomes funny in spite of itself with each passing minute. So how can we achieve a worthy modern work today? You have to like challenges…

Griff (Paul Rudd) is a failed actor unable to hold down a role as an extra in Los Angeles. Doug (Jack Black) is an inventive director, stuck in a small job making wedding “movies”. On the occasion of the second’s birthday, Griff arrives with a nice gift: he allegedly got his hands on the rights to their favorite film when they were teenagers, Anaconda. Accompanied by the rest of the old gang, Kenny (Steve Zahn), a nice guy suffering from addiction, and Claire (Thandiwe Newton), who is going through a divorce, the four friends fly to the Amazon for three weeks to make the film of their dreams: the reboot… no, the remake… no, the spiritual sequel to Anaconda. There, they will be able to count on the help of a snake trainer (Selton Mello) and a mysterious boat captain, Ana (Daniela Melchior).

Yet everything was going so well…

In the profession, when we are not invited to a press screening or when none is organized, it is customary to assume that the project smells good. Especially since the American returns were not great. However, the first moments ofAnaconda almost convinced us that the film could hold up thanks to Gormican’s lethal weapon: the meta joke.

Review Anaconda (2025) – the snake that bites its own tail — © Sony Pictures

Far from falling into the stupid and nasty reboot of a work that does not deserve so much – Remember last summer has already been there – this Anaconda prefers to bet on the film within the film by positioning more its subject around intellectual property. Gormican enjoys making fun of Hollywood, particularly around terms that no longer mean anything like the reboot, the remake, the spiritual sequel… Rudd and Black play two enthusiasts who ultimately just want to make films to be together, their The Anaconda (title of their own film) being onlya metaphor for their existential midlife crisis.

Hence the intelligence of having poached these two actors whose role seems so close to what they are in reality. Apart from the failure of their respective lives, Griff and Doug could have been called Paul and Jack, we would have felt the same sincerity in the approach. For Jack Black, he finds a little of this energy that we knew in him in Be nice, rewindby Michel Gondry, who already took up this idea of an amateur remake.

And there was still potential in imagining this group of endearing losers reinventing the scenes in galley after galley while a real giant snake threatens them. Not everything is funny, but there is a little endearing side to seeing simple enthusiasts dream of Oscar and Doug for being the “white Jordan Peele”. Yes, cet Anaconda part of a great idea by taking all of his contemporaries on the wrong foot. Wasn’t that the best thing to do?

A joke longer than the snake

We have to confess a little lie. When we told you that the feature film was off to a good start, that’s not entirely true. Because Anaconda doesn’t start in Doug’s office or on Griff’s film set, it starts in the Amazon with Ana, her pursuers and the first appearance of the snake. A seemingly innocuous sequence, revealing the tree that hides the forest. Because and A Solid Gold Talent had difficulty keeping the length, Anaconda multiplies this defect exponentially.

The original concept behind the screenplay has absolutely no capacity to be transformed into a feature film. From then on, Gormican will stretch everything he can stretch. Everything surrounding Daniela Melchior could be erased from the narrative as this subplot makes no secret of being just boring filler. It is also amusing to see his character appear and disappear within the same cramped place, as if he did not really exist.

The humor itself is poorly measured and you can laugh frankly at a line (the definition of “sober in Buffalo”) or at a burlesque situation than at spending ten embarrassing minutes on a story about urine or when you have to stick a warthog on Black. The idea is good, but the implementation does everything to scrounge up minutes. The key word is “save time”. So we’re going to ask Black to play the same character he plays film after film (Jumanji, Minecraft…) and Thandiwe Newton… you’re welcome, since her role has no other development than “divorced woman”.

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You will notice that we have not yet talked about the horror dimension of this comedy. Because yes, unlike his horrific model finding himself funny in spite of himself, Anaconda 2025 is an almost parody with a bit of action and a bit of genre sequences. Except that the tones blend extremely poorly here. The film wants to make people laugh when it should be scary, is scary when it wants to make people laugh and above all this provokescountless inconsistencies between scenes. As soon as the footage shows a little potential, its lack of control removes all personality from it, transforming it into bad comedy never horrific. In this subgenre, rewatch instead Tucker and Dale fight evil, The Cabin in the Woods or, in homage style, Thunder in the Tropics.

What more can I say about Anaconda ? That the snake itselfall in lousy digital, is so poorly filmed and highlighted that it seems present only to validate the title of the feature film ? That we don’t have no real relation to the originalreduced to a “good memory” without us really knowing which one? Or that the best cameo scene in the film could have been an excellent surprise if it had not been revealed by the trailers? Anaconda.

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