Snakes on a Plane
2.5 out of 10
"How was jail boss?"
"Fuck jail!"
- 3:15 The Moment of Truth
The forerunner of the 22 Black media empire was the Doty Film Society at Macalester College, founded the year before I arrived. The DFS would show films in the 3rd floor lounge of Doty Hall, four days a week, starting on Tuesdays because that was 99-cent rental day at the video store. Each week would have a featured performer. But for every Johnny Depp or David Bowie week there was Bruce Campbell or Soleil Moon Frye week. Most of what we watched was utter crap. Film so bad they would be painful if not for the audience. In grade-school terms, these aren't comedies that you laugh with, but films you laugh at.
"NON-HUMAN – MALIGNANT"
- Invitation to Hell
Snakes on a Plane is exactly the sort of film that would have gone down in Doty Film Society history. From the opening shots of beaches and bikini babes to the painful music video during the credits, the film was wretched, but I enjoyed something in every minute of it. The dialogue is atrocious, the acting is awful and the directing is dreadful, but that's all part of the charm. It's so bad that it almost feels intentional satire, if the incompetent filmmaking wasn't so complete. I haven't laughed at a film so much since Pearl Harbor.
"Drop the zero and get with the hero."
-Cool as Ice
It's like they didn't even try to write a decent movie. They've got the concept, now they need a believable reason to get hyper-aggressive snakes onto a plane. I figure you play the mad-scientist angle, cram it all before the credits so it becomes unquestionable premise, then go on to establish all the sub-plots. Instead, the sub-plot involving Sam Jackson, a ridiculous witness protection story, is advanced to the basis of everything. One minor problem is that putting venomous snakes on a plane is perhaps the dumbest assassination scheme in history. If you can smuggle the snakes onboard, why not just use a bomb? The Bush administration would probably invade Iran before anyone even suspects that it could have been a gangster killing a witness. Once the snakes get out, the movie gets slightly better, if only because there are a few genuinely witty ways for people to be killed by snakes on a plane. Fangs pierce most of the particularly sensitive parts of the human body, although the goriest death is a man trampled by a high-heel. The passengers fight them off for a while before resorting to what's really an obvious solution, if you think about it for a minute. But Snakes on a Plane is a film you shouldn't give more than 10 seconds thought. Just long enough to laugh.
"There's a snake on my ass!"
"There's a snake on yo' ass!"
-Snakes on a Plane
Since I enjoyed it thoroughly, I was tempted to give Snakes on a Plane a higher rating. But unintentional laughs don't count, even if you've accepted your fate as a cheesy cult film. I can't give the film a universal recommendation, but if the title makes you've chuckle and you've got a theater that serves beer, you're well set for a fine evening of bad cinema.
Directed by David R. Ellis; Written by John Heffernan (story and screenplay), Sebastian Gutierrez (screenplay) and David Dalessandro (story); Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Julianna Margulies, and Kenan Thompson; MPAA #42661
Viewed on 18Aug2006 at Cinetopia Theatre
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