A movie about a group of filmmakers remaking the 1997 “classic” Anaconda and it stars Jack Black and Paul Rudd?

Yeah, I’m going to watch that.

That’s not sarcasm. When I watched the first trailer, I thought the idea was hilarious. A mate and I even talked about going to the movies to watch it. Unfortunately, I was travelling when it was out.

After watching Anaconda, I’m kind of glad we didn’t.

The draw for me was the group of friends getting back together to recreate the “magic” of the first film. Paul Rudd stars as a struggling actor who’s tired of playing throwaway roles like Doctor #3. Jack Black plays a wedding videographer with big creative visions, but his clients just want something simple and romantic. Steve Zahn and Thandiwe Newton round out the crew as old filmmaking buddies who've also moved on with their lives.

One day, Paul Rudd’s character says he’s bought the rights to Anaconda and wants to reboot it. The gang get back together, head to the Amazon rainforest to shoot it and hilarity ensues.

There’s just one problem, and it isn’t a gigantic snake stalking their every move. It’s a separate storyline that follows another character on the run from the locals. She ends up pretending to be the boat operator, and her story gets mixed up with the reboot plot. This part I was less interested in. While I was watching it, I think my face looked like the Jon Voight meme from the original film.

Thankfully, the subplot plays out about halfway through and the movie gets back to the laughs.

For a comedy/action movie, the acting was better than I expected. Jack Black played more of a straight-man. He wasn’t the chicken jockey guy or Nacho Libre. For most of the film, he was pretty calm and collected. Thandiwe Newton was also a standout. She was a lot more soft-spoken than her character in Westworld, and it worked.

There were also some nice callbacks to the original Anaconda. I don’t want to spoil them all, but make sure you watch the post-credit scene.

That’s if you watch Anaconda at all. It’s hard for me to recommend it. You need to sit through half a movie before it gets good. It only goes for 99 minutes, but the opening scene sets up the storyline I didn’t care for.

There are a few funny moments scattered through the action in the first half, so I wouldn't say skip to the middle, even though the plot is thin and you can probably catch up fast.

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