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Snakes On A Plane
Beware phunky in-phlight pheremones
2006
Review: September 1, 2006
Director: David R. Ellis
Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Julianna Margulies, Nathan Phillips, Rachel Blanchard, Flex Alexander
Indubitably.
THE SETUP:
There’s a bunch of motherfucking snakes on a motherfucking plane.
DISCUSSION:
I left work a little early on a rainy Monday to see this, with the prospect that I would be sitting alone in an empty theater and the movie would be a total crashing dud. Having heard that you really need a big, boisterous audience with you or don’t even bother to see the movie, but prevented by seeing it on opening night by a camping trip that weekend [subsequently rained out], here I was, a week and a half later, seeing Snakes on a Plane at a 5:30 show by myself, like a FUCKING LOSER. Yes, I have faced this in myself.
I arrived in time to catch the tail end on AMC’s “First Look,” that interminable thing in which they show you a bunch of barely-concealed ads and strenuously pretend that it’s “content,” while actually interrupting the “content” to show numerous ads. It’s like, we now interrupt our advertising to bring you a message from our advertisers. This “show” contained an amusing close that said “We got a first look at ‘Sex and the City.’” Oh… you mean that show that was cancelled two years ago? This “program” was also interrupted by one of those revisionist National Guard ads in which they try desperately to pretend that the National Guard was ALWAYS slated to go overseas and fight “terrorism,” and ignore the fact that the National Guard was always intended solely to clean up from hurricanes and tornadoes and stifle political protest and things like that. It made me kind of miss those ads for the Marines in which you find out that if you join the Marines you will be able to rock climb on mountains that are imbued with the spirits of American ancestors, or be transformed by a column of fire into a guy in a uniform, or, my favorite, be able to leap through whirling blades in slow motion, a la Neo, and then slay giant fire Krackens with a magical sword. But enough digression.
The surprise to me, in my not-so empty theater, is that the movie itself is GOOD, and stands up on its own without having to have a huge rowdy audience in attendance. It begins right away with having this surfer / dirtbiker dude witness a murder, then Samuel Jackson whisking him away, and preparations for his flight from Hawaii to L.A. to testify.
The flight proceeds in the manner of a disaster movie by introducing us to our cross section of passengers / victims. We have a P. Diddy-type rap star with two bodyguards who were his bestest buds back in the hoodie, a Paris Hilton-type with a little Chihuahua named Mary-Kate [who is actually totally cute and charming. The Paris type, not the dog], a newlywed couple, an older, drunk Hispanic lady, two kids traveling alone, a seemingly gay male steward [more on him later], etc. There’s also a snooty Englishman who at one point says “Fucking Americans,” this slating him for a certain horrible death, because anyone who doesn’t like America truly deserves to DIE, don’t you think? And Julianna Margulies as this flight attendant on her very last trip. Now I vowed never to forgive Julianna for her part in the debacle that was Ghost Ship, where she annoyed me quite a bit, but here she has Famke-hair, and is quite cute and charming throughout. And if it weren’t for the lingering offense to humanity constituted by Ghost Ship, I probably wouldn’t have sat wishing it was actually Fabulous Famke in the role.
The tone of the movie strikes one right away, and it’s a tone that readers of this site might find particularly appealing, as it is very, very funny from the start in just how obviously it’s twisting each and every genre cliché in such a way as to offer maximum fun and cheesy potentiality. But the thing is: it’s not dumb about it. It’s very winking and obvious in a way that makes you feel led by someone you can trust, and someone who respects your intelligence. I had fully expected that all actual EFFORT to construct a decent film would end once the advance internet hype began, but was pleasantly surprised to discover that this thing is actually pretty GOOD! And in such a way that you can enjoy it just by yourself, and don’t need a huge audience for. I was giggling for the first hour.
Although some have complained that it takes forever for the movie, for me it was whipping along at quite a fast pace from the start. But eventually the snakes get released, and start crawling up though the cabin. You get the juvenile amusement of seeing a woman bitten on her breast [Ha. Ha.] and a guy bitten on the dick, which prompts him to say “Get off my dick, bitch!” It’s a little amusing as the snakes are slithering through the cabin that they seem to stay neatly stowed under the seats, as people standing in the aisle don’t seem to see them. I was somewhat impressed by the fact that when you see a snake apparently sliding into a woman’s pussy, on the soundtrack there is the sound of a train! This is a reference to the long tradition of symbolizing sexual intercourse by showing a train entering a tunnel, as seen in [I think it was] North by Northwest.
From there on it’s all attack, attack, calamity, calamity, and during this time we learn that airplanes commonly have bottles of olive oil on hand [next to the in-flight brick oven, no doubt], and that Samuel Jackson has astonishingly white teeth. I loved how the movie really goes for broke in having the stairs collapse at one point, and basically throwing on every possible permutation of pandemonium it can think of. And little details like showing the huge anaconda be sucked out the window for a split second, after seeing it swallow a man whole, wins points for just having the sense to include little details like that and not just forget them altogether. Overall, a blast as promised.
Now, to the apparently gay steward. I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, it’s on the positive side to have him turn out to be straight after layer and layer of OTT apparent gayness is piled on as thick as possible, but on the other hand they are trying to kind of have it both ways by inviting us all to laugh at how silly the gay guy is throughout the whole movie. But ultimately I appreciate the gesture at saying “you never do know,” and I think it’s kind of important to pick your battles and not stay in the perspective that is simply offended by everything.
This movie succeeds in being knowingly campy and silly, quite obviously aware of its existence as only a movie that serves no purpose other than to tweak our expectations of movies, but it does it in such a genuinely smart way that one appreciates it and wants to play along. But the biggest surprise is that a year from now, on DVD, even alone in your living room, this movie is going to be just as fun and enjoyable as it is in a crowded theater. Okay, maybe not quite, but you know, you can smoke and drink at home, so I guess that kind of balances the difference.
SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?
Baby you know you should.
RELATED MOVIES:
FINAL DESTINATION 2 is seen by many as the finest in this fun-ass series, and is directed by the same guy.
