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DokBrowne [ 5.5 ]
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Well, it's not the first movie ever made that looks like it was way more fun for the actors to film than it is for us poor viewers to watch. The shared company and combined brio of Paul Rudd, Jack Black, Steve Zahn and Thandiwe Newton go a long way in propping up this not-nearly-funny-enough meta remake of a semi-cult classic that could only ever have been reborn as a cinematic prospect in this self-deprecating air-quotes fashion. Turn it into a buddy comedy, cast some aging comedians from the old Frat Pack/Apatow days, make the premise about itself so you can get ahead of anyone trying to mock the project, yada yada who needs a script the rest will work itself out.
Is how this feels. It's got some laughs, and 'a light-hearted creature feature jungle adventure comedy on a studio's dime' has already won me over just by existing, but goddamn is most of this humor lazy. And the anaconda stuff isn't even as thrilling as it was in the first movie 28 years ago even though the snake is now, quite excessively, like 30x larger, like this thing should be in a "The Meg" sequel tussling with dinosaur sharks and wrapping itself around jumbo jets, not a regular movie about a reasonably larger-than-average jungle reptile; also, because it's CGI, we only ever see it in 1/2-second shots when it blurs across screen in fast motion, awesome.
But the generic humor is what kills the movie. The best parts about this are watching these guys in montage filming their own new "Anaconda" on their nifty-looking boat out on the Amazon. It gets a lot more bland when the giant snake arrives. I'll just use 2 examples, the two closing-credit tags (no real spoilers, don't worry), to point out what a huge shrug they allowed this movie to be:
- in one, a celebrity who starred in the original "Anaconda" shows up at Jack Black's door to congratulate him and offer him a job directing the actual reboot they're planning. Be dazzled by a celebrity cameo! Cut to Jack Black, who freezes and faints, falling backward out of frame. That. Is. It.
- in the other, a character from the movie we thought had died suddenly wakes up in the jungle, looks around confused, then smiles and proclaims, "I'm alive!" and that is also it, back to credits. No joke included.
Paul Rudd never has a clear comedic approach to his unhappy failed-actor character so consider this yet another wasted performance of his (been a lot of those building up over the years). Jack Black fares way better, inflating the film's overall energy with his usual exaggerated mannerisms and ridiculously-pitched wily sincerity. For fun, go ahead and consider this a "Saving Silverman" reunion for anyone who ever saw and/or remembers that movie, since he's back alongside Steve Zahn in another slightly amusing but mostly disappointingly dumb doofus comedy. Unfortunately this "Anaconda" comedy-remake feels like it could have been made way back then 25 years ago when "Saving Silverman" came out, except for the fact that they're all playing middle aged.
Zahn's on it, Thandiwe Newton is stuck in straight-man land (why would you strand a mostly serious actor like her among all these wacky comedy guys and not try to give her a schtick to work with? come on), Selton Mello steals some scenes as the weird snake wrangler, no Jon Voight doesn't come back even though his campy glee in the first "Anaconda" would've been the right attitude to bridge the two movies.
If I were to watch this on Comedy Central half a dozen more times over the next 5-10 years, I'd probably bump it up to 3 or 3 1/2 stars. It's easy to watch and contains many ingredients that make you want to enjoy it. But objectively, it's a disappointingly tame, tired use of the playful premise. And who has cable anymore, I’m not going to be accidentally channel surfing to this movie anytime soon in our choice-paralysis streaming age.
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| Weighted Rating | : 6.5 |
| No. Ratings | : 1 | |
| No. Reviews | : 1 | |
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