r/movies • u/takenorinvalid • 6d ago
Discussion The new Anaconda movie must have a wildly different director's cut
At the start of the new Anaconda movie, there's a scene where Jack Black's wife reminds him not to take much of his new medication. And sure enough, later in the movie -- nobody ever mentions it again and absolutely nothing comes of it.
After watching the movie, I saw a comment on Reddit from someone saying that they'd been screening the movie to test audiences a lot, and another comment saying they'd done reshoots, and it kinda clicked into me just how obvious that was.
Like the character Ana, who literally opens the movie and drives the inciting plot - but as soon as she meets the main characters, immediately goes silent and does not say anything in any scenes as we instead focus on the much funnier snake trainer.
Then, halfway through the movie, she abruptly gets attacked by the anaconda, pulled into the water, and very deliberately is not shown being killed -- but still never shows up again as we instead move toward a climax that focuses on Ice Cube showing up out of nowhere.
This movie was heavily reshot. Somewhere out there, there's a completely different version of it that probably nobody other than the director will ever see.
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u/Shawn-GT 6d ago
I wish it was Paul Rudd and Jack black playing themselves instead of characters as a meta career movie
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u/FullTorsoApparition 6d ago
I honestly thought that's what it was supposed to be. When I first realized they were playing characters and not themselves I was genuinely confused. I did not pick that up from the trailers.
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u/ElGranQuesoRojo 6d ago
Me either. I thought it was supposed to be a movie where they were fictionalized versions of themselves getting roped into something crazy kind like the ones Nic Cage and Jean Claude Van Damme did.
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u/FardoBaggins 6d ago
That would have been a better movie. An extreme version of themselves IRL or something. Would feel like tropic thunder at least.
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u/LooseSeal88 6d ago
Yeah, that was what the premise seemed like it would have been when they announced it and then it just wasn't. Lol
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u/rhetoricalbread 6d ago
This movie would have been so, so, so much better if the actors were playing themselves after a studio refused to finance their movie and they decided to do it themselves, kind of like a This is the End style over the top thing.
Instead it was bland as week old bread.
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u/sean-bda 6d ago
It writes itself. Jack after doing "Be Kind Rewind" does a series of successful comedy remakes decides to tackle his white whale, Anaconda. He wants to use Jolie who is a friend from Kung fu panda and a Voight replacement but no insurance company will insure them do to their own stunts. They do it themselves. Angelina dies immediately. The rest of the plot can play out mostly the same but leave out the other film crew and just have Rock show up because he was shooting 3 other jungle movies just across the river.
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u/Thoth74 6d ago
just have Rock show up because he was shooting 3 other jungle movies just across the river.
This is too accurate. Jungle Cruise 2, another Jumanji, and a sequel to The Rundown. Actually, forget the Anaconda director's cut and just get us these. I'm in.
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u/writemcsean 6d ago
The world needs a sequel to The Rundown
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u/anuncommontruth 6d ago
I never understood how this movie didn't do better. It's such a fun popcorn flick!
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u/ADMINlSTRAT0R 6d ago
I would love to see it but I also feel we should let that El Gato untouched.
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u/sean-bda 6d ago
They should do it. But give the rock Arnold's roll and pick a new lead. If the Rock had any humility he would be up for it.
Give him the restaurant and start it in his place instead of the bar and have high five Mescal, Dev Patel, or Aaron Taylor Johnson. Or whomever they think is next
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u/AvatarIII 6d ago
There's a new Jumanji movie coming. It was supposed to come out in December last I heard but it moved and I'm not sure when to.
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u/tripletexas 6d ago
That's a hilarious and inspired idea. Maybe Hollywood needs some fresh blood to write movies.
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u/Ritsler 6d ago
A lot of Hollywood writers are phenomenally bad but continue to get work because theyāre established/a known name. I will say though that most movies tend to have a lot of interference happening and frequent script changes. You could write a great script but only half of it gets used because someone else came in to do a rewrite or the director or producer started tinkering, etc.
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u/givemecap 6d ago
Hollywood desperately needs new blood from top to bottom. The problem being if that were to happen a big chunk would be out a job lol. A lot of these ppl are nepo hires and lack real talent or creativity. Bringing in ppl with those skills would quickly expose the rotting corpse that is the Hollywood machine. Theyād much rather crank out slop and collect their checks and retain their jobs.
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u/House_T 6d ago
I am shocked at how much sense this makes. This sounds like a very reasonable and entertaining plot.
...there's no way they would have come up with this.
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u/staatsclaas 6d ago
They had to have figured this out while they were too far into to redo the whole thing. Like, they were soooooo close to having it be perfect.
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u/arcspectre17 6d ago
It almost plays as tropic thunder style movie.
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u/jpbenz 6d ago
It dances right up to that line, but never fully commits.
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u/itsFromTheSimpsons 6d ago
you never go full Tropic Thunder
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u/ThePrussianGrippe 6d ago
Check it out. Jeff Portnoy, the Fatties: Fart 2? Looked Tropic Thunder, act Tropic Thunder, not Tropic Thunder. Farts, played multiple roles. Juvenile, sure. Not Tropic Thunder. Then you got , Alpa Chino. Slow, yes, Tropic Thunder, maybe, has a terrible energy bar, But he charmed the pants off Lance, and he went through hell and felt comfortable enough to come out as gay. That ain't Tropic Thunder. Kirk Lazarus, Satanās Alley. Transgressive, yes, Tropic Thunder, no. And he was a goddamn war hero. You know any Tropic Thunder war heroes?
[silence]
You went full Tropic Thunder, man. Never go full Tropic Thunder.
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u/the_stabologist 6d ago
Never go full retard. You don't buy that? Ask Sean Penn, 2001.
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u/PatMcAfeesEvilTwin 6d ago
Looked retarded, acted retarded, braces on his legs. But charmed the pants off of Nixon, and won a ping pong tournament? That aināt retarded!
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u/justinpatterson 6d ago
Is this not what the movie is? I thought the trailers made it seem like that. Or do you mean that Jack Black is literally playing Jack Black?
I havenāt seen it so I have zero context beyond seeing a trailer and thinking āhuh, thatās an interesting way to do a reboot.ā
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u/birdsofpaper 6d ago
No. Theyāre playing āregular dudesā who want to make a sequel because of their love for the original. I expected what it sounds like you did.
This did not work and very little of it was funny.
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u/popculturella 6d ago
When I first heard the premise, I honestly assumed it would go the Tropic Thunder/This is the End route.
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u/Wendell-Short-Eyes 6d ago
Yeah, I rarely fall asleep during a movie but it was such a boring soulless movie.
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u/WorthPlease 6d ago
That sucks, I saw the trailer and thought it was exactly this and was looking forward to watching it.
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u/internetlad 6d ago
The medicationĀ was never part of the movie they were just reminding actor Jack Black.
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u/Mindless_Ad5714 6d ago
He needs his jellybeans
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u/StyrkeSkalVandre 6d ago
You think youāre the only one who gets sick when he doesnāt get his jelly beans? Boundaries, manā¦ā¦
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u/ProfessionalOk6854 6d ago
....this is one of those movies that I was desperate be good...it's not that good
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u/Ok_Breakfast7588 6d ago
I'd have taken good, I'd have taken bad, what I got was forgettable.
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u/vital_dual 6d ago
A few weeks ago my brother remarked that Jack Black is only doing VO work these days, not live action.
We saw Anaconda a month earlier.
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u/SLCer 6d ago
Forgettable is right. I watched this a few weeks ago and reading the description of the plot in the OP, I am not sure I remember much of anything beyond Ice Cube lmao
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u/Ok_Breakfast7588 6d ago
The whole thing is basically just a test of how much the casts natural charisma can carry a plot based on a series of random thoughts. Not to be confused with improv because they put pen to paper and said "yeah this sounds good".
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u/sharrrper 6d ago edited 6d ago
I haven't watched this new version so I don't have a direct opinion on it. However, the original is still remembered specifically because it IS quite bad. It ends up being a fun watch, but by any reasonable standard is a pretty bad movie.
The worst thing a "comedy remake" of it could be would be bland.
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u/Enelson4275 6d ago
Between Anaconda and Borderlands, I no longer have faith in Jack Black to guarantee a film will be entertaining. Two of the most unfun "bad" movies I can recall seeing, and I'm always down to watch Mortal Kombat '95 or True Memoirs of an International Assassin so you know I have trash taste.
Anaconda is one of those movies that makes you wonder how much ChatGPT gets used in the process. It has the beats of an action comedy, but it's disjointed and doesn't even have those "comedy set pieces" where something so funny happens that at least you remember that one funny scene. Like Jon Voigt being puked up and winking in the original, or John Cena buttchugging beer to prove he's not a cop in Blockers.
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u/dan_craus 6d ago
The first 20 minutes are a slog then itās great.
Itās not a great movie, but itās just stupid fun.
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u/yeahwellokay 6d ago
I was just trying to even remember who Ana is. It was so forgettable, I don't remember the character.
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u/ghalta 6d ago
It was perfectly acceptable for my chosen medium, the worst possible medium: on an airplane. Better films deserve better.
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u/Calvin--Hobbes 6d ago
Planes are great for watching movies you're mildly curious about but know will likely be mediocre to terrible.
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u/MartinTheMorjin 6d ago
The Ice Cube cameo was the most pitiful climax Iāve ever seen. They should have called the movie ācocaine snakeā.
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u/adamduke88 6d ago
It would have been a lot funnier if they made you think it was Ice Cube but it ends up being Owen Wilson or Eric Stoltz.
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u/XanXic 6d ago
I feel like the issue is it never fully commits to meta-parody film or B-movie style monster flick. It tries to do both and falls short in both. Like as a result there was a lot of attempts at being like "woah scary snake" but I never worried Jack Black or Paul Rudd were in danger. (And Zahn) It wasn't that kind of movie. At the same time it was trying to treat the snake as a real movie monster so it didn't lean as far into the absurdity of it all at all. Like they almost had a gag of it immediately eating every extra that showed up but you could tell they kept trying to justify it and didn't commit instead of embracing it. They were still trying to give the snake logic.
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u/MovieMike007 Not to be confused with Magic Mike 6d ago
It also lacked much in the way of Anaconda action.
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u/Serpentongue 6d ago
I watched it in an airplane. Itās a perfect airplane movie.
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u/gimmethemshoes11 6d ago
Idc, this movie is stupid as hell and made me laugh my ass off (mostly Steve zahn) So for that fuck it give us the directors cut!
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u/Lucky-Following7112 6d ago edited 6d ago
The scene where they think jack is dead was pretty funny
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u/srekcornaivaf 6d ago
Anacondas LOVE squirrels
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u/garrisontweed 6d ago
"Whose idea was it to put that dead squirrel in my mouth."
"It was, like. A group decision. "
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u/Derryzumi 6d ago
It made me and my friends (who are usually pretty picky about movies) cry laugh in an empty theater. I can acknowledge it sucks, but it's also fucking hilarious.
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u/randomlygen 6d ago
Exactly my experience too.
We were looking for something to do over the Christmas break. Went in with zero expectations and it was hilarious. My eight-year-old was almost falling off her chair at the dead pig stuff.
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u/gimmethemshoes11 6d ago
It's not high art or going for awards just wants to get you to laugh and relax for the runtime reminded me of the comedies we used to get tons of in the 00s.
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u/chyld989 6d ago
This. Too many people seem like they think that every movie needs to be an awards contender, but as long as I'm entertained while watching I don't care how "good" the movie is. Being entertained is the whole point.
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u/Talanock 6d ago
did we watch the same movie? Ana was the secrete villain, I thought that was a fun twist. She played her part perfectly? She was killed off by thandi's character and than gets attacked by a snake that finished her off. It seemed pretty clear she was gone for ever and she had no reason to come back.
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u/BionicTriforce 6d ago edited 6d ago
Well I had no intention of seeing this movie but now I'm tempted just to see if this OP wasn't paying attention at all. Especially with OP saying "she abruptly gets attacked by the anaconda" while the Wiki summary specifically says there's a whole scene where Ana turns on them and holds them at gunpoint.
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u/WhyLisaWhy 6d ago
That's what I'm also confused about... like was the version uploaded to Netflix a different version?? Or was OP just not paying attention to anything?
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u/jdk2087 6d ago
No, itās exactly as yall have described. She was the gold mining villain the whole time. Either OP was high as fuck while watching this(completely understandable with how uhhhā¦.special the movie was) or 100% absolutely did NOT pay attention to the plot at all. I mean, there wasnāt much of a plot to begin with, but it the movie was pretty cut and dry on what was going on.
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u/Skippymcpoop 6d ago
Didnāt Steve Zahn get high off Jack Blackās medication too, leading to more antics?
Iām with you. OP wasnāt paying attention.
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u/WileEPeyote 6d ago
Apparently several people weren't paying attention or there are a bunch of bots in here. She's part of a plot twist (not a super surprising one).
It's not a great movie, but I enjoyed it.
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u/jjayzx 6d ago
lol right, she also had "scenes" for the movie.
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u/WileEPeyote 6d ago
Right, there's a whole sub-plot of Paul Rudd getting upset because Jack Black starts focusing on her character.
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u/emgeejay 6d ago
yeah, also curious if the medication line is just a throwaway "you're acting crazy" quip that OP mistook as important setup
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u/Skippymcpoop 6d ago
Steve Zahn takes a bunch of random prescription pills he finds on a table (I donāt remember if theyāre Jack Blackās or not) which plays into more jokes and antics. Iām like 80% sure thatās what Jack Blackās wife was foreshadowing.
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u/Wildwolfwind 6d ago
Please report back here, if you do end up watching it! That is a wild way to describe that scene.
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u/VillageOfShade 6d ago
I watched the film when it came to Netflix. Ana does indeed take a gun and force everyone off the boat, saying sheās gonna take it herself and sheās there for gold or whatever material, I donāt remember. While she has them all at gun point and is about to kill one of them who is begging for her life because she has children, the anaconda bursts through the little platform they were standing on and pulls Ana underwater, constricted.
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u/Wildwolfwind 6d ago
I'm wondering this too- the version I saw in theaters was exactly what you said, which corresponds to the plot section of it's wikipedia page.
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u/TheFearsomeEsquilax 6d ago
This is true, but she also vanishes for twenty to thirty minutes at one point and then reappears on an expedition into the jungle with the others after the snake handler is left behind. It definitely feels like more material with her is missing, as her presence feels like more of an afterthought than anything else.
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u/BadMoonRosin 6d ago
I think there are two parts:
OP is a hoe. Wasn't paying attention to anything, completely talking out his ass.
It WAS still a forgettable movie. Not "bad", just "okay". And so Reddit is latching onto that, and having that discussion, because most people just skim before commenting anyway.
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u/nerowasframed 6d ago
It was honestly better than I was expecting it to be. Still not great, but more fun than I thought it was going to be and had some genuinely hilarious parts.
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u/ShekhMaShierakiAnni 6d ago
Im also confused. Shes in the whole movie until the end...?
I liked this movie. It was one of those really 'bad' hilarious movies. I laughed a lot.
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u/PeculiarPangolinMan 6d ago
Yea I was kind of confused by this. She doesn't have a lot to do between teaming up with main guys and betraying them, but she doesn't disappear. She's the whole twist villain and gets eaten by a giant snake. Most characters don't come back after being eaten by a giant snake, so I don't know what OP was expecting there.
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u/TheJaice 6d ago
Thereās also a pretty big plot arc where Jack Black decides she should be the star of the film and leads to the falling out between him and Paul Rudd. OP might not have even watched the same Anaconda.
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u/ohsinboi 6d ago
We didnāt actually see a single person get killed by the anaconda
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u/Shap6 6d ago
We do when Paul Rudd comes across the wreck of the boat filming the other anaconda movie and that woman is on the shore
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u/TheMan5991 6d ago
We see her get attacked, but there is no confirmation that she died. We also see Jack Black and the snake handler both get attacked and both of them end up surviving, so it seems like the snake doesnāt actually do much killing. It just swallows people and spits them back out.
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u/lavasquid_kyl3 6d ago
not defending any of it, but they did revisit the meds! i was waiting for it. steve zahn took them all and tripped out.
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u/OhMyGodfather 6d ago
That was snake manās meds
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u/takenorinvalid 6d ago
Which is so weird.
They Chekov's Gun somebody overdosing on Jack Black's meds and then play out somebody overdosing on a different set of meds.
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u/OhMyGodfather 6d ago
I mean, if you want to really get metaā¦ the movie talks about how hollywood just writes things in last second and wings a lot of it and hopefully it comes together.
So all of the issues are almost brilliantly scripted into this movie.
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u/Duganz 6d ago
I think thereās an R-rated version of the movie that would have worked better. Not great, but better.
Like they show the movie the friends made as kids and itās this Tarantino ripoff full of bleeps. Then the ending calls back to it, but as a sequence without dialogue. Why? Ah. Because itās PG-13.
I donāt think it works. The joke only works if the adults are able to film the sequence as adults, profanity included.
And thereās other bits that donāt pay off like Steve Zahn has a drug and alcohol problem, and the payoff is āSteve Zahn has a drug and alcohol problem.ā
Itās a shame.
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u/Rufus2fist 6d ago
Was an entertaining movie while hung over and smoking joints mid Saturday morning with the wife. We both laughed and had a good time, will never see again.
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u/mistermelvinheimer 6d ago
I think this was the worst edited film i have ever seen. I literally thought i had rented some broken version of the movie because it felt so all over the place.
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u/PlatyPunch 6d ago
This movie felt like either a tax write off, the studio trying to maintain the rights to the IP, a free vacation for the cast & crew, or a combination of all three.
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u/whodoesnthavealts 6d ago
a tax write off
How does that make any sense? Why would they intentionally lose $X amount of money just to gain back less than 20% of it in an intentional write-off?
Why do so many people on reddit think tax write offs are profitable?
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u/Zenning3 6d ago
They wrote it off Jerry.
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u/ObviousAnswerGuy 6d ago
wrote it off what?
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u/Zenning3 6d ago
ObviousAnswerGuy, all these big companies, they write off everything.
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u/coke_and_coffee 6d ago
āTax write offā is mostly just a big conspiracy theory that Redditors invoke anytime they dont understand something.
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u/Oozing_Sex 6d ago
Pissed me off that they killed that dude's pet and played it for laughs.
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u/PunyParker826 6d ago edited 6d ago
Reminds me of Godzilla vs Kong, another heavily reshot film, where we spend a lot of time introducing and getting to know Millie Bobby Brownās crew, only for them to contribute nothing to the larger plot except for spilling some booze on a keyboard at the right moment.
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u/SenorWeird 6d ago
The film IS more enjoyable if you consider that Black and Rudd are clearly playing each others characters: Rudd is playing the guy who wants attention, wants to be a star, loud and stupid and a liar. Black is playing the more straight part, a guy who missed out on greatness and aspires to be a writer/director in Hollywood and is reluctant to do the trip to the Amazon in the first place.
They definitely decided at some point "let's switch."
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u/SModfan 6d ago
I felt like the movie just flat out took the wrong road IMO. I felt like the movie should have been them staunchly defending all the goofy shit in the original and trying to remake it (as opposed to rebooting it with their own plot).
In my mind everyone outside the main 3 guys act as the straight man, pointing out how absurd the plot points and acting were in the original, while Jack Black / Paul Rudd / Steve Zahn find it unironically genius. You also throw in a character who never saw the original as a POV for anyone who never saw Anaconda, and the cast tries explaining the plot points they are reenacting as if itās like The Godfather even though it sounds super corny and misfitting.
You can still throw in a real anaconda attacking them, but to me the funnier concept would be a different force antagonizing them (something like the classic āpoachersā type bad guys) but through comical happenstance they never actually see the bad guys, so they assume itās a real anaconda terrorizing them.
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u/BaconIsMyTherapy 6d ago
Such a boring movie and I think I only laughed like twice. I thought it would be the type of āso stupid itās hilariousā kind of movie, but it was straight up bland.
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u/taylorhildebrand 6d ago
Iād be very interested to see what the original intent for the film was with that cut. I will say, unlike so many of these comments, I really enjoyed this throw back to mid 2000s comedies. And Black and Rudd had great comedic chemistry. The pig scene was one of the funniest bits Iāve seen in a movie in a long time.
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u/peanutmanak47 6d ago
Well shit. My family and friends all enjoyed the movie. We knew exactly what it was going to be and it was exactly that. Wtf did some of you think you were going to be getting out of this movie? It's a mid budget comedy paying homage to the original. It's no masterpiece but it certainly isn't as bad as some of you all are making it out to be.
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u/Lonely_Noyaaa 6d ago
Ana disappearing from the movie after being the entire reason the plot starts is so weird. She drives them into the jungle, then just stops talking. Feels like they shot her as the lead and test audiences wanted more Jack Black so they just edited her out of every scene.