Anaconda (2025) Dir: Tom Gormican

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This horror comedy, directed by Tom Gormican, is kind of unusual, in that it's a very meta sequel, in which the original film exists canonically within the world of said-sequel. Reviews haven't exactly set the world ablaze, but then, I was already keeping expectations low to begin with, especially considering that the trailers revealed seemingly the whole plot step-by-step - one of my biggest pet peeves in the cinema industry.

There was something of the modern 'Jumanji' films about it, and I'm not just talking about Jack Black. I think part of it had to do with how the film looked and sounded. It very much felt like a modern Hollywood adventure comedy, and even though the CGI was slightly suspect at times, I thought most of it looked okay. I won't pretend like it had anything overly impressive, but it also wasn't that ugly either.

The story was utter nonsense, but so much fun. There was little to no logic or sense in any of the events that happened, but I couldn't help but find myself having a really good time. Meta comedy sometimes doesn't always work for me, but I thought the way the film used it here was both earnest and humorous. Sure, some of the comedy was extremely childish, but some of it was also genuinely very funny. The dramatic writing was terrible, but the comedic stuff was really solid, for the most part.

Paul Rudd can be a little hit or miss for me with his comedy, but I thought he did pretty well, for the most part. He was goofy, sure, but so was the majority of the film, so he got away with it. Jack Black is the ultimate get out of jail free card for mediocre comedies, because he can make just about anything funny and endearing. I love his work - and he was once again absolutely hilarious at times in his role here.

Thandiwe Newton isn't necessarily an actress I would associate with comedy, but I found her pretty funny at points in this one. Sure, she was never quite as funny as the comedy powerhouses of Rudd and Black, but I liked her acting anyways. Steve Zahn was also pretty fun, although I definitely found him to be the weakest of the four main characters - he was a little too weird for my liking. I really liked Selton Mello's brief and very silly performance as the supposed snake expert of the film - some of his little skits were hilarious. I'll give credit to Daniela Melchior for the little comedy bits she had too - she made them work fairly well.

Overall, whilst this film will never win any awards for being especially good in a critical sense, it absolutely won me over with its willingness to have fun with its IP and story. I won't pretend like this is a film for the hard-core film nerds, but then, if every film was like that, I think it would be extremely boring. If it were up to me, I'd honestly rather rewatch this than sit through any of the 'Avatar' films again any day. I'd be having a much better time, that's for certain.