Here's how to tell the difference between a run-of-the-mill stupid movie about a jumbo jet filled with angry, venemous reptiles and a truly great stupid movie about a jumbo jet filled with angry, venemous reptiles. Your regular old generic "bad movie" would have a snake crawl up through a toilet and bite a man's penis. But a truly great bad movie, one that understands what it means to be a Bad Movie (capital B), has the same snake crawl up through a toilet and bite a man's penis while the man yells, "Oh my God, a snake bit my penis!"
Snakes on a Plane doesn't even stop there. It has the man flail about for a few seconds, with a snake hanging from his genitals, before dying gruesomely on camera. It's just that kind of film.
Despite all the hype and attention it has received this year, Snakes on a Plane isn't anything new. Little more than a recycled R-rated 80's creature feature, it gets by on a combination of pluck, creative gore and the charisma of Samuel L. Jackson. If Anaconda had a more immediately compelling premise, a higher body count and Sam Jackson, the two films would be practically identical.
Ellis' smartest decision was to play the goofy concept straight, to make a mainstream Hollywood thriller that's tongue-in-cheek but never campy or self-consciously ironic. Just like the cheesy 80's action films and thrillers that inspired Snakes on a Plane - low-budget oddities of the sort with introductions by Joe Bob Briggs and titles like Hard Ticket to Hawaii - Ellis allows the audience to have a good time making fun of his film by refusing to make fun of it himself.
Unfortunately, this makes for an exceedingly dull initial half hour. I have noticed a phenomenon watching these sorts of "fun" summer popcorn films on their opening weekends. Audiences get real fired up and loud during the pre-show commercials and trailers. They are typically very enthusiastic for the first 10 minutes or so of the movie...and then there's the process of "settling in." Everyone remembers that it's just a movie and it's not really all that great, that the social celebration and shared excitement was in many ways more enjoyable than the act of sitting and watching a movie, no matter how good it may be.
This happens BIG TIME in Snakes on a Plane. The credits roll (over an odd montage of surfing that seemingly has nothing to do with planes or snakes) and everyone's cheering and bracing themselves...and then it's time for about a half hour of boring exposition. I suspect all this material was needed as filler, to pad the movie out to 100 minutes.
Ellis and his screenwriters, John Heffernan and Sebastian Gutierrez, admirably stretch a thin central conceit into a number of clever scenarios, but they only really have 45 minutes or so of "snakes on a plane" action. Spending the extra time up front getting into the story is probably the worst decision they could have made. This is a cult film, designed to be enjoyed by unruly, enthusiastic and above-all impatient crowds. It feels counter-intuitive to drown out all the exuberance and energy right at the front with crappy dialogue and needless backstory. Better to just make a consistantly-enjoyable 55 minute feature.
Hawaiian surfer dude Sean Jones (Nathan Phillips) sees a mob kingpin murder a prosecutor and it's up to federal agent Neville Flynn (Jackson) to escort the witness safely to Los Angeles for trial. Once on board, they encounter several colorful passengers and crew members - snotty rich girl Mercedes (Rachel Blanchard, revising her role from the "Clueless" TV show), germophobic rapper Three G's (Flex Alexander) and his entourage, harried flight attendants (including Julianna Marguiles), a randy co-pilot (David Koechner, of Naked Trucker and Anchorman fame) and other stock characters. So perfunctory are some of these introductions, I was reminded of the early scenes in Airplane! They're all there, save a pair of Hari Krishnas.
After an interminable and largely uninteresting set-up, the plane takes flight. As part of the lamest assassination attempt since Rasputin, master criminal Eddie Kim (Byron Lawsom) has a large variety of exotic and poisonous snakes placed in the cargo compartment of the plane and released halfway through the trip from Hawaii to LA. Once the slithering death arrives, everything clicks and Snakes on a Plane suddenly jerks to life.
Ellis, a stunt coordinator who previously directed Final Destination 2 and Cellular, obviously has talent even though the movie he made this time around is dumb. The opening highway accident in FD2 demonstrated his assured skill with grand-scale action. Though the effects work here isn't on that level (many of the snake effects look blurry and rushed), his skill absolutely pays off in a few spots, particularly the final plane crash sequence.
I'd wager he could probably put together a decent horror film as well. No, Snakes on a Plane is never scary, but its "fright" sequences are well paced and cut. The gore, though always imaginitive, doesn't cross the line between surprisng and gross, keeping things relatively light. Above all, the film is about having mindless fun and really revolting carnage might dampen the atmosphere. The deaths elicit laughter, not shreiks, but changing that around would probably require only minor stylistic alterations.
Also, I should mention that Ellis may go down in history as the creator of Snake-o-Vision, for which we all owe him a huge debt of gratitude.
Despite his gifts as a director, Ellis also gets lucky. Turning an outlandish, goofy little movie like this into a cultural phenomenon depended on not just the Internet community's insatiable desire for new and bizarre hilarity, but the iconic stature of Samuel L. Jackson. He's pretty much the only actor who could have played this role and made it work this well. People love that guy, but he very rarely gets the kind of role that's perfectly suited to his particular gifts.
Early on, before he was well-known, he popped up in lots of solid films, like Goodfellas and Jungle Fever and even Coming to America. But since he broke out in Pulp Fiction, how many good movies has the guy even been in? His few other great moments and performances - in Jackie Brown or even Deep Blue Sea - can be counted on one hand. Usually, it's garbage like The Negotiator and Rules of Engagement. The opportunity not simply to see some dumbass bit of nonsense about snakes on a plane, but to see these same snakes facing off against Samuel L. pushed this thing up, I suspect, from "interesting curiosity" into "late-summer must-see" for a lot of people, myself included.
He seems to be having a great time making the movie, and his enthusiasm is contagious, but this still might be a "jump the shark" moment for the guy. Like Lil' Jon and Rick James before him, Sam Jackson is basically becoming the Dave Chappelle version of himself. He shouts pretty much every line of dialogue in the film. (Admittedly, some of these lines are real winners and deserve to be shouted. I want a T-shirt that reads "We need to put a barrier between us and these snakes!") This is his Robert De Niro in Meet the Parents role. Once you have made fun of your persona in this way, can you really step back into it for the purposes of some more serious project?
I'd have a hard time actually recommending you go see Snakes on a Plane. First off, you missed the crowded Friday and Saturday shows. If the box office tracking is accurate, the movie's about to die off, so there won't be another chance to see it with a big crowd. Secondly, it's not entertaining all the way through. During that first 30 minutes, it feels like a lot of anticipation over nothing - just another predictable, dry, unthrilling thriller about cops and robbers.
I don't care so much any more for the standard cops vs. robbers stuff. Now, cops vs. robbers vs. exotic and venemous snakes...
I had a feeling this would fail. With all the "brains" these studio execs and Hollywood Insiders have, both factions failed to realize that male internet geeks only go to movies alone without dates. Why is anyone surprised that the movie only took half of what was predicted. Coincidence? I think not.
ReplyDeleteYou know, everyone gets so obsessed with box office returns, and having a disappointing opening weekend just becomes synonymous with failure. "Snakes on a Plane" is not a failure as a movie, nor a business proposition in the long run. It will end up making its money back...I guarantee.
ReplyDeleteIt did exactly what I'd expect an R-rated goofy film to do in the summer. It did well with young men and no one else. Duh. It's a nudity-filled gore romp about snakes on a motherfuckin' plane. Did they expect middle-aged security moms to show up in record numbers?
A $30 mil. opening weekend was always overambitious. They're all still getting used to Internet hype and figuring out exactly what it means in terms of box office returns. It's a cautionary tale about just how far viral marketing can take you, but HARDLY an economic disaster. Now, "Poseidon," THAT'S a disaster.
Also, I forgot to mention, naturally "Snakes on a Plane" did not attract a date movie audience. I don't think anyone expected couples to attend.
ReplyDeleteBear in mind, however, that a film like "You Me and Dupree" was designed with daters in mind, cost more than SoaP and will probably end up a more significant disappointment. Appealing to women isn't any sort of guarantee.
"Snakes on a Plane" was stolen from a treatment (1994) and then a screenplay (1998)entitled "Snakes" by R.A. (Rick) Smith. He wrote it in the style of Val Lewton, and it had the potential of being a good film. Instead, the film that was produced is so bad it puts Ed Wood to shame.
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