Throughout the years there have been tons of films featuring oversized normal animals on a rampage and when done right they are tons of fun. In 1997 the world was introduced to Anaconda that was a big success at the box office despite reviews and spawned a franchise with 4 sequels with the final one crossing over with the Lake Placid franchise. Now we are returning to the franchise in an all-new way with the aptly titled Anaconda starring Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Steve Zahn, Thandiwe Newton, Daniela Melchior and Selton Mello from The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent director Tom Gormican at the helm.

 

Anaconda follows Doug and Griff who have been best friends since they were kids and have always dreamed of remaking their all-time favorite movie: the cinematic "classic" Anaconda. When a midlife crisis pushes them to finally go for it, they head deep into the Amazon to start filming. But things get real when an actual giant anaconda appears, turning their comically chaotic movie set into a deadly situation.

This is one of those cheesy fun flicks that didn’t need a remake but could have benefited from technology should they have gone that route. Instead, they went in this whole new direction, that was a better choice. While all the jokes don’t land it makes for its own fun chaotic animal attack flick blended with humor and homage to the original that has sense become a cult classic. The idea delivers with plenty of over-the-top moments and laughs, but there is some pacing in the middle that slows things down and some of the jokes that don’t land.

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It starts off simple enough to set up all the characters and reasoning to why they would even want to do this and it’s a perfect direction. Once it gets going it struggles to find its direction at first, but smartly enough with remaking the film they stick to a lot of the tropes of the original film and it helps to get it back on track. Once they kick things into high gear with the actual Anaconda terror