Samuel L. Jackson. A BIG Plane. Hundreds of Snakes. Put the three together. Snakes on a Plane. 1 hour and 45 minutes of pure, unadulterated, uncompromising, _____ [insert more adjectives here] action and fun await those who dare to go see SoaP. The title is the most obvious movie title ever but the opening couple of minutes are completely misleading. The makers spend a decent amount of time on setting the whole thing up and that is good. None of the characters seems forced although they end up putting in every imaginable personality on there - angry Brit, newly-weds, guy afraid of flying, Hilton-esque bitch with puppy in tow, germophobe rapper with his boys, two kids flying alone - you name it, you got it. And the movie is unapologetic - women, kids, old people, young people, naked people, pilot, air hostess - everyone gets bit and most die. The snakes are shown going after every human part imaginable, male and female. It was a good thing that the makers decided to go all out and get an R rating rather than the PG-13 they were initially aiming for. Without the R, we would’ve missed two great scenes:
1. The scene where the first people get bit
2. The scene where Sam “the man” Jackson delivers THAT line
All right so here’s the story in brief: A dude witnesses the murder of a prosecutor by a gangster identified as Eddie Kim. Eddie sees him get away on his bike and sends his henchmen to kill the aforementioned dude. Jackson saves the dude and takes him into FBI protective custody in an attempt to get him to testify against Eddie Kim. In oder to testify, he must fly to Los Angeles from Honolulu. Left with no other choice, Eddie hatches a plot to take down an entire 747. How? No bombs or crash landings or any of that horse crap. He puts goddamn SNAKES ON A PLANE!!! A few hundred of them and uses a pheromone which makes the snakes go crazy or as Sam the man says, snakes on crack. A few minutes after take-off, the snakes start slithering out as a hatch door was left open. After the first few deaths, there’s a bit of a lull as the snakes start getting into the cabin. A pilot dies, plane instrumentation goes screwy with those snakes going all over it. And then with a jolt, oxygen masks are released and more snakes fall into the cabin. What ensues is best described as mayhem caused when you put hundreds of SNAKES ON A PLANE!!! From here on it’s a regular procession of deaths and gruesome snake bites as Sam the man desperately tries to keep everything under control. Beyond that, the movie behaves like any other action adventure. Sam the man saves the day and all is hunky-dory.
If you go in looking for anything other than a fun time, you will come back disappointed. Leave your brains at the door and just sit back and watch the mayhem. It’s as cheesy as it gets and the movie intentionally forces all those action movie cliches down your throat - you’ll see what I’m talking about. While not as grossing out as something like Saw II, this movie still provides a few pukey moments. Special effects are adequate and unless you are really PICKY about your SNAKES, they get the job done. After all, the movie had an initial budget of just $30 million [they went back and reshot some scenes since they were looking for the R rating anyway] which it should collect at the box-office this weekend itself. I’d say even if it makes around $70-80 million total, it will be a box-office success.
Ultimately, it’s about snakes being unleashed 30, 000 feet above ground and how Jackson kicks some snake-ass (do snakes have asses?) to save the day. If you have a stick up your ass like a lot of movie critics do, then please avoid the movie - that stick will begin to get very painful after almost two hours of sitting down. The movie does exactly what it promised and does it well. I didn’t look at my watch at all once the movie began - not many movies do that for me.
