When I first heard about Jack Black and Paul Rudd starring in Anaconda, a meta reboot of the 1997 creature feature of the same name, I admittedly had pretty low expectations. After reading what critics had to say, including CinemaBlend’s own review of the action-comedy, my expectations were even lower. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, I watched Anaconda when it started streaming with a Netflix subscription, and it got worse… much, much worse. To be frank, Anaconda is not a good movie. In fact, I hated it.
As someone who tries to find at least one redeeming quality for everything he watches (I previously said Mercy is enjoyable under condition), I attempted to keep an open mind throughout. Despite the many issues I had here, I did find something the movie tackles really well: the friction of friendships in adulthood. Hear me out…
Anaconda Perfectly Captures The Friction That Comes With Friendships In Adult
If Anaconda were less of an attempt to reboot a ‘90s action flick and more of an exploration of the friction in friendships in adulthood, it could have the potential to be a great movie. Let me tell you, this perfectly captures the the pain and awkwardness of reconnecting with childhood friends in the midst of a mid-life crisis, so much so that I continued watching it to see how things would unfold for Doug McCallister (Jack Black), Ronald “Griff” Griffin Jr. (Paul Rudd), Kenny Trent (Steve Zahn), and Claire Simons (Thanidwe Newton).
From trying to recapture the glory of yesterday and make their dreams come true years after failing to get their movie careers off the ground to dealing with interpersonal relationships (like Kenny and Doug reconnecting after the latter fired the former because of substance issues), this movie tackles it all. When it comes to this aspect, director and co-screenwriter Tom Gormican (he wrote it with Kevin Etten) gets the most out of the story, really hones in on the friction. So much so that I wish the idea was used as a drama akin to outrageously awkward Friendship, opposed to an action-comedy.
There’s some real meat on those bones. It’s just too bad the massive snake hunting the group of friends remaking Anaconda in the Amazon keeps getting in the way.
Though I Was Entertained, I’ll Stick With The Original
Don’t get me wrong, I was entertained watching Anaconda despite its myriad of issues, but I plan on sticking with the original if I ever want to revisit the franchise. There were some hilarious moments, like Doug being used as bait to draw out the snake with a boar duct-taped to his back, or the constant jokes about Jon Voight’s accent in the 1997 version. However, those are enough to outweigh everything I didn’t like about the movie.
There were some great cameos from Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez before it was all said and done, but they missed a golden opportunity to have Voight himself come in and defend his distinct accent and that uncomfortable wink.
All of that being said, I still can’t get over how well this movie captures the awkwardness of friendships in adulthood. As someone who’s experienced that too many times to count, it was nice to see I wasn’t alone.
