Halfass Film Review: Snakes On A Plane

Hmm... I had heard conflicting stories about this film... it was either really good or really crappy or just plain laughable. Well, after watchig it, I've decided it's a bit of all three.

To summarise the plot as quickly as possible: surfer dude witnesses a brutal baseball-bat-to-the-chops murder under a bridge. Gangster guy Eddie Kim (who is played by the same guy who played Chozen in Karate Kid II) tells his goons to chase down surfer dude and kill him. Surfer dude is then rescued from a supposedly grisly death by some FBI guy played by Samuel L. Jackson.

FBI guy and Surfer dude are then seen boarding a plane to LA from Hawaii, and we see devious goings on with some creepy dude spraying some flowers in the cargo hold of the plane. Basically, mean-ass Eddie Kim knows that surfer dude is on the flight and has put a bunch of deadly snakes on the plane. (Hence the title!)

Anyhoo, the flight is all kinda normal for a while, and then we see a timer thing counting down, it hits zero and there's a BOOM and snakes are all over the cargo hold.

Stoner guy and Stoner girl are intent on joining the mile-high club while high.. and that's sorta interrupted by a tropical looking snake dropping down from the cieling and snacking on some stoner girl boobie. Hilarity and mayhem shortly ensue, snakes are EVERYWHERE, people are panicking and being bitten, frothing at the mouth, yada yada yada.

Gross and kinda EWW! bit: when the foreign chick swigs olive oil and bites the arm of the kid who got bitten and sucks all the poison out.

Laughable bits: when Macho guy taking a leak has a snake on the other end of his penis. When the gay air host Ken microwaves a snake to death (complete with "snake" button on the microwave) and he says "WHO'S YOUR DADDY NOW, BITCH?!" And the snake taserings were kinda funny too.

Supposedly dramatic but laughable bits: the Jaws-esque music and the "spooky" SnakeVision (TM) shots that just made me laugh myself silly. Oh and the gay air host Ken trying to show off his kickboxing moves, and failing badly.

"OMG I can't believe they put that in!!" bit: The poor guy who gets trampled in the chaos and cops a stiletto heel to the eardrum.. YEOW!

Quotes: "Well that's good news... Snakes on CRACK!", "Sporks?!" "All praises to the Playstation!" "Pretty soon, we'll go down faster than a Thai hooker!"

I tend to enjoy most horror movies for reasons other than their original intent. I guess it all depends on what you find scary. As I've never had a close contact with a snake, they don't particularly scare me that much, and my offhand attitude to them is "just keep away from the pointy end, and you will be ok". This film on the other hand, did have me jump at one point, but only one, mind you. The rest of the time I was laughing quite a bit... and I'm still perplexed as to whether this film should be labelled as a comedy or not.

This is the sort of film I would expect to be a knock-off of a Japanese film, as the Japanese sometimes have very quirky movies or TV shows (shit, just look at Takeshi's Castle or Iron Chef for evidence of that).

Overall... this film is more hilarious than scary, unless you really truly, don't like snakes...in which case you will probably be peeing in your knickers out of fright, rather than laughter.

I'll give it 3 bites out of 5 for the comedy involved.