Snakes on a Plane
Lets get one thing out of the way from the start: This is a Bad movie. It’s also a very well made and extremely entertaining one.
The plot is simple : an F.B.I. agent (Samuel L. Jackson) is escorting an important witness from Hawaii to L.A. The diabolical bad guy comes up with the cunning plan to smuggle a crate of snakes onto the plane and release them mid flight (bet Osama wishes he’d thought of that one.) Jackson and the rest of the passengers must try to stay alive until they reach their destination. That’s about it for the plot.
This is essentially a modern take on the 70’s Airport series with added scares. The characters are all stereotypes; the celebrity, the ditsy blonde complete with pet dog, the newlyweds, the flirty stewardess…you get the idea. Thankfully, director David R. Ellis realises this and uses it to the film’s advantage, taking some of the viewers expectations and turning them on their head, while playing others for laughs.
The actors do a competent job considering they’re not exactly given well-rounded characters to play, although only Jackson and Julianna Margulies really make much of an impression. Margulies hasn’t exactly set the world alight since leaving ER six years ago (something of a mystery to me as I think she’s a terrific actress) so hopefully her role as the ’spunky stewardess’ will lead to better things. She manages to turn a cardboard character into a likeable human being and the fact you’re rooting for her to live to see the end credits shows how successful she is.
As for Sam, well, he doesn’t exactly give his acting muscles much of a workout. There’s nothing here we haven’t seen from him before, in fact this could easily be called Shaft 2: Snakes on a Plane. He relies on charisma to carry the film and, thankfully, that’s something he has by the bucket load.
But it’s director Ellis who makes the biggest impact. Â He’s no stranger to the ‘concept’ film having directed Cellular (2004) while Final Destination 2 (2003) showed he could do scares. And it’s the scares that really make this work, there are more ‘jump out of your seat’ moments in this film than anything I’ve seen for a long time. This is a rollercoaster of a movie, a thrill ride that keeps going on momentum alone (it has to, it left logic and credibility back at the airport.)
I don’t think this will stand up well to repeat viewings, without that edge of your seat feeling the stupidity of the plot and flimsiness of the characters would be all too apparent. However, as a one off cinematic experience it’s a lot of fun. There has been talk of a sequel but I don’t think you could pull this off again, you’d end up with something like Speed 2, a pale shadow of the original. The fact that this hasn’t performed as well as expected could kill that idea anyway.
What I can see working again is the blending of 70’s disaster movie and horror flick (perhaps if Poseidon had tried that it wouldn’t have been such a flop.) What about The Towering Inferno with zombies? I can see the add line now - ‘What will get them first, the fire above or the zombies below?’ (If there are any studio bigwigs reading this who like that idea give me a call, we can do lunch.)
