Despite negative reviews upon its 1997 release, Anaconda grew into a box office success, a cult classic, and the start of a long-running franchise. While I did not get a review copy of the new 4K Ultra HD Steelbook, I couldn’t help but watch the film on Netflix ahead of Sony’s new meta-reboot starring Paul Rudd and Jack Black.

A documentary crew led by Terri Flores (Jennifer Lopez) journeys deep into the Amazon to film the elusive Shirishama tribe. Alongside cameraman Danny Rich (Ice Cube), narrator Warren Westridge (Jonathan Hyde), anthropologist Steven Cale (Eric Stoltz), and others, the group picks up a stranded snake hunter, Paul Serone (Jon Voight). Though Serone claims he can help, his domineering behavior and fixation on local legends unsettle Terri and the rest of the team, especially after Cale is incapacitated and Serone seizes control of their expedition.

As the crew presses on, they realize Serone’s true goal is capturing a massive anaconda he has been tracking with their skipper Mateo (Vincent Castellanos). Attempts to restrain Serone fail, and the group is soon battling both the hunter’s obsession and the enormous predator itself. Several members fall victim to the creature, and betrayals—including Serone manipulating Gary Dixon (Owen Wilson)—further tear the team apart.

Terri and Danny eventually manage to kill the first anaconda, but Serone returns and forces them into a final confrontation with an even larger female. His plan backfires when the snake turns on him, leaving Terri and Danny to finish the job themselves in a fiery showdown. Exhausted but alive, the pair escapes the river with a recovering Cale, determined to salvage what’s left of their original mission.

A film about a documentary film crew in the Amazon rainforest searching for a lost tribe sounds admirable at first. Until everything goes wrong, at which point it falls into laughably absurd territory when they find themselves hijacked and forced to chase after an anaconda. Years later, it sounds like this would be the subject of a SyFy movie. Surprisingly, this wasn’t the case. However, some of its later sequels would go on to air on SyFy.

Let’s face it. Anaconda is not a great movie. It’s not even in the so-bad-it’s-good category. It’s one of the worst movies ever made, and I’ve somehow managed to sit through Cats against all odds. Anyway, it was panned so badly upon release that it’s honestly surprising it managed to launch a franchise. Until the other day, I hadn’t watched the film since seeing it in theaters during the summer of 1997. It does not hold up whatsoever. The visual effects are terrible. But more than all that, what surprised me most was how I had forgotten the bulk of the cast. Obviously, I remembered that it was about a large man-eating snake, but that was the extent of it.

Voight not only delivers one of the campiest performances of his career but does so with an accent he has no business using on screen. I couldn’t quite pick up on what it was, but the synopsis for the 4K UHD release points out that he is a Paraguayan guide. Which begs the question of why he was allowed to use it or why somebody else wasn’t cast in the role instead. It’s laughably bad, and it’s not an understatement to say that he somehow can’t even commit to using it for the entirety of his appearance in Anaconda. At other times, he shifts into what sounds like an Italian accent.

Anaconda is a stunning train wreck of a movie that fails at tension, logic, and even basic competence.

DIRECTOR: Luis Llosa
SCREENWRITERS: Hans Bauer and Jim Cash & Jack Epps Jr.
CAST: Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Jon Voight, Eric Stoltz, Jonathan Hyde, Owen Wilson, Kari Wuhrer, Vincent Castellanos, Danny Trejo

Columbia Pictures released Anaconda in theaters on April 11, 1997. Grade: 1/5

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