How do you make a movie that lives up to the dreams of a horde of on-line film geeks? How do you deliver a film with more cheese than the state of Wisconsin can hold? Well, you can’t. The film that the blogosphere demanded out of Snakes on a Plane is not the movie you get, but it doesn’t matter. It’s still a movie called “Snakes on a Plane,” a movie where, get this, there are snakes. Snakes on a plane. That’s all this film is, and it’s all it needs to be.
Snakes on a Plane
3 & 1/2 Stars
Snakes on a Plane is a very strange disappointment. In the end, the film is a poorly scripted romp that lasts too long and gives us hollow characters we’re supposed to sympathise with; but the buzz built up for Snakes was so solidified that it doesn’t matter. Evident from the title, the movie is nothing more than a Cheesefest of the highest criteria.
Film snobs will watch it and inevitably blast it for being just another crappy action movie pushed through production by the studio in hopes of a flagpole franchise, and had there been no on-line movement to help transform it into the genre film that it became, it may have been. But the lack of substance doesn’t matter, Snakes is fun, and that’s all it needs to be.
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This is the part of the review where I’m supposed to recap the plot, but because the story has been recapped for months on web (and as if any summary is needed with a title like “Snakes on a Plane,” I trust that you guys figured it out by now, and if not then might I apoligize for having to live under that rock without Wi-Fi for the past year.
Having taken care of that, let’s get to what’s important – the snakes.
This is the one area that the film gets right down to every detail. Usually computer generated, the snakes look great; though not in terms of realism. They look real enough to not be distracting; but at the same time are an obvious product of a computer. They’re slick, shiny, and even if they aren’t convincing, they look cool. It’s fun to watch these digital snakes coil down the aisle as they rear their tails and pounce on the frequent flyers.
Watching them murder people is more fun than should be legal. They bite arms, faces, and even some parts that you can’t show in a film. Each spot of 10 seconds will send the audience, ready for some serious snake action, into a simultaneous roar of “Ohh. . .” and “YEAH!!”
But the most hyped assetSnake‘s arsenal – none other than the bad-ass motherfucker himself, Samuel L. Jackson – is somewhat of a letdown. The massive on-line movement was hoping for an insanely furious Jackson that kicked more snake tail than Pelé kicked soccer balls. They wanted the histrionic Jackson, an agglomeration of every role he’s every played letting out the pent-up aggresion by opening a keg of whoop-ass on those god-damn reptiles.
Although this attribute of Jackson comes out to shine on occasion, Jackson normally grounds his character to make him more believable. Sam, this movie is called “Snakes on a Plane,” the title alone gives you the right to go ape-shit.
Instead of making the insane, serial snake killer movie that the Internet demanded, director David R. Ellis and Jackson go for a more typical exploitation horror film, but any move that features Jackson getting all taser on a snake’s ass (or lack thereof) is good in my book.