Starring: Samuel L. Jackson
Directed by: David R. Ellis
Huh, who knew, who knew.
That may seem a bit out of context. If you missed my previous reviews, you can find them
here:
Samuel L Jackson, he’s a guy who has never met a script he didn’t
like. Seriously. On IMDB he has 143 titles attributed to
him. I know IMDB is absolutely
exhaustive…the list contains TV appearances, animated voice work, video game
voice-overs, documentaries, etc….yet, still, 143 titles. Take, for example, the filmography of someone
like Harrison Ford. 66 titles. That’s right, Jackson has more than twice the
film appearances of Harrison Ford.
Other popular actors? Say, Brad Pitt? 67. Sean Connery?
91. Sean Connery! The man is 20 years older than Jackson and he
still has 50 less acting credits!
Hell, even Val Kilmer, who seems like he’s in a new straight-to-dvd movie
every week, only has 84 titles to his name.
I guess, what I’m trying to say here, is if anybody was going to
be in a film with a title as ridiculous as Snakes
on a Plane, it might as well be Sam Jack.
I’m just wondering if anybody else read it, furrowed their brow at it
and threw it in the trash bin, or if they just went straight to Jackson,
knowing he doesn’t even really read his scripts. I mean, he was in XXX2, where they replaced Vin Diesel with Ice Cube. That’s like making a Rambo sequel and replacing Stallone with Tom Berenger, or a sequel
to Predator, replacing Schwarzenegger
with Danny Glover…….wait a second…….
So, the movie. Sean Jones (Nathan Phillips) is riding his bike around the
island of Hawaii when he witnesses the brutal murder of a U.S. Prosecutor by
unruly gangster Daniel Kim (Byron Lawson).
Only his quick wit and quicker crotch rocket (I think it was actually a
mudbike, but there’s less fun in that phrase) help him escape the scene without
being caught.
The next day (or maybe later that day…who knows and, it is, by all
measures, completely insignificant) he is saved from some would be assassins by
Neville Flynn (Samuel L Jackson), an FBI agent who wants him to testify against
Kim in Los Angeles.
Jones eventually agrees, of course, and the duo sets flight to Los
Angeles. Of course Kim is aware of this,
and sends his goons to leave a little surprise on the plane; crates filled with
poisonous snakes, agitated by a special pheromone in to being more aggressive. I would have thought if you could sneak crates of
snakes on a plane maybe you could just manage getting a bomb on there, but that
doesn’t really lend itself to very intricate plotting, I guess.
So how, you ask, does Kim know the snakes will actually attack
Jones? Well, it doesn’t really matter if
they do, as long as they are successful in bringing the entire plane down. As long as he expires in one manner or the
other. More or less ludicrously plotted
than Deep Blue Sea? You be the judge.
Still, I must admit, I rather like Snakes on a Plane. The use
of a giant Boeing
747 helps out immensely, giving the characters in the film room to move about. From coach, up a set of stairs to the
ultra-posh first class, in to the cockpit, and even in to the bowels of the
plane, no stone is left unturned. The
death count is high and a couple deaths are rather gruesome and still others
are, well, humorous.
Originally
shooting for a PG-13 rating, they ratcheted up the violence and language in
order to get an R, the opposite of what happens in almost every single film
because it restricts certain viewers from seeing it. Rumor has it the film was originally supposed
to be titled Pacific Air Flight 121 (ick), but Jackson supposedly
asked it be changed back to the “working title.” Whether there’s any truth to these rumors I cannot
say, but there had to be a time in filming where they realized this wasn’t going to be the next big
action film and decided to completely run with the idea of camp, and let it
sink or swim on those merits. A
brilliant marketing move which led to the modest success of a film that could have very well been straight to video.
There are definitely
flaws though. The biggest being the film
has way too many characters: A wealthy socialite with a Chihuahua in
her purse, a grumpy business man, four prominent airline attendants,
a couple kids on their first plane trip by themselves, a foreign woman with a
baby, a rapper with two bodyguards, a martial arts expert, another completely unimportant
FBI agent, Taylor Kitsch, a pilot and co-pilot, etc. etc. This doesn’t even include the characters on
the ground Jackson is in contact with throughout.
I
understand in a film such as this you have to have a handful of disposable
characters but *spoiler alert* most of these people make it through the
film. Most of the deaths are completely
innocuous characters who only utter a line or two of dialogue. This probably had something to do with the
reshoots used to give the film its R-Rating, but it also erodes some of the
suspense. At some point you start to
settle in to the rhythm of the film and realize most of the characters don’t
seem to be in any real danger of missing the final credits.
Also it’s
the only film reviewed that was not directed by Renny Harlin. What a letdown.
Snakes on a Plane is
probably the weakest link in this three pack, but it’s also probably a little bit
better than you would expect, and based on Jackson’s filmography I don’t think
there would have been a more appropriate film to substitute. I paid $14.99 at Target for the bunch of them,
and feel it was worth every penny. I would have been more sold on just a Renny Harlin 3 or 4-pack, but maybe that’s
not as easy a sell to the average big box shopper. Although I can’t imagine anybody passing on a
4-pack that includes Deep Blue Sea, Long Kiss Goodnight, Cliffhanger, and Mindhunters. The average
joe-shmo might not realize the glue holding them together is Mr. Harlin, but
they would recognize the greatness therein, this I can guarantee.
