‘Anaconda’s’ Terror and Tension Are Nonexistent as the Movie Forgets it’s a Snake Film

“Anaconda” (1997) is another experience I have writing about film criticism where I can see that time changes you. I watched this film years ago—remembered only a handful of scenes—and hated it. No, I haven’t changed gears. I don’t like it nor think it’s much good. But after 15 years of doing this, I’ve seen much worse. Its high points are its setting amidst the Amazon and the acting Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube bring to the table. It’s also atmospheric and adventure filled. But its bad parts are its over-plotting (why can’t it just be an Amazon trip and a killer snake?), Jon Voight’s maddening character Paul Serone, jarring CGI, and its reliance on misinformation and scientific fallacies to add tension. But at its core it’s an action/adventure horror film and probably shouldn’t be taken so seriously. 

The problem with “Anaconda” is that it’s billed improperly. It announces itself as a snake creature feature. The film’s tagline is “If you can’t breathe, you can’t scream.” And it’s true that adult anacondas can kill human adults, yet they rarely do. But still, the prospect is scary, and not everything has to be realistic to be terrifying. But that’s not the movie director Luis Llosa wanted to make. For some reason he and writers Hans Bauer, Jim Cash, and Jack Epps Jr. wanted to make a film about an insane poacher (Voight) who takes a National Geographic-type crew hostage on their way to film Amazon tribespeople on his quest to capture an anaconda. To do this he’ll shoot them, let them die, use them as bait, smear them in monkey blood, etc. But why wasn’t a film about a killer snake just enough? 

‘Anaconda’s Setting is its Strong Suit

The opening of the film is good. Lopez’s character Terri Flores is an aspiring documentary filmmaker. She teams up with Dr. Cale (Erik Stoltz) to trek through the Amazon in search of a reclusive tribe. Along for the ride are some others: Gary Dixon and Denise Kalberg (Owen Wilson and Kari Wuhrer)—basically a horny couple—,the boat captain (Vincent Castellanos), the “money” (a mostly obnoxious Jonathan Hyde), and Danny (Ice Cube), Flores’ cameraman. Voight’s Paul Serone doesn’t join until later. And before this, the movie smartly opens well. We see another poacher (an underused Danny Trejo; he should have been in the film longer) shoot himself in the head rather than be taken by an unseen predator. It sets up a creepy tone. 

And as stated, the setting and production design are good. I enjoyed the rattle-trap of a boat the crew rides down the Amazon on, as well as the way the trees and flora on all sides enveloped them in, with seemingly no escape. The score by Randy Edelman is good; it features droning sounds and tense implications. The cinematography is good as well. Bill Butler captures the scenery well. The film’s use of one scene, showing Voight commandeering the cabin, blackness around him, reminded me of Quint from “Jaws” for some reason.

Tension and Scares Are Absent

However “Anaconda” has very little tension. A film like this had ample opportunity to use sounds, sights unseen, or quick, darting shapes to show us something is out there. “Anacaonda” is more concerned with fallacious anecdotes. The most egregious of these is the myth of the candiru acu, which Cale reports “swims up your urethra and lays eggs.” Not only is this unsubstantiated, Cale denotes the wrong species of candiru that is purported to do this. I guess this is on par with a film that uses CGI to have an anaconda dart at insane speeds and strike its prey with the violence of a rattlesnake. Cale soon becomes incapacitated for the rest of the movie after he enters the water to dislodge their boat, gets stung by a water wasp (“very poisonous,” Serone says slyly) and undergoes a tracheotomy to breathe. Of course, no such wasp really exists, but I suppose this criticism is beside the point. 

The worst parts of “Anaconda” for me are its lack of suspense, scares, and the entire plotting surrounding Serone’s character. As stated above, there’s no tension or buildup to anything that occurs. At times we see the camera moving forward, aka “Jaws” view, but most of the time this doesn’t end up in a snake attack. Additionally, there’s no accompanying music to solidify the horror. When the snake does appear, its movement is rapid and jarring. The CGI clashes with the natural surroundings (“Anaconda” takes place in the Amazonas, Brazil) and the FX resemble something you’d see on TV’s SyFy more than a major motion picture. The snake’s crushing feature—once it wraps around its prey—is well done, but it’s rapid biting was distracting. It’s not venomous and usually swallows its prey whole (not humans of course) and there seems no reason for it. IMDb states the CGI snake cost $100,000 per second to produce, and the rest of the time a dangerous animatronic monstrosity was used. This may explain some of the sloppiness. 

Voight’s Character is ‘Anaconda’s Achilles Heel

But the main problem was Serone, whose villain is comical and annoying. The film would have been better without his character altogether. It reminded me of why I disliked “The Blob” remake. In the original, the alien killer was enough, but in the remake the government was involved in “creating” the creature. “Anaconda” is overwritten and overproduced, and Voight’s character is more villainous than the snake. It takes the fright away from the whole thing. His accent is also comic-book level bad. It feels snarky to point out that Voight was nominated for a ‘Worst Actor’ Razzie Award and ‘Most Annoying Fake Accent’ in the 1997 The Stinkers Bad Movie Awards—but he was. His character sanitizes any fear of the anaconda and basically becomes a superhero that can ward off the entire crew at once. Why Roger Ebert cited his performance as “daring” or that his end “will be remembered wherever great movie exits are treasured”—and gave the movie 3.5 stars—I’ll never know. 

The end of “Anaconda” becomes an endurance test as Serone manages to return no matter what the crew do to him and the snake takes a backseat to his menace. The film’s finale is over-the-top and ridiculous. It includes explosions, plot holes, and an absurd sequence with Voight and the snake which acts as a 4th wall break in a film that had no prior intention of being camp. Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube save the film from failure. They’re both super fun to watch and work well together as a team. Lopez is charming, and Ice Cube gets to homage his own “It Was a Good Day” with his character’s introduction. Stoltz is enjoyable in the few scenes he’s in, but more or less the whole film is Voight’s vehicle. You can probably enjoy “Anaconda” if you can suspend your disbelief and tune out his pestilent character. However, the film isn’t likely to scare you, frighten you, or even keep you overly entertained.