Anaconda (2025) Review: They Forgot the Horror in Horror-Comedy

Hello friends. I am going to review the movie Anaconda. If you are going to watch the movie Anaconda, you have to keep two things in mind before going to the theater. One, you have to go with an open mind to laugh a lot. And two, you must have seen the classic Anaconda, the old Anaconda, the one we grew up watching. Only then will you enjoy the movie.

Now let’s come to the story and the positive and negative aspects.

Story Overview

If I explain the story very simply, there is a struggling director (the role played by Jack Black) and a struggling actor (the role played by Paul Rudd). These two are trying together to make a remake of the classic old Anaconda. While making the remake, what kinds of problems they face, ultimately they are not able to make the remake, they are not able to — this whole movie is about that. Just one and a half hours runtime.

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Positive & Negative Aspects

Now what are the positive aspects of this movie. First of all, as I said, if you have seen the old Anaconda, the amount you will laugh — the references they have given there, the meta references, they are so funny, they will make you laugh so much. You will hold your stomach laughing. For me, every single comedy moment here worked. Whether it’s the first half or the second half, wherever they tried to make us laugh, it all worked for me. I enjoyed it. There are so many comedy moments here.

Jack Black is outstanding in comedy. The chemistry between Paul Rudd and Jack Black here really works. In their performances, you can see that struggle of theirs. The situations they get stuck in, seeing their struggle makes us laugh — you can see that struggle. Both of them have performed so beautifully, so authentically. They performed in such a pathetic way, yet their characters feel heavy too. Their performances are very good. The look and feel is good. Shot in the jungle, a lot of money has clearly been spent. It’s a comedy movie, but they have at least tried to give the feel of the old Anaconda in the look and feel. That’s why I’m only talking about look and feel for now, the rest I’ll come to later. But just in look and feel, they tried to give that Anaconda vibe. So the look and feel feels premium, it looks good. These were more or less the positive aspects.

Now you might think — you laughed so much, yet why are there only these few positive points, why aren’t there more positive points. The reason is — I went to watch Anaconda. Okay, they promoted it as a horror-comedy. Comedy is full-on here, no doubt, but where is the horror? I went to watch an Anaconda, they are giving references to the old Anaconda, so from the old Anaconda they are taking references and adding comic elements here.

Meaning, they are taking references from the old Anaconda and adding comic elements to it. But in a horror-comedy, there should also be horror, right? You didn’t promote it just as a comedy movie. You promoted it as a horror-comedy. So then where is the horror here? Where are the tension moments? It’s just comedy.

The movie is not just about me focusing only on comedy. Besides comedy, there are other things in a movie, right? Here, watching the snake, seeing the snake should bring some feeling of fear or some edge-of-the-seat moments, tension moments should build — where the snake is doing all kinds of chaos, edge-of-the-seat moments should build — but those moments don’t even build. After a point, when the movie has already shown you what the story is, after showing you the story, there is nothing new left in the movie. Right from the beginning it tells you the story, and after that everything becomes very regular, very simple. You are just enjoying the comedy or enjoying the action in between. Basically the action is not even that serious kind of action. You are enjoying the comedy through the action. Apart from that, what else is there to enjoy in the movie.

After that I was just sitting and watching — it’s making me laugh, I’m laughing. But when you come out of the theater, you will feel like — actually what was the story? Meaning, in the story they only showed comedy. There is no horror in it, no edgy moments. Those things are not working. Just because it’s a comedy movie, does that mean there will be absolutely no emotion? This movie is emotionless. Nowhere does emotion work. And even the places where they tried to make emotion work, I didn’t feel it worked. If they had tried and succeeded, there would still be something. Here they didn’t even try for emotion. They focused only on comedy. That they will only show comedy, everything will be kept funny, but we won’t work on the other things. No such twists and turns, no such surprise in the climax, no such thing where people laugh and at the same time feel emotional, or laugh and at the same time feel the thrill, laugh and at the same time feel the fear. There is nothing like that. Not even a little bit.

So I felt — why focus only on laughter? When you are trying to give the vibe of the old Anaconda through the look and feel (as I said earlier, they tried to give that vibe through look and feel). But its essence — that seriousness or that horror portion, those emotional parts — you don’t touch any of them at all. Why? You are just showing everything in a comedy way. Why? The comedy works very well, performances are very good, in look and feel they tried to keep the essence, but in treatment that essence is missing.

That’s where I felt — this is a good movie for those who go with an empty mind, who think I won’t think about anything, won’t understand anything, won’t know anything, I will just laugh. As I said at the very beginning — you have to know how to laugh. If you go keeping your mind empty and just laugh, then you can check out the movie in the theater. You can’t go with too many expectations for this movie. Go with low expectations, go thinking I will just laugh. Then you will be able to enjoy it.

This was the review of the movie Anaconda.

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