Anaconda (2025) review

Buddies Doug (Jack Black), a wedding videographer, and Griff (Paul Rudd), a small-time actor, decide to fulfill their lifelong dream of making their own version of 1997's Anaconda - with Griff claiming he owns the "rights" to the original - so they take their friends Kenny (Steve Zahn) and Claire (Thandiwe Newton) down to the Amazon rainforest, where they encounter gold thief Ana (Daniela Melchior) and a gigantic snake.  For some moviegoers, the first movie is a "so bad it's actually entertaining" cult item - especially with Jon Voight hamming it up - except here it's trying (and failing miserably) to be "quirky" (with its "meta" approach) and wastes the presence of two superstar comedic talents by giving them absolutely nothing funny to do or say (that is, unless you find Rudd shoving an anaconda into a boat propeller to be a riot).  Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez pop in very briefly as "legacy characters," but that's about as imaginative as it gets.