January 30, 2013 at 5:54 p.m.
Without the audience, this one would bite
Oh yeah, and a FUN one. At times. In bite-size doses.
Yeah, the snakes look fake. On-set snake-wrangler or no, nothing bites anybody anywhere in Snakes on a Plane that isn't digital or rubber.
Probably a good thing. Because it isn't so much where the snakes are, as where they bite you that is the source of the shock-laughs in the film from the ex-stuntman who did Final Destination 2.
David R. Ellis manages to run an efficient shock machine here, with scenes that allow the audience to count down to the moment when the snakes bust loose, shout back at lines that Samuel L. Jackson was born to say (really bad dialogue from several writers) and shriek with delight as this passenger or that one, the deserving and the innocent, take a bite for Hollywood and summer movie glory in places NOBODY wants to be bitten. Ever.
The set-up: Annoying motocross kid witnesses a mob murder in Hawaii. Jackson plays the Fed who protects him as he is escorted to LA on a red-eye 747 flight.
The mobster has planted snakes in time-release boxes. They get out. And all manner of hissing heck breaks loose, as passengers and crew die by the score in just a few torrid, hysterical minutes, followed by long dead stretches until more die in a few torrid, hysterical minutes.
They chase, slither up dresses, out of toilets and through air passages. They short out electronics. They REALLY annoy Jackson, who hits his promised "I'm tired of these mutha ..... snakes on this mutha ..... plane!" line so hard you'd think he was paid by the word.
Jackson loses no cool points for this one, no matter how cheesy it turns. And that is PRETTY cheesy.
Julianna Margulies plays an intrepid flight attendant, heading a cast of "types" - the aloof rapper (Flex Alexander) with entourage, the little boys traveling alone, the new mother, the annoying Brit, the hypochondriac newlywed, the make-out-in-the-lavatory pair, the sissy flight attendant and so on. The shocks work, and a few of the jokes score. This was tailor-made for and by the Saw/Hostel crowd.
It's not really about the victims, but their mode of death. How cool did they go out? That's the source of the "wheeee" on this summer roller-coaster ride. Sick as it is, it captures more of the joy of movie-going than virtually any other summer movie this year.
It could never really live up to the hype. But if you're going to see it, see it in a theatre. It simply won't work on the iPod, and it will be just sad to see on DVD. Without a crowd with you, shouting at the screen, applauding at the latest bites, shrieking in mock surprise, you'll be missing more than half the fun. Without the audience, this one bites.[[In-content Ad]]
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