Friday, August 18, 2006; Posted: 3:09 p.m. EDT (19:09 GMT)
(AP) -- "Snakes on a Plane" famously wasn't shown to critics before opening day. Something to do with letting the fans see it first, allowing them to enjoy a purer moviegoing experience, blah blah blah.
And truly, the hype from the title alone has built to such a frenzied din -- or a deafening hiss, if you will -- why bother screening it? There's just no need.
Ordinarily this makes critics very cranky. But in the case of "Snakes on a Plane" (or "SoaP," the cutesy acronym by which it's become known) it was the perfect choice. Because this isn't the kind of movie you want to see in an intimate theater with a handful of people. This is a movie that is uniquely, ideally suited for the rowdy, crowded communal experience, the likes of which we haven't seen since "The Rocky Horror Picture Show."
This is an event. It's a rare example of a film not just living up to the hype, but surpassing it. And it's the best time you'll have at the movies all summer, if not all year.
Granted, it's difficult to separate the two -- the sensation of watching the film en masse and the film itself -- because they're so intrinsically entwined. At a recent late-night showing, for example, a guy wearing a Big Bird mask led the packed auditorium in spirited "Snakes on a Plane" cheers -- and this was during the trailers, before the film had even started.
So you can imagine the hysteria when Samuel L. Jackson, as FBI agent Neville Flynn, barks out the climactic line that's been well-known for weeks now. (In case you were unaware, Agent Flynn expresses his annoyance at the prodigious number of reptiles aboard this particular 747. Only he uses a really descriptive 12-letter word.)
Having said that, "Snakes on a Plane" does stand up on its own two, er, feet as a thrilling action flick. It accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do, and it does so in brilliant fashion. It's intense and suspenseful, scary and gory, darkly funny and sometimes giddily hysterical.
Director David R. Ellis ("Cellular," "Final Destination 2") and screenwriters John Heffernan, Sebastian Gutierrez and David Dalessandro faithfully work within the standards set by the fantastic disaster movies of the '70s -- films like "The Towering Inferno" and "Airport 1975" -- without resorting to outright parody, which "Airplane!" so ingeniously mastered.
(Jackson himself had promised that "Snakes on a Plane" would not be so-bad-it's-good campy, that he wouldn't appear in a film like that. He is a man who doesn't mess around, and he didn't lie. The movie is indeed hilarious, but only when it intends to be.)
So you can figure out who will live and who will die just by the obligatory bits of exposition about the characters as they board the redeye heading from Honolulu to Los Angeles. The rude, condescending British guy who hates Americans is most likely a goner, for example. The two little boys flying by themselves for the first time will probably make it, as will the woman carrying a baby.
Agent Flynn has commandeered first class as he escorts surfer-dude Sean Jones (Nathan Phillips) back to Los Angeles to testify about a murder he witnessed. Gang leader Eddie Kim (Byron Lawson), who committed the bloody killing back in Hawaii (and apparently wore a white suit specifically for the occasion) wants to make sure that Sean doesn't make it across the Pacific Ocean.
So Eddie and his far-flung armada of thugs arrange to have hundreds of exotic, deadly snakes packaged up in cargo upon this particular flight -- but not too securely -- because, you know, an assassin couldn't just bring a gun on board and shoot the guy. An assassin couldn't even bring his own bottle of water on board if he were thirsty.
And that's part of what makes "Snakes on a Plane" so unexpectedly quaint. Air travel isn't the most entertaining topic these days, and it hasn't been for a long time. The film makes no political statements in that regard, though; the passengers just get on board, returning from their Hawaiian honeymoons or whatever, blissfully unaware of any potential danger. Then when the snakes come slithering down the aisles, through the bathrooms and into the cockpit, feasting on anyone in their path, it's dazzling and heart-pounding and -- dare we say it? -- fun.
Among the people in the path of these venomous creatures are Julianna Margulies as a flight attendant on her last trip (of course), Flex Alexander as a rapper with OCD, Rachel Blanchard as a high-maintenance blonde with a lap dog, and David Koechner as the good ol' boy pilot who's a sexual harassment lawsuit just waiting to happen.
Leading them all to safety is Jackson, who by now has honed this type of performance to both a science and an art. He makes it look so effortless as he jabs a cobra with a wine-bottle shard or spouts off some tough-talk one-liners, it's as if he isn't even acting.
When there's nobody left to fly the plane, he's the guy you want at the controls.
"Snakes on a Plane," a New Line Cinema release, is rated R for language, a scene of sexuality and drug use, and intense sequences of terror and violence. New Line Cinema is owned by Time Warner, the parent company of CNN.
Rating: Three and a half stars out of four.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
:::>^..^<::: ~*~The Journey is more important than the end or the start~*~ :::>^..^<:::
Friday, August 18, 2006; Posted: 5:51 p.m. EDT (21:51 GMT)
(ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY) -- "Snakes on a Plane" sounds like a title that "Entourage's" Ari Gold might pitch to his favorite client (''snakes on a plane -- BOOM!''). It acknowledges, with a bluntness that passes for a wink, what the vast majority of Hollywood titles do not: that the movie it's adorning is a concept, nothing more, one that wears its brain-deadness on both lapels.
That, of course, is just what everyone is getting excited about. For months, the anticipated trashiness of Snakes on a Plane has been a marketing hook in the form of a universally shared in-joke, as the bloggy chatterers, in their very mockery, have made themselves part of the hype machine. Yet what, exactly, is the joke? If this cornball exploitation disaster movie had been called Anaconda 3: Flight of Fear (or, as was once planned, Pacific Air 121), we could all stop pretending that there was something exotically tacky about it.
But enough highbrow critical analysis! Why are there motherf---in' snakes on this motherf---in' plane? Because Eddie (Byron Lawson), a gangster who preens like a Bruce Lee impersonator, has stashed dozens of the slithery, poisonous suckers aboard a double-decker red-eye flight from Honolulu to Los Angeles (they're stowed in the animal-cargo hold, in boxes that are triggered to open via computerized timer), all to keep Sean (Nathan Phillips), an FBI witness, from testifying against him.
You know what you're in for as soon as the first toxic leatherneck slides down a hole in the lavatory, where a sexpot and her surfer boyfriend are working on their membership in the mile-high club. The snake hangs in the air, then opens its fangs and pounces, clomping down on the girl's naked breast. To call these folks victims would be overstating it. They are meat, like the pretty idiots who get terrorized by psychos in dried-skin masks. Their gruesome demise is just a gag, a momentary production number.
Is "Snakes on a Plane" a cheesy fun bad movie or a bad movie, period? I'd say about half and half.
The mostly digitized snakes curl through the airplane's bowels so readily that you quickly get used to them, and director David R. Ellis' idea of tension is to cut the lights in the cabin to a twilight murk and overdose us with shaky-cam as the plane is jostled by a thunderstorm, with its pilot dead of a heart attack.
The snakes, a zoological Whitman's Sampler of rattlers, pythons, cobras, and exotic intercontinental species, are not shy. They'll chomp on anything that sticks out, from tongues to more, you know, sensitive appendages, but the violence grows a bit too baroque too early. I enjoyed seeing a rattler with half its body wriggling down some poor woman's eye socket, but after a handful of tasty attacks like these, the movie has nowhere to go. The giant boa constrictor, with its widening jaws, gets the best moments, and I wish it had more of them.
That chop-socky villain isn't the only relic from the '70s; so is everyone on the plane. The sexy flight attendant who comes on to the FBI witness with her coffee-tea-or-me smile (he's so boring that she must like him because he's in first class); the British snob businessman with hair plugs; the princess who totes a chihuahua named Mary-Kate in her designer handbag; the Diddy-lite hip-hop star with his What's Happening!! posse; the leering co-pilot who's about as suave as Ron Burgundy; the flight attendant who's taking her final voyage before law school, played by token actress-you've-actually-heard-of Julianna Margulies -- all deserve to be terrorized because they're such sketchy and forgettable Airport '06: A New Beginning Jane and Johnny One-Notes.
Next to this sorry crew, it's hardly a surprise that Samuel L. Jackson, as the FBI agent who's escorting the witness, looks like Superman. He starts out all calm and friendly, taking much longer than you expect to work his way up to steam-out-the-ears funky high dudgeon, and since he's the only one on screen with a spine, the audience greets his every action-movie directive (''We've got to put a barrier between us and the snakes!'') as if it were a holy command to hoot and holler.
I went to see Snakes on a Plane at the 10 o'clock show on Thursday night, and the mood in the theater was a cross between what you'd expect to find at a Star Wars sequel and a midnight show of Bedtime for Bonzo. Just about all the trailers -- the new Denzel Washington thriller; the gonzo Beerfest -- were greeted with mild hisses. Mockery hung in the air.
As Snakes started, a few cheers went up, but the sneer never quite disappeared: It was applause as a form of one-upmanship -- a desire for entertainment, yes, but also a celebration of the audience's superiority, its power over the movie. More potent than anything in Snakes on a Plane is the fantasy offscreen: that if enough people talk up their desire to see this film and, at the same time, take an overt delight in what an unabashed piece of junk it is, they will fuse with the hype, with the movie's mystique. They will not just watch Snakes on a Plane; they will own it.
EW Grade:C+
:::>^..^<::: ~*~The Journey is more important than the end or the start~*~ :::>^..^<:::
saw it last night, and yes, its very much over the top. Campy, corny, it's a B grade movie that makes the most out of being a campy, corny, B grade movie. Granted, i agree with one of the reviews, seeing snakes killing people gets old after 15 minutes. other than that, it was pretty good, considering what it set itself up as.
Love is a very powerful force, especially when its formed into a coherent beam of death.
well, i mean, it wasn't so much gory (though gore was in there), as it was bizzare. for instance, we get to see snakes biting people's eyes, tongues, nuts, throats, etc. for a good 30 minutes or so. it got old after 5. once the snake biting action is over with, the movie moves along into a traditional airplane disaster film, other than the fact that all the problems are caused by snakes. on a plane.
and sam jackson had some pretty great lines. "We need to form a barrier between us, and the snakes!"
Love is a very powerful force, especially when its formed into a coherent beam of death.
It sounds like it's fun and doesn't take itself too seriously. I don't really fear snakes, so I will watch it when it comes out on cable in a couple of years.
If it was Spiders, I would never ever watch it. Those things terrify me.
When I first heard the title and saw the poster, I thought it may make a good comedy. When I saw the trailer and realized they were pretty serious it totally turned me off even renting the video when it's out.
"I'm for it so we can put Nuclear power plants up there, and then beam the power back to earth on a laser beam." ~ Whidden
I was so bored after the first five snake bites it was awful
Samuel Jackson be shamed If this is what you have sunk down to its time to rethink your life's work. Heck I have seen scarier guys coming at me to wash my wind shied then these snakes who seem to have direct radar for ones mouth and lower extremities.
Talk about a Mile High Club Hahahahahh Oh yes they have a scene for that purpose too YUK
aka deltacent aka deltater
Life may not be the party I had hoped for.......
But while I'm here I might just as well listen to the music and dance..
08-18-2006 10:52 PM
EEK! SNAKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Snakes on a plane is a good epic film...I like it really...anybody can give me the entire synopsis of this film?and the official site of his film?
