PLOT: See title
With a title like that, and a groundswell of giddy, Internet hysteria, there's only one way Snakes On A Plane could possibly have disappointed -- by not being cheesy enough.
Worry not. I'm here to report Snakes On A Plane is a cheese crust pizza with double-cheese topping. It's so bad it's gouda. We're talking the kind of bad that inspires drinking games.
What's unusual is for something this kitsch to be deliberate. But then, Snakes On A Plane has lots of pop kitsch to draw from.
As much as it's been compared to The Blair Witch Project, Snakes actually has more in common with those hilariously grand guignol '70s disaster films -- particularly Airport '75, the film that inspired the Zucker brothers' Airplane! In fact, Snakes plays so much like a spoof that when Samuel L. Jackson (our hero) orders someone to "turn on the automatic pilot," you expect a smiling, inflatable man to pop up.
Indeed, Snakes On A Plane is not so much a title as it is an imperative. Getting those serpents airborne is job one, and everything, including plot and logic are expendable en route.
The plot? Happy-go-lucky Sean (Nathan Phillips) is tooling around Hawaii on his dirt bike when he comes across a D.A. being beaten to death by an Asian villain named Eddie Kim (Byron Lawson). Off goes Sean on his bike, to Eddie's consternation.
Cue the next scene, and Eddie's gang have identified and found Sean. How? Dunno. Luckily, FBI agent Flynn (Jackson) shows up in the nick of time to save him. How? Dunno. All that 'splainin' would just take away from all the introducing of passengers as Flynn escorts Sean on a flight to trial in L.A. In fact, the most exposition there is in this movie involves lining up these folks like guest stars on The Love Boat. There's that horny couple that can't wait to join the Mile High Club. There's a Diddy-esque rapper called Three Gs (Flex Alexander), a rich bitch debutante (Rachel Blanchard), a snotty foreigner of some sort who hates Americans, and a stewardess on her last flight (Julianna Margulies) who turns into an ass-kicker under pressure. The entire time, there's a cheesy model of a plane flying through ominously dark clouds and lightning (at 30,000 feet!)
What matters is Eddie's Rube Goldberg revenge, involving the spraying of pheremones and the release of every overexcited serpent imaginable -- coral snakes, water moccasins, rattlers, cobras -- even an anaconda (didn't we see that movie?). They bite and they bite. They bite bare boobs. They bite butts. They even bite a guy in the, er, trouser snake.
It's pretty outrageous stuff, inspiring one of the more preposterous snake remedies ever.
And yes, Jackson does say "I'm sick of all these motherf------ snakes on this motherf------ plane!" The trailer not withstanding, it is disappointingly the only time he uses the M word as an adjective -- but it gets the biggest laugh in the movie.
And that's saying something.
BOTTOM LINE: As cheesy as a movie about snakes on a plane should be. So bad it's gouda. The kind of bad that inspires drinking games. Think Airport '75 (the movie that inspired Airplane!) with gratuitous sex and every kind of snakebite imaginable (boob, butt, trouser snake, etc.)
(This film is rated 14-A)
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