Snakes on a Plane does its potential detractors a great service: it wears its plot right out on its sleeve. As the tagline for the 1982 chainsaw Z-movie Pieces once intoned: "It's exactly what you think it is." The title has an air of William Castle about it, and has inspired all manner of parodies (Snakes on Claire Danes) and Cassandra-like predictions that it might be the worst film ever made. The latter is a notion given credence by New Line Cinema's almost slavish insistence on reshaping the film based on noisy Internet buzz from potential fans, and its subsequent refusal to screen Snakes in advance for critics. The defiance of a title like Snakes on a Plane makes it practically complaint-proof. It says: if you want to see the titular objects, you'll buy a ticket; if you do not, and you buy a ticket anyway, then you're a money-wasting jackass.
After star Samuel L. Jackson's Entertainment Weekly explanation for the lack of critics' screenings ("Those motherfuckers don't need to watch this!"), I figured Snakes on a Plane would be as bad as Strays, the USA Network movie about cats (represented in one scene by two fake paws on a stick) killing people. Predictably, I couldn't wait to get bitten by the flying snakes. After all, I run the Shameful Movies of Odie's Past Film Festival. But New Line's skittishness was for naught; far fewer critics went Rikki-Tikki-Tavi on Snakes on a Plane than they expected, and I was pleasantly surprised to find a fairly well-crafted B-movie projected onscreen, one that made no attempt at seriousness nor achieved a higher station than its pedigree required. If you're ophidiophobic, or suffer from the fear of flying not specified by Erica Jong, SoaP might freak you out. Everyone else should have a good, goofy time.
A few weeks ago, House contributor Wagstaff published a piece about the communal experience of watching movies in a theater. He wrote: "The thing I felt most palpably was the missing presence of a teenage audience on a Friday night. This stuff was a lot more fun back when your friends were laughing and groaning, or when your sweetheart was clutching your arm." This is the perfect environment for Snakes on a Plane. The movie demands to be seen in a theater with a rowdy crowd. It seems engineered to invite an improvised commentary track. Every bad line or violent act invites a scream, a jump, a laugh or a comment. Anticipating this, I saw the film at the Empire on 42nd St., a magnet for the kinds of audiences Wagstaff misses. It's also a nostalgic locale for me, a veteran of 1970s Times Square grindhouse double features.
Director David Ellis would have comported himself nicely back in the day; 
he knows how to goose and goad, most notably in the scene that initially illustrates the title, in which a clichéd red-digit bomb counter ticks its way to zero on the snakes' carrier, signalling their release onto a passenger jet. (Warning: spoilers ahead.) The Empire audience counted "10...9...8…" and when the snakes burst forth to wreak havoc, the theater vibrated with excitement. We were about to see a little of the old ultraviolence. The first victims of the snakes are a mile-high club newlywed couple and a guy answering the last call of nature he'll ever hear. As the snakes gleefully zeroed in on the not-ready-for-prime-time bits of the human body, everyone went wild. The scent of baser instincts permeated the theater, intermingling with the sickly sweet smell of imitation butter topping. I was in Heaven.
Prior to getting on the plane, Ellis and company set up the obligatory sliver of plot on which to hang the carnage. In Hawaii, surfer dude Sean Jones (Nathan Phillips) witnesses Eddie Kim (Byron Lawson) playing baseball with a district attorney's head, then flees; Kim sends his men to his house to get him. When Sean hears someone fiddling with the door, he looks through the peephole to see the henchmen; then Ellis cuts to the lock coming undone. ("You better run!" screamed a woman in the theater.) Sean heeds the woman's advice, and runs directly into the film's resident mongoose, FBI agent Samuel L. Jackson ("How da hell did he know where to find this guy?" yelled an audience member who sounded like me.) "Do as I say, and you live!" commands Sam. Gunfire ensues, and then, at the police station, Sam convinces Sean to testify against Kim in Los Angeles. But rather than just shoot Sean, Kim sends him a time-released present. Loading poisonous snakes on a plane to kill one person is like shooting a fly with an AK-47, but then, Kim is an overachiever. "One time," says overly cheerful flight attendant Tiffany, "Kim gouged a guy's eyes out...and then fed him to pigs!"
Since this isn't Snakes on a Carnival Cruise, Sean and Sam board a plane serviced by flight attendants Julianna Marguiles, Bruce James, and New Line Cinema staple Lin Shaye (sister of the company's founder Bob). We meet, Airport-style, the snake fodder in first class and coach—an angry Brit, a germaphobic rap star with two bodyguards, a guy with a fear of flying, a woman with her newborn, the aforementioned horny newlyweds, a Paris Hilton-esque snob named Mercedes carrying a rat dog in her purse, and two cute little kids flying solo for the first time. Everything you expect to happen does. The newborn baby disappears. 
The kids are imperiled. The snippy rat dog finally earns some sympathy. When the oxygen masks drop down, so do snakes. People sacrifice themselves to save others, or get their comeuppances; a fair number wind up with nasty snake bites whose R-rated reshoots are barely stitched into the fabric of their PG-13 originals. Julianna Marguiles quotes Julie Hagerty in Airplane, and Sam reminds us that nobody, except my mother, uses profanity better. As the film neared its climax, the gentleman in front of me asked, "so when does Sam say muthafucka?" As if the film had ears, the next image was a medium shot of Sam bellowing the catchphrase of 2006. "Enough is Enough! I have had it with these muthafuckin' snakes on this muthafuckin' plane!" I thought the roof on the Empire was coming off; the cheers were deafening. (This movie knows how to cater to its audience: the ultimate hero of Snakes on a Plane fits the profile of the excited Internet guys who made this a minor phenomenon. Sam brings the braggadocio and the brawn, but a knowledge of Playstation 2 saves the day.)
The main actors acquit themselves nicely, considering some of the horrible dialogue they're asked to utter. Phillips has little to do, but Marguiles, Shaye and Kenan Thompson evoke intentional laughs and expected sympathy. Sam is Sam, the badass whose mouth sends the church folks running for the exits, and though Ellis puts him in some jeopardy via a smartly rendered scene full of wires hanging from the ceiling (one of which just has to be a snake, doesn't it?), we know he's leaving the plane unscathed. Snakes on a Plane isn't Citizen Kane, but it isn't Ben on a Jen (ahem, Gigli) either. It's a cliché to say a B-movie is better than expected, but a cliché is the best instrument to describe a movie comprised of little else.
A side note to those who had SoaP pegged as the stupidest idea for a snake movie ever: In 1973, Strother Martin starred as a sinister snake scientist in yet another standard-issue sci-fi stinker from Universal Studios, titled Sssssss (yes, that's seven S's). Strother sticks his assistants with serum-filled shots, turning them into super-sized snakes; despite the symptoms, his latest mark, Dirk Benedict, never seems to realize he's succumbing to a serpentine metamorphosis. The last scene sends Benedict, now a giant cobra, straight to the business end of a mongoose. Now that's stupid.
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Dude, I totally remember Sssssss from late night TV in the 70's-early 80's. Didn't Marcia Strassman (Mrs. Kotter) play strother's daughter?
Spot on with your words 'bout SOaP.
I only wish SoaP had been cheesier and dumber, not less so. The movie tries to walk a tightrope between traditional Hollywood action fare and old school b-movie schock, but while it talks the talk, the film doesn’t walk the walk. Now, other than the silly snake-vision and some unimpressive moments of CGI, I haven’t got many complaints about the actual motherfucking snakes on the motherfucking plane. I mean, they do their job, munching and crunching their way through the airplane’s passenger list in creative and disgusting manner. And I'm still skittish when anyone or anything brushes up on me from behind, so props on that front.
However, I do have some problems with the actual composition of the plane, not to mention the banality of the plot. Other than the character of the co-pilot, none of the supporting characters is given a whiff of memorable or even memorably bad dialogue or egregiously awful behavior for our entertainment. Sadly, the one obnoxious character who threatens to provide such material is devoured in one of the film’s more delicious scenes, while other applicants for the position, such as the self-involved Paris Hilton and Kanye West characters, are allowed to wriggle themselves entirely off the hook by the end of the venture. As a result, this is essentially a one-man show. Of course, when that one man is Sam Jackson, you are gonna get plenty of mileage outta the character, and director Ellis is smart enough to make sure that Jackson is the center of attention in virtually every scene. And Sammy delivers the goods. If only the goods he delivers were a little tastier.
A fella can’t help what might have been if the film had really embraced its b-movie-ness and gone for broke by developing some Jon Voigt in Anaconda-type figures. And where’s Clint Howard when you need him? He’d have made one helluva snake wrangler. Ah well. After all these months of build up, I can’t help but feel let down by the relative tameness of SoaP, from its conventional McGuffin setup through to it’s banal happy ending. And I’m sure in some small way I’m the lesser man for it.
Jeez, I need an edit function every time a fart around here. That's what I get for posting first and reading later.
I haven't seen the movie yet, but the whole phenomenon seems to have a trickster element to it; the audience feels great affection toward the film long before it comes out because the movie company made them feel as if they were a part of the hype/marketing (even the production, as Odie observes). But in the end, is the experience really that much different than reading and hearing about a big budget superhero movie for several years and then finally seeing it? Are viewers really a part of the process, or is it just a Jedi mind trick? Is Snakes really the first Internet-age blockbuster, one that tears down the walls between the audience and the product? Or has Hollywood figured out how to manipulate us in a new way?
Dan: A fella can’t help what might have been if the film had really embraced its b-movie-ness and gone for broke by developing some Jon Voigt in Anaconda-type figures.
I'm with you on that. I love Jon Voigt in Anaconda. He's absolutely B-movie brilliant--shades of Bruce Dern at his crazy worst.
I also agree that SoaP walks a fine line between embracing and (somewhat) rejecting its B-movie roots. I rather enjoyed the struggle, though. And every time the film threatened to become too cozy with class, we got gruesome snake attacks.
My favorite scene illustrating the class vs. b-movie fight is the scene before SLJ goes into the bottom of the plane to turn the power back on. He says to Julianna "I need you to be strong." The line is your standard issue Hollywood movie line, but the way he says it made me want to bust out laughing. I also like the last bit of dialogue before the scene ends. "Call me."
MZS: I do think it's kind of a Jedi mind trick. The film would have been far worse if the filmmakers had listened to everybody on the 'Net. I think they just needed an excuse to turn in an R-rated cut. I'm sure New Line wanted the dreaded PG-13 (which is supposed to mean bigger bucks, but at the expense of shoe-horning diluted R-rated material into it).
Personally, I wouldn't have gone to see a PG-13 rated movie called Snakes on a Plane, because PG-13 Samuel L. Jackson means never getting to hear him do what he does best. (Aside: I would love to get my Mom and Sam Jackson in a room together for a curse-a-thon. It would probably kill me, and they can make a movie out of it.)
Is Strays out on video yet?
Matt: but the whole phenomenon seems to have a trickster element to it; the audience feels great affection toward the film long before it comes out.
Further to that, based on the box office numbers, it seems that all of the hype leading up to the film's release was in a weird way kinda detrimental cuz the film seems to ahve peaked popularity-wise even before it hit the big screen.
I didn't notice this until just now, but Odie writes: "A side note to those who had SoaP pegged as the stupidest idea for a snake movie ever: In 1973, Strother Martin starred as a sinister snake scientist in yet another standard-issue sci-fi stinker from Universal Studios, titled Sssssss (yes, that's seven S's). Strother sticks his assistants with serum-filled shots, turning them into super-sized snakes; despite the symptoms, his latest mark, Dirk Benedict, never seems to realize he's succumbing to a serpentine metamorphosis. The last scene sends Benedict, now a giant cobra, straight to the business end of a mongoose. Now that's stupid."
Including movie titles, this highlly alliterative paragraph has 29 words starting with "S." Deliberate design, or reviewer rapture?
I think the movie does a good job of communicating with its target audience. I appreciate how the characters commonly asked the exact same logic-related questions the audience members did.
The villain's henchman says (regarding the nefarious plot of placing killer snakes aboard a plane to assassinate the witness), "Are you SURE this is the best way to kill this guy, boss?" And the exasperated villain responds, "I have exhausted EVERY OTHER POSSIBILITY!!!"
MZS: Including movie titles, this highlly alliterative paragraph has 29 words starting with "S." Deliberate design, or reviewer rapture?
I have a lisp, which is far less pronounced due to years of speech therapy. But if you catch me off guard, I tend to sound like Sylvester from Looney Tunes.
I wanted to write a paragraph that I could not read without panicking. So yes, that was by design. If they can have seven S's in that title, I can have 29 S words in my paragraph!
Jeremiah, I thought that was a funny line of dialogue!
"Enough is enough!"
Contracting the first two words
Might be cheating, but:
"I've had it with these
Muthafuckin' snakes on this
Muthafuckin' plane!"
Jeff: Is Strays out on video yet?
It's only on VHS, according to IMDB.
I just realized it was written by Shaun Cassidy! Kathleen Quinlan must have needed the money to appear in this. It is so piss your pants funny that you should seek it out. Some of my favorite scenes:
1. Cats kill one guy by just jumping on him. No scratching, no biting, no meow meow meow. Just jumps on the guy and I guess he has a heart attack or something.
2. The family tries to prevent the crazy cat from coming out of a vent by using a pillow. The cat scratches the pillow to shreds, but if you pay close attention, you'll see that it's two fake paws on a stick.
3. The climax features a cat puppet, Elliot from thirtysomething, an electric wire and a microwave oven. And the noises the cats make have to be heard to be believed.
This is a MUST SEE! If you don't laugh your ass off, I will eat my hat.
Only our Wagstaff
Could make Sam muthafuckin'
Jackson's words haiku.
kevbo: I saw Sssssss at the drive in as a double feature with Jaws! It was the third time I saw Jaws in the theater. I saw it a few more times on the Channel 7 late movie. I remember the familiar voice of the WABC announcer saying "tonight's feature is SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!" I don't belive Mrs. Kotter was in it, but it's been years since I've seen it.
They should do an onomatopoeia film festival, where they'll show Sssssss, Tick, Tick, Tick; Phffft, Whiffs, Zapped, Boom (w/Liz Taylor!) and Eegah. At the end of the fest, someone comes out and reads Howl.
I think I caught MI: 3 at the same Times Square theater on vacation.
I will forever associate one part of the movie with a hilarious audience member: Toward the movie's finale, Tom Cruise has a time bomb implanted in his head. In the seconds he has left to live, Cruise instructs his girlfriend to electrocute him and then revive him to deactivate the bomb. He has two seconds left, and he interrupts everything to steal a kiss from his girl.
Expressing his letdown, an audience member shouts, "Man, kill that nigga!" Everyone around me laughed.
A few seconds later he said announced he wanted a refund and he was "gonna have to smoke a blunt on this shit."
It really added a new and welcomed dimension.
A colleague of mine saw the gay-themed MAKING LOVE on an opening-day matinee, in San Francisco. The big moment comes when straying husband Michael Ontkean has to tell his wife, Kate Jackson, about his alternate lifestyle. "Honey, I have something to tell you," he begins. "I think you better sit down." Just then, a woman behind him drawled, "Honey, you better LIE down."
Brought the house down.
One of my own favorite moments was at a Philly theater showing BUGSY. The woman behind me thought the name "Bugsy" was just the funniest thing she'd ever heard. "Oooh, look out, Bugsy!" she'd cry out when Warren Beatty faced danger. During clinches with Annette Bening: "Oh, that's it, Bugsy, go for it, Bugsy, nice and slow." And, at the bitter end, "My GOD, they KILLED Bugsy!" I was too busy laughing to be annoyed.
The love interest in SSSSSSS (counted 'em) was Heather Menzies, one of the girls from SOUND OF MUSIC.
I really need to reserve my brain cells for things that matter.
The thing is that Snakes on a Plane being a box-office disappointment means that it's now poised to become a true cult classic, not just a manufactured one. Because we all know that only failed movies are allowed to become cult classics.
Josh: The thing is that Snakes on a Plane being a box-office disappointment means that it's now poised to become a true cult classic
True. I wondered if that was New Line's intention all along. I never saw a single commercial for SoaP on TV, and I only saw one trailer for it. Despite its Internet presence, it felt like an underground "phenomenon." Sam Jackson showed up on EW before the release, but it is still not the same as seeing a commercial every 5 minutes.
At Lucas' re-release of The Empire Strikes Back, when Billy Dee asks Carrie Fisher "would you like some refreshments?" I yelled out "COLT 45!" The funniest thing is that Billy Dee asks the Princess this at least three times during the movie. He was REALLY trying!
Ben on a Jen .. funny stuff .. I have to say that, for me, Snakes on a Plane delivered exactly what it promised it would, a big ball of B-movie fun
Did you guys read about this:
Snakes in a theater?
I'll bet the ghost of William Castle put them there. And I'll also bet that the AMC spokeslady said "I have had it with these muthafuckin' snakes on this muthafuckin' theater!"
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