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A REVIEW BY BOB SINCLAR 08/22/2006
So what’s not to like about this movie? It’s got bikini babes running on the beach, it’s got nudity it’s got a pretty good deal of humour and it’s got a big star. Now you know that a star isn’t enough to make a good movie. In any case if you got crap and you put a star in it, all you get is crap with a star. Well that ain’t the case here and despite the big surprise being all blown off and ruined by the title of the movie, this whole kitsch experience is a lot of fun from beginning to the end credits, itself featuring a kitsch music video that feels too much like marketing crap thinking in presomptuous anticipation of a big success.
Ok so summarizing the whole movie in the title might ruin the whole surprise effect. But common people, you don’t need surprise here. This is actually very smart as all the title does is just heighten the anticipation of the moment when the snakes stars will finally make their big entrance on the screen and how it will happen. Which is definitely worth seeing, it's got a timer and everything. It takes quite some time to setup this whole simplistic story… enough that you get to a point where you get all impatient and go: “common people bring on the god damn snakes already! lets bite some ass”… But if you can settle down and wait, then you will be rewarded for your patience. And snakes you will see plenty of, and all sorts: digital, plastic, fur, big, small, on a stick, the one that lights up at night etc… you name it, it’s in the flick. No need for a big shocking surprise anyway… it's not written Shyamalan on the poster. All you want to see is how this way cool and original predicament turns out to look on the big screen. It does look pretty swell!
The plot one more time is nothing the summer audience of a B-series flick wouldn’t be able to follow, even drunk. And to prove it I bet you $5 I will be quite able to summarize it in 500 characters or less. A cool Hawaiian surfer dude minding his own business doing wheelies on his dirt bike is the unfortunate witness of a gruesome murder by an evil mobster. Followed by the mobster’s hitmen, he is saved in-extremis by super-cool FBI agent whatshisname played by Sam Jackson. After a few minutes of convincing around, Jackson makes the dude agree to catch a plane with him and fly away to LA where he is to testify against the mobster… This is when the snake bites festival begins as the horrified (they should be) crew and passengers strive to land safely in LA… will they make it? Ok I won, give me 5 bucks!
Now I got to say that I was hyped like a dumbass and like a bunch of other internet kids about this flick and it did successfully live up to the hype for me. Of course this isn’t a masterpiece of directing and it shouldn’t really be rated on that level. Any movie that starts with a helicopter shot of the sea shore is not to be looked at a serious artistic achievement. But it’s ok. The opening credits did feature some nice babe shots and some cool looking white fonts. I guess that was more than I expected on the artistic side.
This is a good B-series movie, like, I would say, The Blob was back in the 80’s. Anyway Snakes on a plane did make this whole predicament of, you know, snakes doing their thing on a plane, work in a beautiful manner. What’s kick ass about this thing is the way it mixes up originally different elements of genre flicks. You got a zest of catastrophe flick, with a bunch of character presentations of the most caricatured species you could get to fly with on an airplane, you got a dose of horror with a hint of gore, a good deal of humour, some suspense and a whole lot of crazy snake monsters. Wrap all that shit in a script filled with fun to remember quick lines and you get an enjoyable result for a cheap 30 mil.
If you like snakes you are in for a treat. I’m not talking about your regular peace loving snake… I’m talking snakes on pheromones! Because snakes that don’t do drugs are just peaceful little creatures, the writers decided to make them junkie snakes. Plus it is more politically correct to step on a junkie snake’s face. Besides, snakes on pheromones are just that much more fun to watch as they fly around and bite everybody on the ass and, or other cool naked places.
The pleasant cast is lead very efficiently by Mister Samuel Jackson. Now, Mister Jackson, after having some trouble with his career for a long period of time, trying to make movies with lame-asses Tarantino-copycat directors is here quite at ease with his laid-back cool-headed super copper character. He doesn’t do too much, and despite his more impressive status than the rest of the cast, he doesn’t try to steal the show and works nicely with this ensemble casting. One has to wonder why the fuck he didn’t try to break from his Pulp fiction image a long time ago. It is quite refreshing to see him doing that kind of not so serious movie, and doing something else than a super smooth talking gun swinging dude. Of course we will remember forever his chill inducing (I seriously get some as I write this) super-long monologue at the end of Jackie Brown. I think that’s my very favourite highlight of his whole career so far. You know what I’m talking about… smoking pot while threatening Jackie on the phone. If you don’t remember it, as your enlightened critic, I advise you to stop reading this review immediately and go watch that scene right now. Now that was some superfly acting trick the way he managed to go from a casual tone to a frightening threatening tone… all done with so much subtle changes in his voice. But anyway this great display of talent doesn’t mean he’s got to do tarantinesque characters all his life. I would really love to see him back to do more comedy and especially absurd-comedy stuff because, he’s just so really good at it.
Now Samuel L., is not the only actor in this movie and he’s helped by a huge number of secondary roles, in total respect of the rules of the catastrophe genre, who will for the most part get to die from, you guessed it… horrifying and refreshingly varied snake bites deaths. I could give a special mention to Juliana Margulies who finally gets a break from messy hospitals and shit but most of the cast was really doing his caricature work very professionally for our greatest amusement.
I must say that if you are not too frightened by snakes and if you like the not slapstick horror genre, you will definitely have a lot of fun jumping around on your seats. And if you are scared of snakes then bring a seat belt as the jumping might become too intense for you. This was a cool break from the current ongoing trend of horror films which, following the path of the 100-million-dollars-making Saw are trying to be always cheaper, always darker and always more disgusting… sometimes it works when the director brings something like talent to it (The devil’s rejects) and sometimes it doesn’t despite cool new actors (Hostel).
Snakes is, as are the creatures in the movie, a very colourful, upbeat and funny experience to have and it won’t make you leave the theatre with anything else than a smile of your face, from being scared in a non-depressing way. Now don't be all wuss about it, you asked for it for over a year, now go see it! And let’s bring back the Blob on the big screen, you executives!
© 2006 Tom H
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