Metascore
37 out of 100

Generally unfavorable - based on 20 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 20
  2. Negative: 9 out of 20
  1. 88
    A slick, scary, funny Creature Feature, beautifully photographed and splendidly acted in high adventure style.
  2. Coil up with a tub of popcorn, get a stranglehold on your soda - this is a creepy, action-packed boat ride down a jungle river with lots of huge snakes dropping by for man-sized snacks.
  3. Reviewed by: Mike Clark
    75
    An enjoyably cast, superbly shot, jolt-generating device...It isn't art, but it'll crush your bones.
  4. A trashily entertaining reptilian version of ''Jaws'' set in the steaming heart of the Amazon rain forest.
  5. Directed by Luis Llosa with all of the subtlety of a snake-oil salesman, is in the great tradition of cinematic cheese, as processed as Kraft Singles slices. [18 Apr 1997, p. 48]
  6. 50
    The biggest flaw can be summed up in a short phrase: lack of excitement. Thrillers are supposed to be crammed with thrills (hence the name), but Anaconda is relatively barren of them.
  7. Reviewed by: Staff (Not Credited)
    50
    Voight's performance -- one of the film's pure, trashy delights -- is all leer, sneer and macho swagger, while the rest of the actors feel like the disposable snake-fodder they are.
  8. Reviewed by: Joe Leydon
    50
    A silly and plodding "Jaws" rip-off about a 40-foot man-eating snake on the prowl in the Brazilian rain forest.
  9. Reviewed by: David Eimer
    40
    The movie provides a fair number of laughs, even if you can't help wondering how many of them were actually intentional.
  10. Feels like "Alien" as directed by Jim Henson. And the suspense is restricted to mundane slasher-movie tactics, including the frequent use of a mobile camera (call it the ’condacam) that’s supposed to represent the snake’s point of view.
  11. Jon Voight, the all-purpose villain, does a pretty good job of imitating Marlon Brando imitating a Paraguayan snake expert, but the rest of the players--including Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Eric Stoltz, Owen Wilson, Vincent Castellanos, Jonathan Hyde, and Kari Wuhrer--seem to be in a hurry to pick up their checks.
  12. In what is surely a tribute to the dazzling mediocrity of director Luis Llosa, the real jungle looks as bland as the fake jungle.
  13. 30
    Quite unintentionally, director Luis Llosa and screenwriters Hans Bauer, Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jr. have crafted a howler; Anaconda, meant to be a nail-biting thriller, is a laugh-out-loud comedy.
  14. Such a classic combination of feckless dramaturgy and rampant excess that giving way to giggles is the only sane response.
  15. 30
    Mr. Whipple squeezing his Charmin is scarier than this phony baloney computer effects-driven anaconda.
  16. Reviewed by: Terrence Rafferty
    30
    Although it's refreshing to see an action movie that doesn't pretend to be something it isn't, this frankness has a downside, because what the picture so unapologetically is isn't, in fact, much.
  17. So desperate and silly that here and there, it's a lot of fun.
  18. Reviewed by: Harry Hartoonian
    20
    This film marks for Jon Voigt a concerted effort to unseat Christopher Walken in the competition for the Czarship of sneering, wheezing, Machiavellian, all-around weird guys. He spends much of his time standing around making a face like Beavis does when he's really freaked out.
  19. 20
    Charmless, unfrightening, and even devoid of the requisite gratuitous nudity, Anaconda just plain bites.
  20. If only director Luis Llosa and his cast could see the joke and seize upon it; instead, like its computer-morphed snake, the film doesn't have a clever bone in its body.
User Score

Mixed or average reviews- based on 23 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 8
  2. Negative: 2 out of 8
  1. j30
    4
    Anaconda is one of those movies you watch again late at night and think what's the big deal? It's not awful or merely good, it's just a bad 90's action movie. Full Review »
  2. A completely idiotic movie where the only thing I can understand that there is a giant snake that eats all the characters of the film. Are many unanswered questions. Full Review »
  3. The special effects were terrible, well for 90% of the film. I started off OK and until half way through it was a decent watch, but the film caved in on its own complications. They went too far and over the top towards the end to the point where you were almost certain the snake/jon voight was going to somehow survive the attacks that would certainly have killed them had the film been sem-realistic. Jon Voight was regurgitated and a snake survived being blown up. I'll give this a 4 down to some good performances from Lopez and Voight and a good start. - Had it not been for the deterioration near the end this would get a 7. Full Review »