For months before its release, Snakes on a Plane received more Internet hype than any movie since 1999’s The Blair Witch Project. It received so much hype that, after the film finished principal shooting, some scenes were reshot specifically due to suggestions from Internet fans. But, when it was released in August, 2006, the box-office receipts were less-than-stellar. Though it eventually turned a small profit, the movie was, financially, a disappointment. Most of the hype, of course, centered around the film’s title, which lays out the entire premise of the film in four words. There is a bit more to the plot, but not much.
While riding his motorcycle in Hawaii, Sean Jones (Nathan Phillips) witnesses the murder of an L.A. prosecutor. The murderer, Eddie Kim (Byron Lawson), a well-known organized crime figure, dispatches thugs to kill Jones to keep him quiet. FBI agent Neville Flynn (Samuel L. Jackson) gets to Jones first and takes him into protective custody. Hoping to take him back to Los Angeles, where he can testify against Kim, the FBI takes over the first class area of a 747 and Flynn, Jones, and another agent board the plane hoping to make it to L.A. without any problems. Much to the other passengers dismay, they’re all forced into coach for the red-eye flight. Unable to get to Jones any other way, Kim’s cronies load the cargo area with poisonous snakes that will be unleashed on the plane’s occupants once it’s in mid-flight.
Before its release, the film was being hailed as the next Rocky Horror Picture Show, with sequences that were supposed to be tailor-made for fan-interaction. Even without this knowledge, one screening of Snakes on a Plane will make the viewer painfully aware that the movie was never taking its premise seriously. (Witness the “snake” button on the microwave in one scene, for example.) That said, the movie becomes a disappointment on more levels by being silly on purpose than if it was just a straight-up bad movie.
Snakes on a Plane, if played straight, might have been a good candidate for one of the Sci-Fi Channel’s notoriously cheap, CGI-heavy monster movies. By being a self-aware attempt at being a “good” bad movie, it just comes off as forced and ham-fisted. When snakes attack a woman’s bare breast or a man’s penis — both of which happen in the movie — it’s not really funny. It’s just sort of stupid. With the action mostly confined to the relatively small space of the plane, there’s little more going on than people getting bit, screaming, and falling over themselves to get away from the snakes.
Samuel L. Jackson, as Agent Flynn, saves the movie from being a complete waste of time. If Jules from Pulp Fiction became an FBI agent, he would be Neville Flynn. Julianna Margulies, as a take-charge flight attendant, is largely wasted here but she has good screen chemistry with Jackson. The subplots involving the passengers are worthy of a few chuckles but this is Sam Jackson’s movie. Unfortunately, he’s not enough to make it the cheesy hit it was supposed to be.
2.5 out of 5.0 stars
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