Review of ANACONDA (2025): A Silly Serpentine Spoof

January 9, 2026

Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Kenny (Steve Zahn), and Claire (Thandiwe Newton) had been close friends since their childhood making amateur films. When they got together at Doug's latest birthday, Griff told them that he owned the film rights to the 1997 action-horror film "Anaconda". As they were all unhappy with their jobs now, they impulsively decided to all go to the Amazon to film a low-budget indie version of their all-time favorite movie.

The gang planned out their script and their shoot carefully, even hiring a snake handler named Santiago (Selton Mello) who had a tame pet anaconda which was perfect for their purposes. They were able to rent a great-looking houseboat to travel on the Amazon River. This was steered by a girl named Ana (Daniela Melchior), whose impressive skills in shooting firearms made Doug include her in their film, much to Griff's annoyance. 

This new "Anaconda" film, co-written and directed by Tom Gormican, is a spoof (not a sequel) of Luis Llosa's "Anaconda" (1997)  This is the third film written and directed by Gormican after "That Awkward Moment" (2014) with Zac Efron, Miles Teller and Michael B. Jordan, and "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent" (2022) with Nicolas Cage and Pedro Pascal. All his three films explore the theme of male friendships tested under stressful situations. 

The humor of this movie was of the silly, slapstick style, mostly care of Black and Zahn. Black's most hilarious scene for me was that crazy macabre one where a boar was strapped on to Doug's back while a squirrel was stuffed into his mouth. Zahn's zaniest scene was that one when Doug's leg was paralyzed by a bite of a poisonous spider, and Kenny had to pee on the wound as an antidote. Kenny's anxieties made this scene way funnier than expected.

Black, Rudd, Zahn and Newton all had a relaxed chemistry between them, making their onscreen friendship fun to watch. The CGI giant snakes did not really look very realistic, but nevertheless what they did to Santiago's rather cute pet anaconda was not funny at all. Admittedly, the comedy was hit and miss, the horror was not really scary, and the action stuff about gold smugglers was a dud. However, the cameos of 1997 actors were a big hit. 6/10

Review of THE HOUSEMAID: The Price of Privilege

January 8, 2025

Millie Calloway (Sydney Sweeney) was dead broke and had just been living in her car for some time. One day, she was unexpectedly hired by Mrs. Nina Winchester (Amanda Seyfried) to be the live-in maid for their elegant  Long Island mansion. When she moved in and was warmly welcomed by Nina and her kind husband Andrew (Brandon Sklenar), Millie thought her days of miserable existence have finally come to an end. Or so she thought.

This convoluted psychological thriller film was directed by Paul Feig from a screenplay written by Rebecca Sonnenshine, adapted from the 2022 novel by Freida McFadden. Feig is known for comedies prominently featuring female characters, like "Bridesmaids" (2011), "The Heat" (2013), or "Ghostbusters" (2016). Despite the ominous plot brewing between its two lead female characters, Feig still managed to inject his new film with a darkly comic tone. 

The first act seemed so straightforward, with three beautiful people sharing one big house, you would logically predict that something sexy and scandalous was afoot. Suddenly, everything turned around one way in the second act, with psychological breakdowns, false accusations. Expository flashbacks to set things straight, but just when you thought you had the story all figured out, the outrageous story twisted yet another way before the end. 

Both Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried played deeply flawed characters, but the actresses played them well enough for audiences to sympathize with them. Sweeney was the obvious underdog, but she was certainly no saint. At first, Seyfried had the more sinister role with all the manipulation and gaslighting Nina was doing. Despite this, she was still able to draw us to her side despite all that, and that is no mean feat.  

The most interesting character in the whole story was actually the guy caught in between the two squabbling ladies -- Andrew. From a casual boy-next-door type photographer in his last film "Drop" (2025), Sklenar had transformed himself this time into a privileged millionaire Casanova with a killer smile and magnetic charisma that was absolutely irresistible to all women, including his mother Evelyn (Elizabeth Perkins). 7/10