Four lifelong friends, inspired by a cheap short film they made as children, decide to travel to Brazil and remake the creature feature Anaconda. Once they arrive in the jungles of Amazon, everything that could go wrong, does. The trained snake they hoped to film is accidentally killed; they encounter evil gold miners who place their lives in danger; and worst of all, an enormous anaconda snake begins to terrorize them in unimaginable ways.
Despite the likeable cast (Paul Rudd, Jack Black, Thandie Newton, Steve Zahn), Anaconda is, tonally, all over the place. Often times funny, sometimes too serious, at other times just plain weird, it's never truly believable (one of the characters is swallowed by the giant snake, and not only does he survive such ghastliness, he's also unphased by the experience and physically able to run and exert himself like the fittest Olympian athlete).
All of that would, of course, be forgiven if the movie left a lasting impression. But alas, aside from cashing in on a handful of short-term thrills, the movie's screenplay fails to tug at the audience's hearts. Not even the cameos by Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez (both stars of the original) can salvage the laziness of its inept story.
☆☆
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