Jack Black and Paul Rudd Tangle With Nostalgia in Meta 'Anaconda' Fiasco

Olivia Bennett, 12/24/2025In a tongue-in-cheek meta-sequel to the 1997 classic, "Anaconda," Jack Black and Paul Rudd navigate nostalgia and the absurdities of Hollywood. Amidst recycled humor and sidelined female characters, the film reflects on creative longing while questioning the industry's reliance on familiarity. A bittersweet adventure awaits.

And really, did anyone expect subtlety from a meta-sequel? This go-round, director Tom Gormican (the man behind Nicolas Cage’s meta-odyssey before meta was back in style) dives headlong into the swamp—not just of the Amazon, but of cinema itself. Here’s the setup: Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Thandiwe Newton, and Steve Zahn comprise a gallery of has-beens looking to revive not merely their relevance but their adolescence. The plan? Resurrect “Anaconda,” that gloriously bonkers showcase of reptilian violence and jungle sweat, by retracing faded glory every bit as frantic as a Hollywood trades deadline.

The curtain rises with a jittery, genuinely promising escape through tangled Amazon greenery—Daniela Melchior’s Ana Almeida dodges villains, setting an almost earnest tone. Blink, though, and it’s over. Suddenly we’re back in Buffalo, New York, a place where the American dream, and most daylight, seem to have packed up and left. The first act isn’t shy about wallowing: failed careers, wedding videography as purgatory, those existential miseries reserved for people who schedule their dentist appointments in pen. Paul Rudd’s Griff appears with a harebrained scheme: what if they could simply license their childhood and splice it into one last grand adventure?

If any of this sounds calculated, well, it is. The film leans into its own knowingness so hard it’s a wonder the reel doesn’t snap. What’s more meta than a killer-snake franchise as a vehicle for middle-aged longing? Jokes about chasing awards, dialogue about “themes” shoehorned into a creature feature, and the glazed-eyed declaration—“I LOVE intergenerational trauma!”—that’s either a jab at the genre’s current flavor or an accidental mission statement for movie marketing teams this year.

Except, as tends to happen with nostalgia, the flavor wears thin before the glamour does. The comedy never bites; it gums. When the best most critics can say is that everyone’s in on the schtick, one starts to suspect the playfulness masks a lack of new ideas. Rudd and Black peddle the same charms they’ve sold since flip phones, which is frankly comforting for some and exhausting for others. The word “cozy” gets tossed around a lot, as if to excuse the deja vu by likening it to old holiday cocoa. There’s truth in it—people do love comfort—but perhaps that cocoa’s gone a bit lukewarm by now.

A more persistent aftertaste comes from the sidelining of its women. Thandiwe Newton, Daniela Melchior, Ione Skye: all brilliant, all eschewed for backup. Their dialogue is more functional than flavorful, basically designed to steward the men through a jungle of clichés. Newton’s Claire, in a case study for “talent wasted,” is a shadow lurking behind slapstick and midlife monologues. If it feels familiar, it’s only because Hollywood’s promises to progress seem, in 2025 as much as ever, one step forward, two snakes back.

From here the film gets scrappier—which, to be fair, isn’t the worst look for a creature feature. Chaos unfolds: sweaty boat chases, overzealous snake handlers (Selton Mello earns his pay chomping down every bit of scenery), and snakes that feast with digital precision but little innovation. If the sight of a CGI serpent devouring the hapless doesn’t thrill quite as it did in ‘97, one wonders whether monster-movie magic is now as much about irony as adrenaline. It’s all so calculated that, midway through, one begins to anticipate every jump scare like waiting for a train that’s always five minutes late.

It’s not just the monster that’s recycled—the whole structure is built on studio self-awareness. There’s a moment, barely played for laughs, where we hear that studios see it as a “responsibility” to make more of what already works. According to the now-memeable logic of Universal’s 2025 marketing playbook, that responsibility translates, with only a trace of shame, into greenlighting anything that might get lost in a stack of receipts.

Yet, amidst the in-jokes and routines, buried like a golden egg in the underbrush, is something just sincere enough: the pleasure of friends making art, even if the world has moved on. Yes, it’s a punchline for cynics. But beneath the endless winks, there’s an ache—maybe a little wistfulness for simpler times, like when “Anaconda” was the riskiest Friday night rental, not a case study in franchise fatigue. For anyone still clinging to the fun of late-night movies and improbable dreams, the film extends a gentle, if soggy, branch.

What’s left, in the end, is a gaudy, snake-shaped mirror—reflecting not just Hollywood’s love affair with repetition, but our own. There’s amusement in watching a film this eager to show it’s in on the joke; less amusement when the punchline is, essentially, “This old trick still pays the bills.” It seems that in 2025, the movie-going public is left to decide whether to keep cycling through the familiar, or to demand something that bites with real venom.

Say what you will: in a town where stories eat themselves while collecting applause, perhaps the most Hollywood ending is just that—another loop in a tale that never quite spits out the tail.

Picture this: On Hollywood’s shimmering edge where even mythic symbols start to feel like company men, the ouroboros—once a mystical beast of the ancients—is now more or less a studio exec in a $4,000 suit devouring last quarter’s box office. It’s all starting to look like a snakepit inside a house of mirrors, which probably explains how this new “Anaconda” managed to slither back from 1997 and plant itself, tongue firmly in cheek, at the very place where nostalgia and self-parody entwine.And really, did anyone expect subtlety from a meta-sequel? This go-round, director Tom Gormican (the man behind Nicolas Cage’s meta-odyssey before meta was back in style) dives headlong into the swamp—not just of the Amazon, but of cinema itself. Here’s the setup: Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Thandiwe Newton, and Steve Zahn comprise a gallery of has-beens looking to revive not merely their relevance but their adolescence. The plan? Resurrect “Anaconda,” that gloriously bonkers showcase of reptilian violence and jungle sweat, by retracing faded glory every bit as frantic as a Hollywood trades deadline.The curtain rises with a jittery, genuinely promising escape through tangled Amazon greenery—Daniela Melchior’s Ana Almeida dodges villains, setting an almost earnest tone. Blink, though, and it’s over. Suddenly we’re back in Buffalo, New York, a place where the American dream, and most daylight, seem to have packed up and left. The first act isn’t shy about wallowing: failed careers, wedding videography as purgatory, those existential miseries reserved for people who schedule their dentist appointments in pen. Paul Rudd’s Griff appears with a harebrained scheme: what if they could simply license their childhood and splice it into one last grand adventure?If any of this sounds calculated, well, it is. The film leans into its own knowingness so hard it’s a wonder the reel doesn’t snap. What’s more meta than a killer-snake franchise as a vehicle for middle-aged longing? Jokes about chasing awards, dialogue about “themes” shoehorned into a creature feature, and the glazed-eyed declaration—“I LOVE intergenerational trauma!”—that’s either a jab at the genre’s current flavor or an accidental mission statement for movie marketing teams this year.Except, as tends to happen with nostalgia, the flavor wears thin before the glamour does. The comedy never bites; it gums. When the best most critics can say is that everyone’s in on the schtick, one starts to suspect the playfulness masks a lack of new ideas. Rudd and Black peddle the same charms they’ve sold since flip phones, which is frankly comforting for some and exhausting for others. The word “cozy” gets tossed around a lot, as if to excuse the deja vu by likening it to old holiday cocoa. There’s truth in it—people do love comfort—but perhaps that cocoa’s gone a bit lukewarm by now.A more persistent aftertaste comes from the sidelining of its women. Thandiwe Newton, Daniela Melchior, Ione Skye: all brilliant, all eschewed for backup. Their dialogue is more functional than flavorful, basically designed to steward the men through a jungle of clichés. Newton’s Claire, in a case study for “talent wasted,” is a shadow lurking behind slapstick and midlife monologues. If it feels familiar, it’s only because Hollywood’s promises to progress seem, in 2025 as much as ever, one step forward, two snakes back.From here the film gets scrappier—which, to be fair, isn’t the worst look for a creature feature. Chaos unfolds: sweaty boat chases, overzealous snake handlers (Selton Mello earns his pay chomping down every bit of scenery), and snakes that feast with digital precision but little innovation. If the sight of a CGI serpent devouring the hapless doesn’t thrill quite as it did in ‘97, one wonders whether monster-movie magic is now as much about irony as adrenaline. It’s all so calculated that, midway through, one begins to anticipate every jump scare like waiting for a train that’s always five minutes late.It’s not just the monster that’s recycled—the whole structure is built on studio self-awareness. There’s a moment, barely played for laughs, where we hear that studios see it as a “responsibility” to make more of what already works. According to the now-memeable logic of Universal’s 2025 marketing playbook, that responsibility translates, with only a trace of shame, into greenlighting anything that might get lost in a stack of receipts.Yet, amidst the in-jokes and routines, buried like a golden egg in the underbrush, is something just sincere enough: the pleasure of friends making art, even if the world has moved on. Yes, it’s a punchline for cynics. But beneath the endless winks, there’s an ache—maybe a little wistfulness for simpler times, like when “Anaconda” was the riskiest Friday night rental, not a case study in franchise fatigue. For anyone still clinging to the fun of late-night movies and improbable dreams, the film extends a gentle, if soggy, branch.What’s left, in the end, is a gaudy, snake-shaped mirror—reflecting not just Hollywood’s love affair with repetition, but our own. There’s amusement in watching a film this eager to show it’s in on the joke; less amusement when the punchline is, essentially, “This old trick still pays the bills.” It seems that in 2025, the movie-going public is left to decide whether to keep cycling through the familiar, or to demand something that bites with real venom.Say what you will: in a town where stories eat themselves while collecting applause, perhaps the most Hollywood ending is just that—another loop in a tale that never quite spits out the tail.