There was no need to remake Anaconda. There was especially no need to remake Anaconda as commentary on fan films and indie filmmaking. I always find it interesting when successful and well-regarded film makers make movies about making movies. Especially when they’re as unkind to the efforts of indie filmmakers as Anaconda (2025) is. 

• Directed by: Tom Gormican
• Written by: Tom Gormican. Kevin Etten Hans Bauer
• Starring: Jack Black Paul Rudd Steve Zahn

Humor is Subjective

Which in some part, I get. This is a large studio movie, and taking pot shots at your competition may be all in good fun. However, when you are multimillionaires and the people you are mocking are those who didn’t quite achieve the same dreams, maybe give that script another couple of editing passes.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Anaconda is about childhood friends who grew up making movies and dreaming of stardom, only to discover that real life gets in the way.  Paul Rudd plays a struggling characteractor, and Jack Black is a wedding videographer.  Rudd convinces his friends that he somehow has the rights to Anaconda, and they can make the sequel without any studio involvement. Which, sure. That’s plausible. 

Terrible Characters Are Hard to Watch

The script goes out of the way to make Black and Rudd the butt of the joke. At one point, Black refers to himself as the “white Jordan Peele” in regards to his scriptwriting. Honestly, as someone who has spent so much time around indie horror filmmakers, this is such an unkind and disingenuous take.  There are probably hundreds of pretentious screenwriters and directors out there and many of them are working in horror. I’ve been lucky that most everyone I’ve encountered has done it for the love of the genre. 

It is not to say that making fun of pretentious filmmakers isn’t a good time. It certainly can be. But there is something sad and overly pathetic about our main characters. It’s honestly a lot of punching down. 

The Plot

Anaconda (2025) tries to cover a lot of ground, from failed childhood dreams to our attachment to nostalgia. There aresubplots about gold smuggling and some romance. The script just bounces from one element to the next with little connective tissue.  

At the heart of the story, Black and Rudd are two people who have failed to achieve their dreams. For me, the script never does a good enough job explaining why, of all the movies in the world, Anaconda would be such a touchstone for them that they would be compelled to remake it in such a manner. 

Look, I love the original Anaconda, and its sequels, but it’s very much in a RiffTrax kind of way.  I guess because I’ve never met someone with that strong of an emotional attachment to it, I struggled to connect to the characters’ love of it.  And this is from someone who regularly watches giant snake movies.

Horror Comedy Problems

This version of Anaconda is a comedy. There is very little horror to be found here. If I’m being honest, there is also very little comedy to be found here. Like most movies of this kind, it leans towards quirky or awkward humor, which are not my favorite kinds.  I got one big laugh out of the movie, and that’s it.

There is something to this script that could have been revised to make it way more enjoyable. Watching a desperate studio working on an admitted cash grab would have been way funnier than watching struggling and depressed regular people.  You could even keep the same actors, just tweak their backstory. It would be Tropic Thunder as a giant snake movie. 

Also, the snake looks terrible. 

Final Thoughts

Anaconda is having a bit of a moment right now, with the movie last year and then some Howl-o-Scream haunted houses. While I’m all in favor of more giant snakes, I want them to be eating the right people.  Maybe that’s where 2025 Anaconda goes wrong. it’s not sure who we’re supposed to be rooting for. Or maybe not enough people get eaten.

Anaconda 2025 is available on streaming.