Snakes on a Plane

When I first read that Samuel L. Jackson was going to star in a film called “Snakes on a Plane", I instantly questioned what exactly he was getting himself into. For an actor who has done such great work in films like “Pulp Fiction" and “A Time to Kill", it seemed like a risky move to sign on to a film that had such an off the wall story line, but I figured if anyone could pull it off, he could.

After months of generating an absurd amount of buzz on the internet, I have to say that I was a little disappointed with the finished product and hopefully I’m not the only one who feels this way.

Believe it or not, there’s actually an intriguing story here regarding the origin of the snakes and how they came to be on the plane in the first place, but appears to take a back seat when the mayhem finally ensues.

Jackson plays Neville Flynn, an FBI agent assigned to escort a federal witness on a flight from Honolulu to Los Angeles in hopes of putting high-profile gangster Eddie Kim away for good. To prevent that from happening, Kim has deviously arranged for a crate full of poisonous snakes to be put in the plane’s cargo hold with a timer installed so the snakes will be released at some time during the trip.

If that wasn’t enough, he has even had the leis laced with pheromones to ensure that the snakes will attack the passengers more violently.

Now that sounds like it would make for an exciting thriller, but there are many elements of this film that prevent it from becoming as good as advertised such as its clichéd characters and horrendous dialogue.

“We have to put a barrier between us and the snakes" and “Great, snakes on crack" are only a couple of the ridiculously bad lines this film has to offer, but I assure you there are plenty more where these came from.

Another tiring aspect of this film lies in the fact that there are only so many places a snake can harm you and it begins to get quite monotonous after a while. Since Director David R. Ellis makes sure that no area of the human body goes untouched, prepare to be fully disgusted by the time the credits roll and for those afraid of snakes, may I suggest spending your time on another film in its place (World Trade Center perhaps?).

By the time Jackson delivers his already iconic line, I’d had it with not only the snakes, but the entire film as well. Jackson’s performance seems to be the lone bright spot of this film, but isn’t enough to overcome such dreadful material. I understand that it wasn’t supposed to be taken seriously, but I expected a little more substance from such a promising movie and wasn’t given any.

“Snakes on a Plane" is a bad, but also very entertaining film that doesn’t quite live up to its lofty expectations. It had the makings of an exhilarating suspense film, but insisted on settling for trite character development and cheap thrills. For a quick summary, I think Public Enemy said it best when they said “Don’t believe the hype."

- ** out of 4