Jennifer Lopez

Anaconda

07/01/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Christmas 2025 was a pretty fertile period for the cinema, with opportunities to catch plenty of decent offerings and, provided you picked carefully, there was not a turkey in sight. The first days of the New Year were likewise blessed, but eventually a viewer’s luck runs out. I still believe that Anaconda has a decent premise at its heart but, for a whole variety of reasons, it fails to make for satisfying viewing.

Ron Griffin (Paul Rudd) and Doug McCallister (Jack Black) both feel they have made wrong career moves. Ron always felt he was destined to be a movie star but, apart from a few fleeting cameos in various TV shows, he’s failed to make the big time. Doug maintains he is working as a film director – if you count wedding videos as movies – but he also fondly remembers his teenage years, when he and Ron recorded their own no-budget horror movies, making their own props and using their friends as actors. At Doug’s birthday get-together, Ron casually announces that he has managed to obtain the rights to Anaconda – the 1997 movie that was their favourite watch on VHS.

One drunken conversation later, and Ron has managed to persuade his old flame, Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and his hapless pal, Kenny (Steve Zahn), to flex their credit cards and accompany him to Brazil to shoot a reboot. But can they possibly persuade Doug to drop everything and join them as the film’s director? Hey, do giant reptiles live in the jungle? Well, they do of course and, in a brief pre-credit sequence, we’ve already witnessed what happens to people who stand around under trees muttering questions like, ‘What was that noise?’

To be fair, the set-up is decently handled by director Tom Gormican, who co-wrote the script with Kevin Etten. But once in Brazil, he seems unsure which direction to take with the resulting story and throws in a whole bunch of distractions. There’s a young local woman, Ana (Daniela Melchior), who is being pursued by armed men, though for quite a while we’re not entirely sure what they’re after her for. And why she would undertake to pretend to be the captain of a ship and ferry the film crew upriver is anybody’s guess.

Then there’s local snake ‘expert’ Carlos (Selton Mello) who actually owns a decent-sized pet snake and has somehow been brought onto the team as reptile-wrangler – but we’re not troubled with the details of how this came to be.

And of course there’s the titular giant snake, glimpsed only fleetingly at first, but becoming less convincing every time we set eyes on him.

The end result is that the comedy isn’t quite as sharp as it needs to be, while the action sequences are ponderous and unconvincing. Most damning of all, the scenes that (I think) are designed to be scary, really don’t generate enough tension to make me suspend my disbelief. The plot thickens when it turns out that there’s another, bigger crew in the vicinity who really are shooting an Anaconda reboot. This gives Gormican the chance to include a couple of celebrity cameos from Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, who, veteran movie fans may remember, starred in the original.

Look, I don’t want to be mean about this, because clearly it was never intended to be anything but a silly bungle in the jungle and I guess, in the end, that’s exactly what you get. And let’s face it, the original film isn’t remembered as being a cinematic masterpiece either. But no matter how slight the central premise, a film needs to convince – and sadly this one fails on that score.

2.8 stars

Philip Caveney

Hustlers

15/09/19

Jennifer Lopez dominates the screen in Hustlers, Lorene Scafaria’s impressive depiction of a real-life stripper-gang, drugging and mugging their so-called ‘victims’. As Ramona, Lopez is mesmerising: a strong, ambitious and generous woman, determined not to fall prey to a system whose odds are stacked against her.

Constance Wu is Dorothy/Destiny, the wide-eyed new girl at Scores. She’s worked in a strip club before, but not in New York City, where competition is fierce (I mean, Cardi B works there; this is not for the faint-hearted). Destiny just wants to make enough money to live an independent life, and to help her gran get out of debt. Teaming up with Ramona seems like a good idea – and it is. Because Ramona is the best: she knows exactly what the customers want, and she’s a kind and supportive friend.

The film plays out as a series of flashbacks, linked by an interview with journalist Elizabeth (played by Julia Stiles and based on Jessica Pressler, whose article about the ‘hustle’ inspired this movie). It might have been interesting to learn more about Elizabeth, but still, it’s thanks to her persistent questioning that Destiny reveals the truth behind the women’s actions. It’s a fascinating watch, supported by a stellar soundtrack.

For once, here is a movie that doesn’t try to have its cake and eat it, to bemoan the exploitation of women while simultaneously objectifying them. Sure, there are lots of semi-naked bodies here, and several explicit pole routines. But we’re never positioned as the strip-club audience, never invited to join the fantasy. We see things as the women see them: as impressive moves, or as ways to earn a crust. It’s a fine line, and it’s well-navigated here.

We’re on the women’s side; of course we are. They just want to earn a living. We see them try ‘proper’ jobs, earning minimum wage, unable to pick their children up from school. As Ramona says, everyone’s hustling. Some people are throwing the money around, and the others are dancing. At least at the strip club the money is good.

But, after the 2008 financial crash, the pickings are slim. The Wall Street players have drifted away from the club; the women are getting older; they can’t be dancers forever (although, seeing fifty-year-old Lopez in action, you’d be forgiven for wondering why the hell not). So Ramona concocts a plan: target a guy, drug him, then take cash from his credit card at the club. When he comes round, he won’t remember everything, and he certainly won’t want to complain to the police, or risk his family finding out where he has been.

Ramona and Destiny recruit two trusted colleagues, Mercedes (Kiki Palmer) and Annabelle (Lili Reinhart), and everything goes well – until they get too greedy, until flaky Dawn (Madeline Brewer) joins the team. By now, tensions are running high, and Destiny’s friendship with Ramona faces its biggest threat.

This is, actually, a wonderful film, as full of heart as it is of rage: an affecting human tale, of women refusing to be cast as victims.

4.7 stars

Susan Singfield