Snakes On A Plane

Warning: Spoilers below!

Okay, you see, there are snakes on the plane. Oh wait, that was the PG-13 version. This movie was changed to R because of the internet hype so here is the R-rated version of the plot. There are #$%&%&%$$ snakes on the #$%&%&%$$ plane!...

Spoilers end here

...Hilarity ensues.

Trivia: Samuel L. Jackson only signed on for this film because of the title. It was later changed to "Pacific Air Flight 121", but Jackson demanded they reverse the change. "We're totally changing that back. That's the only reason I took the job: I read the title." In March 2006 New Line Cinema, due to massive fan interest on the Internet, allowed for a 5 day reshoot to film new scenes to take the movie from PG-13 to a R-rated film (originally the film wrapped principal photography in September 2005). Among these additions is the Jackson character's line, "I want these [#$%&%&%$$] snakes off this [#$%&%&%$$] plane," (my blog is still PG so I edited that line) a line that originated in an anticipatory internet parody of the movie.

Yesssss, I did go to ssssssee this movie, yessssss, I went on purpossssse, yesssss, I paid money to ssssee it (although I did get a free ticket to a future movie through AMC Movie Watcherssssss when I bought the ticket). I didn't plan on going at firsssssst, but I decided to go ahead and ssssee it when it wasssss in a theatre to get the full cheesyness factor. I was an entertaining movie, nothing mind altering or anything like that, but you aren't going to ssssee for that reason (okay enough of the esssssssssesssssss). This movie is a complete construct of the internet hype surrounding it. I don't think anybody would have gone to see except for that. The flight is the red eye from Hawaii to L.A., so they can't land. It also has it's share of cliched characters. The mother with the baby, the young rich girl blonde with a chihuahua dog in her purse, the grouchy man who ends up between the two (yep, you can pretty much guess who is snake food out of those three), the newlyweds (the guy is terrified of flying), the lone doctor on the plane (he...doesn't make it), the over sexed couple who want to join the mile high club, the asian who happens to be a martial arts expert, the big shot music star and his bodyguards, and Samuel L. Jackson, FBI agent transporting a material witness who see the leader of an international crime syndicate murder a district attorney in cold blood (gee I don't think anybody would want to kill this guy, would they?). Did I forget anything, oh yeah, the crew, the co-pilot that is half an inch away from a sexual harassment suit, the slutty flight attendant, the old flight attendant who should have retired long ago, the obviously gay male flight attendant with the "girlfriend" at home, and the flight attendant flying on her last flight before going to law school (Julianna Margulies, of ER fame).

Okay, now to the plot, if you are worried about spoilers, stop reading here and skip down to the next paragraph...okay first off, the pilot gets it while he is alone so they think it was a heart attack, then the co-pilot gets bitten, everybody leaves him alone in the cockpit, he gets bitten again, everybody is worried, but they leave him alone in the cockpit again? Third times the charm for the snakes as this time they get their man which leads to (and I am not joking here) them asking if anybody can fly a plane. Guess what, one of them has, 2000 hours worth...in a flight simulator video game. Meanwhile, snakes are bitting everything that moves due to pheromones that have been released to agitate them.

Welcome back everybody. Now to the dialog. This is probably the first movie ever to have a line added to the script after production ended that was introduced through the internet AS A PARODY. I wonder if the internet is going to start playing more important roles in the making of movies, it sure did to this one. Well, that line is NOT the best line in the film, even though everybody practically shouted it back at the screen when Samuel L. said it (or at least they, I mean I, wanted to). Nope, the best lines were these: Samuel L. is told he would have to crawl through the belly of the plane to do something that wasn't really important to the film and in my mind created a plot hole, anyway, the co-pilot tells him this and then says "sucks to be you right now." The other two are from Samuel L. First, he talks to a snake expert on the ground through the skyphone and the figure out that the pheromones are the reason the snakes are aggressive and he says, I kid you not, "Great. Snakes on crack." The last, and the best line in the whole movie, thirty to forty-five minutes AFTER the snakes escape, Samuel L. asks the ER chick if they have anything that can be used as weapons, (I would probably have asked her that first), she reaches into the cabinet and pulls something out and hands it to Samuel L. and says this is all we got, then Samuel L. looks at it and then at her and says...drum roll..."Sporks?"