Paul Rudd | A Screenwriters Perspective: Current and Past Movies.

The new movie “Anaconda” is not a remake of the 1997 movie “Anaconda” that starred Jennifer Lopez, John Voight, and Ice Cube. This new version is about four people who are friends, who decide to make a “reboot” of the movie Anaconda, which means that this is a movie about making another movie that was released 28 years ago. There is no doubt that this is a new idea for a screenplay, but unfortunately, it is so idiotic, unfunny, and stupid that there is no way this film should have been greenlit and financed for $45 million dollars.

The most amazing thing about this bad movie is why Paul Rudd, Jack Black, Steve Zahn, and Thandiwe Newton could have read this script, agreed to fly to Australia for months of hardship to make a movie that is this so obviously bad. This film is supposed to be a parody or comedy of the original Anaconda movie, but there was not one laugh in the audience I was in, and almost no moment that was even slightly amusing. Ironically, the movie that was worse than this movie was the film the characters were trying to make inside of this idiotic mess. Then during this story, the four friends run into another production crew also trying to make another reboot of Anaconda. What level of drug use is required to think of this many bad ideas for one film?

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this bad movie is only 50%, with my rating 10% and a recommendation to “whatever you do, miss this disaster of movie making at all costs”.

One of the many problems with the latest Ant-Man movie “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” is that within 10 minutes of this film, the rest of the scenes take place within this strange Quantum universe. This means that with this many special effects for 90% of the movie, you enter a state of special effects overload – before this film is half over. Once again, the producers threw out any idea of a good story or screenplay and just came up with insane special effects first and then filled in the story later. Unfortunately, there are way too many action movies that go this same wrong route; all of them forgetting that it is always the story first, with good dialogue, including some kind of a message. Nonstop explosions, strange creatures, and insane scenes will never be a substitute for good ideas and a story.

As far as any kind of a story, there really isn’t one here, just a series of conflicts and fight scenes. The only bright spot is the acting of Jonathan Majors, who plays the main villain in this movie. Majors has recently proven that he is an up-and-coming star in the film industry, also appearing in the recent film “Devotion”, reviewed in this blog. He also appears in the new Creed 3 film, releasing in early March, directed by Michael B. Jordan. Majors has a subtle and impressive charisma in several scenes, within the rare moments that are not about crazy and insane special effects.

This latest Ant-Man movie just might be the last one, due to the low 48% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and the poor screenplay. All of the previous cast members appear again, including Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly, Paul Rudd who plays Scott Lang, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Kathryn Newton who plays Lang’s daughter. Unfortunately, this latest version seems to be about the same, with small variations from the previous 2 Ant-Man films, but with many more insane special effects that get very old within the first hour.

This time around the Rotten Tomatoes ratings are a correct 48% and I agree with this number and do not recommend this film, even for the most die-hard Marvel fans.