Anaconda

Grade: B-

A fellow critic noted that the three big Christmas Day releases of 2025 are all about following your dream. Don’t just think about it and talk about it – finally do it. Marty Supreme and Song Sung Blue had the respective taglines of “Dream big” and “This Christmas, dream huge.” Now we have Anaconda, which is a materialization of a long-discussed ambition of the two main characters.

They are lifelong friends Doug (Jack Black) and Griff (Paul Rudd). Doug makes videos for wedding/engagement announcements. He is an action/gore/horror buff, and is always suggesting incorporating those elements into the videos when he pitches them to his clients. But no, they’d rather have a Dawson’s Creek motif set to “I Don’t Want to Wait.” Griff is a struggling professional actor who, when we first see him, is way overthinking his motivation and delivery of the one line (not even a complete sentence) he has as Doctor #3.

Griff mentions to Doug that he has obtained the rights to Anaconda. They have been wanting to remake the 1997 film since they were kids, according to them. Just a little bit of research will show that Black and Rudd were 28 when that movie came out – the average age of that cast. They’re old enough to have been in that one – but whatever, I’ll allow the film its premise. They figure out how to make it work with the loan they’re able to secure, and off they go to the Amazon to film.

Two other friends come along to help out with the movie. They are Kenny (Steve Zahn) and Claire (Thandiwe Newton). These four actors were memorable in prominent films from the mid-90s to early 2000s – like Clueless, That Thing You Do, High Fidelity, and Mission: Impossible II. Anaconda (2025) is self-aware, trying to be critic-proof. It does its best to preemptively take care of any criticisms by referencing it first, as if to say “yeah – we know.” For instance, when there’s a twist, they talk about how that often happens in films.

Doug’s wife is one of the best characters. I wish we could have seen more of her, but I get why we don’t. She’s there for a little bit at the beginning, to encourage him to go and pursue this. Rudd sometimes has a vocal affectation that suggests he isn’t interested in women. That’s neither here nor there, but it’s inconsistent, and therefore jarring when it does come out. If you’re going to go there, go there completely. He doesn’t. Overall, though, I laughed several times, and this is the kind of quirky fun humor these actors deliver so well. There are cameos, too. Anaconda is a charming, fairly fun reboot of Anaconda, which is also about the making of a reboot of Anaconda – like the dude playing the dude disguised as another dude. Come to think of it, “I Don’t Want to Wait” is a perfect theme song for this journey.

Grade: B-