Snakes on a Plane (2006)

Movie Info

Get this Muther$!@#ing snakes off the Muther$!@#ing plane!!!

Sean Jones (Nathan Phillips) has witnessed a murder by a notorious gangster Eddie Kim (Byron Lawson).  Now, he’s under the protective custody of FBI agent Neville Flynn (Samuel L. Jackson) and headed to Los Angeles to testify.  Unfortunately, Kim intends to silence him by bringing down the plane that Sean and Neville are travelling on.  Secretly loaded in the cargo are hundreds of deadly snakes enraged by a secretly released pheramon, and the snakes are about to be released on the unsuspecting passengers.  Now Flynn and a flight attendant named Claire Miller (Julianna Margulies) must save the passengers and find a way to land the plane.

Chew your food!

Directed by David R. Ellis, Snakes on a Plane became a sensation before it was released.  The B-Movie was powered by a viral advertising campaign that had fans even altering the script.  Despite all the pre-publicity, Snakes on a Plane fared poorly at the box office and was met with poor reviews.

I heard the hype, saw the reviews, and skips Snakes on a Plane on its initial run.  The movie resembled the low-budget films that aired on SyFy (even then).  Watching the film almost ten years later, there is a reason I skipped it then.

Baby…you need a new rattle

The story of Snakes on a Plane is written like a ’70s disaster film…that is probably the high point of the story.  It is loaded with cliché characters:  a celebrity, rich English people, ditsy girls, kids who are without their parents, and the classic “last flight” character that intends to leave her job.  I wish they had done more with this cliché but admire the movie for taking it seriously instead of just being a joke (which it is).  The movie did a fun aspect for its TV version and intentionally dubbed it with ridiculous lines for the language.

Samuel L. Jackson eats up the movie.  He said in interviews that he took the film just because of the title and makes the most of his yelling style of acting.  ER vet Julianna Margulies plays the flight attendant trying to help him and Nathan Phillips is the man he is guarding.  Most of the other stars are character actors and video game pilot in training Keith Dallas is played by Kenan Thompson.

Look before you pee

Visually the movie is a step above a SyFy film, but a step below a “good” film.  The snakes look fake and computer-y.  I get that the movie was intentionally cheap and gimmicky, but it would have been cooler if they did a better job mixing real and fake snakes.  The action scenes were fine, but you didn’t go to the movie for action…you went for the snakes.

Snakes on a Plane is just an average movie.  There are far worse movies than the film and for the most part, the movie knows what it is.  I like disaster films and I like when-nature-attacks films.  Snakes on a Plane spawned lots of internet films and parody films including Snakes on a Train.  You need to get those “Muther@!?#in’ snakes off the Muther@!?#in’ plane!

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