Streaming Recommendation: ANACONDA (2025)

What type of film do you think you are going to get when you hear about an action/comedy starring Jack Black and Paul Rudd as two sad-sack buddies going through a mid-life crisis who decide to go to the Amazon rainforest and create their own version of the 1997 B-picture, ANACONDA?

Well…that’s EXACTLY the movie you get…and it was pretty darn entertaining!

Written and Directed by Tom Gormican (THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT), Anaconda doesn’t pretend to be anything that it’s not, following the antics of childhood friends Doug (Black) and Ronald (Rudd) who talk two of their other friends, Kenny (Steve Zahn) and Claire (Thandiwe Newton) into going into the Amazon to do a remake of Anaconda - and find meaning to their lives along the way.

Oh, and yes, hijinx ensue.

There is nothing new here, but Director Gormican (and Rudd and Black) make a smart decision and decide to flip the roles of the two leads with Black playing the everyday straight man and Rudd playing the “out there” zany one. It is exactly the type of cross-up that helps this film to be interesting and entertaining.

Black, Rudd, Zahn and Newton are likeable as the 4 leads while Daniela Melchior brings intrigue as a mysterious woman with a past that is chasing her while Selton Mello almost steals the film as the snake wrangler who brings along his pet, tame, Anaconda snake that can be used in the filming (do you think, at some point in time that a real, vicious, WILD Anaconda slithers into the film)?

This film is the very definition of comfort food (especially if you liked the 1997 Anaconda). Nothing new happens here, but it is an agreeable (enough) way to while away an hour and 39 minutes and be entertained along the way.

What more can you ask for?

Letter Grade: A surprising B

7 stars (out of 10) and you can take that to the Bank(ofMarquis)