There’s something uniquely disorienting about realising a movie like Anaconda is old enough to be rebooted. The 1997 original – equal parts jungle pulp, star-studded curiosity, and cable TV staple – belongs to a very specific era of studio excess. So when this new Anaconda announces itself not just as a reboot but as a movie about remaking Anaconda, it immediately earns points for audacity alone. What’s genuinely surprising is how well that audacity pays off.
Co-written and directed by Tom Gormican (The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent), this 2025 iteration follows four childhood friends – Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Kenny (Steve Zahn) and Claire (Thandiwe Newton) – who throw caution to the wind and head to the Amazon to recapture their youth by filming an amateur remake of Anaconda, their favourite of that time; Griff assuring them that they’ll avoid any IP issues having gained the rights to the franchise.
Doug is now a wedding videographer (though he likes to assure you they’re more short films), Griff a background actor forever stuck at the edge of someone else’s spotlight, Kenny their slightly unhinged ride-or-die, and Claire the grounded presence, who looks at the underwhelming state of her life and agrees to the idea, regardless of if it’ll truly be terrible or not. Naturally, the project collapses the moment a real anaconda slithers into the picture, turning nostalgic fandom into a very literal fight for survival. The movie they’re dying to remake just might kill them!
What makes Anaconda work – far more than it has any right to – is its razor-sharp meta self-awareness. This is a film that understands exactly what the original represented, how it’s been remembered, and why anyone would want to revisit it in the first place. Like Tropic Thunder, to which it feels spiritually aligned, it’s both a loving send-up and a surprisingly sincere tribute to movie obsession. These characters aren’t mocking cinema; they’re worshipping it, even as it chews them up.
Black and Rudd are the engine of the film’s comedy. Black’s Doug, a man clinging desperately to the scraps of his creative dreams, is classic Black without feeling overtly recycled – big, frantic, and committed to the bit. Meanwhile, Rudd plays Griff as a man quietly haunted by the roles he never got, weaponizing his trademark charm into something tinged with real sadness. Together, they’re dynamite, bouncing off each other with the kind of ease that only comes from performers who know exactly when to undercut sincerity with absurdity – and when not to.
Zahn brings his familiar, jittery unpredictability to Kenny, whilst Newton grounds the group with a performance that acknowledges the ridiculousness of the situation without ever winking too hard at the camera. But the true scene-stealer – the film’s shock MVP, without question – is Selton Mello as Santiago Braga, a snake handler whose every line delivery feels like it’s arriving half a beat too late and twice as hard as expected. Mello plays Santiago with an inspired mix of swagger, menace, and comic obliviousness, turning what could have been a stock supporting role into a highlight reel. Every appearance escalates the film’s energy, and his interactions with Black and Rudd, in particular, are genuinely laugh-out-loud funny; it’s the kind of performance that sneaks up on you and then completely hijacks the movie.
Much has already been made of Ice Cube‘s revealed cameo, and if you’re worried that this has spoiled any surprise connection to the original Anaconda, rest easy as the film has far more up its sleeve. The script (Gormican co-writing with his Massive Talent scribe Kevin Etten) understands that nostalgia only works if it’s earned, and it saves its cleverest callbacks and reinventions for moments that genuinely land; one, in particular, during the film’s end credit sequence.
Visually, Anaconda leans into its genre roots without pretending to be prestige cinema, The jungle is sweaty, chaotic, and hostile (Queensland subbing in quite effortlessly), and the anaconda itself is gloriously over-the-top without losing its sense of danger. The balance between comedy and danger is surprisingly well judged, allowing the film to oscillate between absurd set pieces and moments of genuine tension.
Ultimately, Anaconda is truly a delightful surprise; I’ll readily admit that this being one of the funniest movies of the year was not on my bingo card, but here we are. It’s a love letter to film fanatics, to bad ideas pursued with good intentions, and to the strange comfort of revisiting the movies that shaped us – even when they try to kill us. Is it crazy that Anaconda is old enough to be rebooted? Sure. But what’s even crazier is that this reboot understands exactly why that matters, and has this much fun proving it.
FOUR STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Anaconda is screening in Australian theatres from Boxing Day, December 26th, 2025, after releasing on Christmas Day, December 25th, in the United States.
