The problem with the new version of Anaconda is that it makes sense. I mean, obviously a movie about a small crew of old friends going into the Amazon with a plan to produce a low-budget reboot of the 1997 creature feature Anaconda is going to be a little bit silly, but the four-person crew itself is assembled for comic chemistry, meaning it has a certain comfortable logic and familiarity.
The two leads, Paul Rudd and Jack Black, are exactly the kind of similar-aged comedy actors who feel like they probably know each other, even if they haven’t actually properly co-starred before. They were both in the first Anchorman, though Black’s cameo didn’t involve sharing any screentime with Rudd; they each played a Beatle for a few minutes in Walk Hard; and Rudd briefly appeared in Black’s Year One. Steve Zahn, the movie’s third lead, has actually co-starred with Black, in the 2001 comedy Saving Silverman (what, no one called Jason Biggs for this one?!) and appeared with Rudd in The Object of My Affection. Thandiwe Newton might have a mildly WTF presence as the token girl, but then, traditional boy-driven comedies often have a classier, overqualified actress on hand, and Newton, like her three co-stars, came to prominence in the latter half of the ’90s. The quartet is more or less of a piece.
So much so, in fact, that it’s a little weird that the new movie doesn’t call back (or even mention!) Owen Wilson, one member of the original ensemble who would fit right in with the new crew. (He was in The Big Year and The Cable Guy with Black, and How Do You Know with Rudd. Come to think of it, he’s been off to the side for a lot of stars’ biggest flops. Coincidence?!) He’s just one component of a truly eclectic cast assembled for the original film. The new movie briefly shouts them out (there may even be a winking cameo afoot), but it doesn’t really do justice to a cast that somehow combined the past and future of movies into a movie where a giant snake throws up Jon Voight.
Voight is the old-guard member of the cast, not really advertised as a lead among the hotter, younger up-and-comers but one of the most prominent characters. He plays a madman who tricks a documentary crew into tracking a giant snake that he hopes to capture alive (for profit), and he is also supposedly from Paraguay. Voight had been absent from the screen for much of the ’80s and ’90s; Anaconda was part of a high-profile return that also included parts in Heat and the first Mission: Impossible. Alongside this ’70s icon is Eric Stoltz, who did teen movies in the ’80s before graduating to a lot of indies and character acting in the ’90s – which means a horror movie where he kisses Jennifer Lopez still seems way outside of his wheelhouse.
Yes, Stoltz kisses J. Lo in this movie, which makes it feel as if the space-time continuum is moments away from collapsing, or at least warping considerably. Lopez is one of three then-fresh faces in the cast, alongside Owen Wilson, in just his third movie role ever; and Ice Cube, who was, of course, an established musician and arguably the biggest actual leading-man star in this movie, though still relatively young. The cast is rounded out by actress/model/VJ Kari Wuhrer – who was, at this point in her career, vastly more experienced than Owen Wilson – and, in an early bit part, Danny Trejo. Which means that, like Waiting to Exhale, this movie actually features two cast members from the ensemble of Heat, though not the same two.
Wilson, Lopez, and Cube would all go on to bigger things in the ’00s; really, it’s Stoltz and Wuhrer who feel most authentically ’90s within this cast. No one can accuse Anaconda of not covering its bases; the humans are particularly necessary because this movie slithered to life just as CG effects were commonplace enough to depend on, but not good enough to stand on their own. This means that the movie toggles between pretty cool snake puppet/animatronics and a computer-generated snakes that whip around the frame doing acrobatic stunts like they just escaped from ToonTown.
The snake stuff is fun enough, though there’s not much playful build-up to its appearance. What lends Anaconda genuine unpredictability in retrospect is its clash of uncertain personas. Though Wilson’s part is odd – a horny documentary crew member who briefly falls into a Renfield-like thrall of Voight’s character – he nonetheless includes some extremely Owen Wilson-y line readings and phrasings that suggest he was still able to mold the dialogue in his self-interested-surfer image. Lopez, with over-tweezed eyebrows and beautiful curly hair, has presence that hasn’t quite blossomed into full movie-star resilience (though it’s kind of neat to see her before a diva’s self-regard took over for so many later roles). Cube feels pretty close to fully-formed, though he looks more baby-faced even with his trademark sneer. Stoltz seems uncertain of how straight to play it; Voight knows in his bones that this movie will benefit from his hammiest instincts.
As a result, Anaconda is more memorable as a strange gathering than an 89-minute sorta-horror movie. The new movie attempts to pay tribute to the idea of making movies together with your friends. This definitely distinguishes it from the original, which pays accidental tribute to how many movies wind up feeling like a product of random, semi-inexplicable chance.
Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.