Snakes on a PlaneIt's amazing the crazy things people bring on a plane these days. Snakes on a Plane is an action film that banks heavily toward comedy about, well, snakes on a plane. More specifically, the film follows FBI Agent Neville Flynn (Samuel L. Jackson) as he is tasked to protect and transport a murder witness named Sean Jones (Nathan Phillips) from Honolulu to Los Angeles, who is marked for death by notorious mobster, Eddie Kim (Byron Lawson). All seems to be going according to plan, until Kim unleashes his secret weapon aboard the unsuspecting trans-Pacific flight. Anyone want to guess what it is?
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If you couldn't guess by the outlandish premise, Snakes on a Plane never takes itself too seriously, even during the gruesome ophidian assaults. The plot is fundamentally the same kind that made disaster movies like the Airport series popular in the Seventies; Snakes on a Plane even borrows a bit from its satirical counterpart, Airplane! After the passengers and crew are comfortably aboard the airplane en route to the continental United States, the snakes are set loose--via a highly-sophisticated altitude-triggered timed lock, no less--and the problems compound when key personnel are neutralized by the serpents. (The snakes also have preternatural skill at disabling key navigational equipment.) Neville becomes the anchor in managing this crisis, and even has to brave the dangerous cargo hold to reset a breaker so that the cabin air will recirculate. Most characters in Snakes on a Plane are exaggerated caricatures of normal people. Eddie Kim looks like a stereotypical sadistic gangster, decked out in a Miami Vice-inspired t-shirt and cream-colored sport coat combo and wielding a baseball bat. Most of the passengers have individual quirks and idiosyncrasies, like the vapid heiress, Mercedes (Rachel Blanchard), and her bred-to-fit-in-a-purse Chihuahua named "Mary-Kate". There's the "hipper-than-thou" rapper known as "Three G's" a.k.a. Clarence (Flex Alexander), a germophobe who is constantly treating his hands with a discreet bottle of Purell. There's also the big jerk, Paul (Gerard Plunkett), who caustically derides cute little doggies and cute little babies without remorse, and is so unlikable that--spoilers be darned--he meets with the unsavory fate of any of the passengers at the hands (er, grip?) of a gigantic constrictor. Many passengers meet with horrible ends from the repeated reptilian attacks, but most of the core supporting characters survive. The prolonged crisis of being up in the air with swarms of deadly predators triggers aggression and friction in the passengers. To their credit, the flight crew--including Claire Miller (Julianna Margulies), who is working her last flight before leaving to become a lawyer--are the backbone of the ill-fated flight, containing the mayhem when they can, and fighting the snakes and defending less capable passengers like hospitality heroes.
It's inevitable that at some point the audience of Snakes on a Plane should ask the obvious question: why wouldn't Eddie Kim just blow up the plane; if he could smuggle a bunch of exotic snakes from across the world on board, why not just put a bomb on it? Asking this question means that you're trying to think about this movie from a logistical point of view, which defeats the purpose. Snakes on a Plane is designed to be an absurd satire of a disaster movie, complete with unrealistic computer-generated snakes that see in green "Snake-o-Vision" and assail the passengers like the xenomorphs from Aliens. Despite some gory scenes, Snakes on a Plane interjects a copious amount of tongue-in-cheek humor, mainly about airplane tropes. A young couple who can't keep their hands off of each other sneak away into a bathroom to join the mile-high club, disabling the smoke detector so they can smoke a joint in flagrante delicto. Such an egregious disrespect for airline protocol and safety is a classic horror movie invitation for retribution, poetic justice that comes from a peeping python whose venomous pecks mimic the endowed girl's lover. Other sight gags that have (dare I say) a bite to them include a snake is lurking in one unfortunate passenger's barf bag, and another slithering sneak who grabs an unfortunate fellow as he uses the restroom for its intended purpose. (Clearly, in the event of an in-flight snake attack, the bathroom is the worst place to be.) The humor in Snakes on a Plane sometimes strays into off-color territory, like when one of Clarence's bodyguards named Troy (Kenan Thompson) makes an awkwardly suggestive comment while a lovely passenger, Maria (Elsa Pataky), sucks out the venom from a wounded boy's arm. (She wisely coats the inside of her mouth with olive oil first.) Other moments are a play on typical airplane crisis scenarios, like how the snakes leap on the passengers en masse when the oxygen masks are deployed, compounding the passengers' shock. Neville is a no-nonsense pro at protecting witnesses like Sean--although despite his and his federal colleagues' efforts, Kim miraculously manages to outwit the entire FBI seemingly through dumb luck. Neville's patience wears thinner and thinner after constantly being on the back foot against an antagonist that isn't even on the plane, eventually leading to a line of dialogue that is pure Samuel L. Jackson and became the R-rated catchphrase for the movie. It isn't interjected naturally into Snakes on a Plane, but then again, neither are actual snakes on a plane.
Recommended for: Fans of a cheesy, guilty pleasure of an action film that straddles the line between disaster movie and a satire of one with gusto. The over-the-top premise is played with seriousness, making Snakes on a Plane a precursor to disaster satires like Sharknado.
It's inevitable that at some point the audience of Snakes on a Plane should ask the obvious question: why wouldn't Eddie Kim just blow up the plane; if he could smuggle a bunch of exotic snakes from across the world on board, why not just put a bomb on it? Asking this question means that you're trying to think about this movie from a logistical point of view, which defeats the purpose. Snakes on a Plane is designed to be an absurd satire of a disaster movie, complete with unrealistic computer-generated snakes that see in green "Snake-o-Vision" and assail the passengers like the xenomorphs from Aliens. Despite some gory scenes, Snakes on a Plane interjects a copious amount of tongue-in-cheek humor, mainly about airplane tropes. A young couple who can't keep their hands off of each other sneak away into a bathroom to join the mile-high club, disabling the smoke detector so they can smoke a joint in flagrante delicto. Such an egregious disrespect for airline protocol and safety is a classic horror movie invitation for retribution, poetic justice that comes from a peeping python whose venomous pecks mimic the endowed girl's lover. Other sight gags that have (dare I say) a bite to them include a snake is lurking in one unfortunate passenger's barf bag, and another slithering sneak who grabs an unfortunate fellow as he uses the restroom for its intended purpose. (Clearly, in the event of an in-flight snake attack, the bathroom is the worst place to be.) The humor in Snakes on a Plane sometimes strays into off-color territory, like when one of Clarence's bodyguards named Troy (Kenan Thompson) makes an awkwardly suggestive comment while a lovely passenger, Maria (Elsa Pataky), sucks out the venom from a wounded boy's arm. (She wisely coats the inside of her mouth with olive oil first.) Other moments are a play on typical airplane crisis scenarios, like how the snakes leap on the passengers en masse when the oxygen masks are deployed, compounding the passengers' shock. Neville is a no-nonsense pro at protecting witnesses like Sean--although despite his and his federal colleagues' efforts, Kim miraculously manages to outwit the entire FBI seemingly through dumb luck. Neville's patience wears thinner and thinner after constantly being on the back foot against an antagonist that isn't even on the plane, eventually leading to a line of dialogue that is pure Samuel L. Jackson and became the R-rated catchphrase for the movie. It isn't interjected naturally into Snakes on a Plane, but then again, neither are actual snakes on a plane.
Recommended for: Fans of a cheesy, guilty pleasure of an action film that straddles the line between disaster movie and a satire of one with gusto. The over-the-top premise is played with seriousness, making Snakes on a Plane a precursor to disaster satires like Sharknado.