There’s been a serious dearth of great comedies on the big screen in recent years. Watching a really funny comedy in a packed theater, laughing along with a huge crowd, is one of the best moviegoing experiences you can have: Borat, Bridesmaids, Tropic Thunder. But today, a lot of comedies go straight to streaming with derivative jokes, bloated runtimes, and the kind of sloppiness that goes hand-in-hand with second-screen entertainment, and the ones that go to theaters tend to be action comedies like Deadpool or horror comedies like Ready or Not 2 — there are very few straightforward comedies playing at multiplexes.
Anaconda was largely panned by critics, garnering a “rotten” 47% score on Rotten Tomatoes, so I went in with low expectations. But it’s telling that the movie’s Popcornmeter score is a much higher 75%, because I had a great time. This isn’t a movie made for critics; it’s a movie made for audiences, and the audience I was in loved it. Anaconda doesn’t want to do anything more than make you laugh as hard and as often as possible, and there aren’t enough movies like that getting made anymore — and now, you can watch it on Netflix.
Anaconda Is A Hilarious Blend Of Monster Movie Magic & Self-Aware, Self-Effacing Satire
Anaconda stars Paul Rudd and Jack Black as two childhood best friends who grew up dreaming of making it big in Hollywood, but whose dreams haven’t quite panned out. Rudd is an actor playing bit parts and doing commercials, while Black is a wedding videographer who lives out his horror B-movie dreams through his clients’ monster-infested wedding videos. In the midst of a midlife crisis, they decide to take some friends and some camera equipment deep into the jungle so they can remake their favorite movie: Anaconda. But when they get there, they find themselves living out their own Anaconda nightmare.
The movie is a hilarious blend of classic monster movie and self-effacing send-up. It’s an affectionate spoof of the Anaconda films, but it’s also an affectionate love letter to the franchise, and to the entire genre as a whole. It’s wall-to-wall sight gags, one-liners, references, and comic situations. They don’t all land, but enough of them land to keep you laughing through all 99 minutes of the film’s nice, brisk runtime. Steve Zahn and Thandiwe Newton give hysterical supporting turns alongside Rudd and Black, creating a solid ensemble dynamic. The critics were wrong on this one; Anaconda is a delightful movie.
Paul Rudd & Jack Black Are A Comedy Dream Team
Rudd and Black make for a comedy dream team in the lead roles of Anaconda. Their on-screen chemistry is so electric, and the fun they’re having is so infectious, that the movie flies by. A well-matched comedic double act can carry a comedy movie to greatness: Steve Martin and John Candy in Planes, Trains; Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels in Dumb and Dumber; Ayo Edebiri and Rachel Sennott in Bottoms. Even an unoriginal, uninspired comedy can rise to the level of greatness with the right pairing of actors, like Robert Downey, Jr. and Zach Galifianakis in Due Date.
English (US) ·