After spending but a few minutes with the two-legged cast of “Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid,” audiences will likely be thinking the same thing: Go anacondas.

Truly, you will rarely find a more tawdry, tiresome collection of human clichés than the stalwart team of scientists and adventurers who plunge into the jungles of Indonesia to find a rare, life-sustaining species of orchid only to — you guessed it — end up as snacks for a race of giant serpents. On a character level, “Anacondas” is just as puerile as any B-grade Lloyd Bridges schlock from the 1950s, down to the goofy sidekick in the crooked baseball cap.

Let's count them down. Bill Johnson (Johnny Messner from “Tears of the Sun”) is a buffed-out Special Forces vet who has “seen and done a lot of bad things” (naturally!) and now eeks out a hard existence ferrying tourists through the jungles of Borneo in his rusty river boat. Bill is also in dire need of a soothing throat lozenge, because everything he says comes out in a tough, battle-weathered rasp, as if he gargled Molotov cocktails every morning before breakfast.

Bill and his boat are hired by Dr. Jack Byron (Matthew Marsden), a brilliant researcher whose gentlemanly British exterior belies a devious, sociopathic caramel-nougat core. Jack is accompanied by his beautiful assistant, Sam Rogers (KaDee Strickland from “Anything Else”), with whom he hopes to conduct a little “field research,” and Gordon Mitchell (Morris Chestnut), his fellow scientist and business partner. Also along for the ride is Gail Stern (Salli Richardson-Whitfield from “Biker Boyz”), whose venture capital group is bankrolling the expedition, and a few ancillary characters not worth the newspaper ink required to describe them.

Director Dwight Little (“Murder at 1600”) wastes little time establishing his movie as a work of supreme silliness, best illustrated in the scene where Bill leaps into the river and bare-handedly opens a can of Special Forces whup-ass on a blood-thirsty crocodile.

“That was either the bravest or stupidest thing I've ever seen!” one astounded passenger gasps.

Bill's reply: “It's a fine line.”

The most note-worthy thing about the original “Anaconda” (1997) was that it helped launch the acting careers of Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube and Owen Wilson, but it's unlikely casting agents will be similarly mobilized by the new cast — a fit, blandly attractive lot that seems better suited for day-time soaps. The anacondas themselves — all computer-generated, of course — are just as plastic. With their dripping fangs and oddly human facial expressions, they appear intentionally unrealistic — perhaps to make “Anacondas” more palatable for a general, fainthearted audience.

If so, mission accomplished. With its dopey, boilerplate dialogue and anabolically enhanced, Loch Ness-sized monsters, “Anacondas” is certainly one of the least scary horror movies in recent memory. The best it can achieve is a certain giddy anticipation — both of the next snake attack and the next asinine plot machination. All in all, I'm not sure if it's the funniest or stupidest movie of the year.

As they say, it's a fine line.