Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on August 18, 2006, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
Could Snakes on a Plane possibly have lived up to the expectations that have built up for it? Or, perhaps more to the point, could it possibly have lived down to them? A lot of people who’ll go to this movie likely won’t expect it to be good; they’ll want to see the campy, outrageous time suggested by the title, the premise and the presence of star Samuel L. Jackson. And the movie certainly delivers what it promises: It’s got a plane, it’s got snakes, it’s got Jackson giving just the performance you’d expect, complete with the signature line (delivered in an awkwardly obvious reshoot close-up) “I’ve had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!” But (as I noted when reviewing the last major-studio serpent saga, Anacondas) humor—and horror for that matter—are dependent on the unexpected, and many of the cheesy parts of Snakes on a Plane are cheesy in the generic manner of lots of recent studio action/horror flicks. The movie’s not bad, but in another sense, it’s also not bad enough.
The opening reel or so are rushed and perfunctory in the manner of any number of recent genre films anxious to get to the good stuff (though it’s a half hour before the reptile rampage begins). It’s the kind of film where, in the Hawaiian-set opening scene, a good guy and a bad guy helpfully address each other as “Eddie Kim” and “prosecutor” before said Eddie Kim gives said prosecutor a fatal beatdown with a baseball bat. This violent act is witnessed by Sean (Nathan Phillips), a young man who, in short order, is attacked by Kim’s thugs in his home, rescued by FBI agent Neville Flynn (Jackson) and convinced to fly to LA to testify against the crime lord. So how does Kim plan to prevent Sean from helping put him away? Snakes on a plane, motherfucker! And just to make sure the fanged critters do the job, Kim has the leis intended to be doled out to the passengers sprayed with pheromones that will turn the reptiles into sex-crazed killing machines.
This plot, of course, is utterly ludicrous (and as a former snake-loving kid who knows a harmless milk snake from the venomous coral snake it plays on screen, don’t get me started on the scientific implausibilities scattered throughout). But director David R. Ellis, working from a script that had three credited writers and at least that many who go uncredited, charges through the story with the same vigor he brought to the equally preposterous Final Destination 2. The first attacks have the kind of over-the-top kick that got the toy-snake-toting audience at an early showing properly riled up: A couple doing the Mile High Club thing in a plane bathroom get what’s always coming to people who have sex and do drugs in horror films, and a guy taking a leak in the next stall over is bitten on his trouser snake. And when the crawling, striking horde attacks the cabin en masse, Ellis builds an intensity that’s genuinely scary.
Once that setpiece is over, though, both the terror and the humor slither away. The movie stacks the deck with potential victims including a woman with a baby, another woman toting a cute little dog and a pair of little kids traveling alone, but it’s hard to truly care about anyone’s fate because, aside from a level-headed stewardess played by Julianna Margulies, none of the supporting characters resonate as flesh-and-blood individuals. And neither do the snakes, which are too obviously brought to “life” via CGI, which negates the tactile feeling of creeping terror a movie like this should provide. (Though for those who are afraid of snakes in real life, the idea of attacking serpent swarms might be enough to get under the skin.) And instead of really milking the claustrophobia of the plane setting, the movie keeps cutting away to a silly subplot of another FBI guy and a pompous herpetologist trying to track down antivenoms for anyone who might make it off the flight, if it lands.
Conversely, the movie doesn’t go over the top enough to succeed as a camp classic. It’s too bound by formula to deliver the anarchic fun of, say, Joe Dante’s Gremlins films, and the “funny” characters are stock—an a-hole Brit in a business suit, a rapper’s wisecracking entourage, etc. Perhaps Ellis and co. felt that the basic situation was insane enough to speak for itself, but there are only so many times you can watch computerized snakes lashing out at fleeing passengers before the absurdity curdles. Having Jackson, with his alternately cool and in-your-face delivery, definitely helps, but the bottom line is that there is no moment here as startlingly gasp-and-giggle-worthy as his character’s sign-off scene in Deep Blue Sea.
Snakes on a Plane does provide a certain amount of superficial fun, and gorehounds will appreciate the extra grue (convincingly nasty makeup FX by Todd Masters) slipped in to boost the film to R level. But one has to wonder if the more restrictive rating is a mistake on a movie that would be catnip for kids (like the surprise hit original Anaconda, which surely benefitted from its youth-welcoming PG-13). Any number of people old enough to attend unaccompanied might find that the Snakes on a Plane on screen can’t live up to the one conjured in their minds from the Internet buzz.
