We’re living in a world of reboots and legacy sequels — which isn’t likely to change with 2026’s movie releases — but at least with Jack Black and Paul Rudd’s latest adventure, we can expect a remake that’s wildly different from the original. Anaconda centers around buddies who set out to film an amateur version of the 1997 cult classic, only to happen upon their own serpentine killer. Critics have seen the movie, and they mostly agree it’s not as much fun as it thinks it is.
Along with Paul Rudd and Jack Black, the upcoming action movie stars Steve Zahn and Thandiwe Newton, and adding to the meta-ness of it all, Ice Cube makes his return. Moviegoers’ first reactions praised it for its comedy and surprising amount of heart, but Matt Donato of IGN is definitely not a fan, giving the movie a “Bad” 4 out of 10 for making a mockery out of the beloved, perfectly cheesy 1997 original. For such an outside-the-box concept, Anaconda reads generic, with potty humor, overplayed needledrops and Tropic Thunder-esque pyrotechnics. Donato says:
A cast of proven funny people are lost in a thick brush of hacky bits and ineffective storytelling, unable to machete their way through to a redeeming climax. There are brief bursts of creature-feature excitement and belly-tickling humor, but way more stretches of bafflingly unclear ambitions that feel like they're struggling to keep the ‘movie within a movie’ gimmick afloat. It's Anaconda without the aqua-horror chills, throwback practical effects, and midnight-movie entertainment—what an odd choice.
William Bibbiani of The Wrap says the big-budget remake feels like it’s punching down at the actual Anaconda sequels and those who enjoy them. If you’re going to make a movie about how ridiculous the 1997 movie is, Bibbiani says, you have to actually be better than it and its sequels. Instead we get potty humor and side plots that go nowhere and aren’t fun. The critic concludes:
This new Anaconda is so busy talking about how silly it is to make a new Anaconda that it never actually makes a good Anaconda. Meanwhile, at least half of the schlocky, unironic straight-to-video sequels just went out there and made a low-budget Anaconda and got away with it. They were cheap and trashy but they were honest films, never pretending they were more than what they were, whereas Gormican’s Anaconda is big and expensive and never comes across as sincere. Not even sincerely silly.
David Ehrlich of IndieWire rates the meta-sequel a C, calling it a “soggy first draft” that is so “shoddily made” that it completely undermines the fun that it’s meant to celebrate. Ehrlich does, however, enjoy that there are two jokes made at Jon Voight’s expense. The critic writes:
There are worse things than watching Black, Rudd, and Zahn play three gormless morons on a mid-life misadventure, but almost every scene and setpiece is constructed with a haphazardness that blunders away their charm. The dysfunction is on full display from the total ‘huh?’ of a prologue, and it only gets worse when our heroes’ DIY creature feature is suddenly upended by the appearance of a real anaconda (and by ‘a real anaconda’ I, of course, mean ‘a CGI behemoth so fake-looking it makes the snake from the original seem photorealistic by comparison’).
It’s not all bad, though. Liz Shannon Miller of Consequence says it’s OK for a movie to just be funny without digging too deep. The critic gives the movie a B, admitting that it’s far less scary than the original, purposely trading horror for laughs. Miller writes:
There are touches throughout Anaconda that stretch believability. … However, it’s also a movie that invites you to put aside such concerns and just enjoy the antics. Going into the specifics of how Doug ends up running for his life from a giant snake with a dead pig duct-taped to his back doesn’t make that visual any funnier. It’s just funny. That, coupled with some sincere sentiment about chasing your dreams and believing in your friends, makes Anaconda a silly yet successful enough distraction from the holiday chaos. A gag gift from someone who cares.
As a fan of 1997’s Anaconda, I’m pretty disappointed to read that critics aren’t enjoying this reboot. With 76 critics weighing in on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of this writing, only 50 percent have given the movie a positive score. However, there’s no denying Jack Black and Paul Rudd’s comedic potential, so if this is a title you’ve been looking forward to, don’t let the critics stop you!
Anaconda is in theaters now.
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