Moog's Moovies - Snakes On A Plane

• Posted by Moog
• Category: Articles
• 7 comments

 

Orange have decided that they would pay us to go watch and review films for them every month. This is pretty cool for us and hopefully you lot too since you get stuff to read and we get to go watch films. Can't be bad. At least not if you're me.

You're not me are you? No? Oh good.

Well, to get the ball rolling how could I choose to watch anything other than the film that has become an internet meme, made it's way into common day parlance and, if you believe the more cynical  among us (We're looking at you Rob Manuel), jumped the shark all before it has even been released.

Snakes on a Plane was intended to be renamed 'Pacific Air Flight 121' before Jackson made possibly the best decision of this film's life and demanded that it was released under the original working title, quoted as saying "We're totally changing that back. That's the only reason I took the job: I read the title.". What could be regarded as an act of typical actor-style kookiness was instead embraced by internet communities everywhere who revel in the absurd and bizarre. Jackson's cooler-than-frozen-fonz persona had turned what could have been a laughable disaster into this year's most talked about release.

The plot, (bless) is thus: Bloke witnesses his dad getting murdered in Hawaii by some other crime-type bloke. Witness-bloke agrees to testify in LA accompanied by FBI-bloke (Jackson), making crime-bloke resort to trying to bump him off with a lot of snakes. (How he reached this 'logical' conclusion I'll never know.) Cut to a plane with witness-bloke on, lots of people and a bastard load of pissed off snakes.

I was fully prepared, sat in my comfy little seat with my big tub of popcorn and smuggled in Dr Pepper, to complain and scoff my way through this film with loud comments as I left about how I'll never get those two hours back. How delightfully cynical I would have been! However, I'm glad to report (thanks to my ability to shut most of my brain down) that I absolutely enjoyed this film to bits.

It reminded me of a kind of hybrid between Airplane and a disaster movie from the seventies. So that would be a parody of disaster movies from the 70's and an actual disaster movie from the seventies (Take your pick. My choice is Towering Inferno!) which is a bit like saying it reminded me of Scream and Scary Movie. However I digress for the reasoning behind this is about to become clear! Why did it remind me of a genre and a parody of said genre? Mainly because I was able to play one of my favourite film games - You're Going To Die. I'm sure you've played it before, but if not, here are the rules:

1) Extend pointing finger.
2) Point at each character.
3) If you believe they are fodder, exclaim 'Dead!' in an excited manner!
4) If you seriously believe they have enough character development to survive, explain yourself. You may then secretly wish death upon them.
5) Feel smug.

If (like me) you're the kind of person who relishes the goriest of on-screen deaths, then this film will leave you giddy with joy. Pretty much every aspect of snake-related carnage is covered as passengers are bumped off at a rate of knots, moreoften than not in a gruesomely hilarious fashion.

So, what makes this film the enjoyable pap it is? 

• Snakes? Partly. 
• The plane? HELL YES! Oh wait... No. 
• Jackson...?

Well, let's see with my exciting moviegraph-o-meter! This week I am plotting TIME against Samuel L. Jackson's AWESOMENESS:

1) "Don't even breathe."
2) "Sporks?"
3) "I've had it with these m****r fuc*ing snakes on this m****r f*cking plane!"
4) "Stings, don't it?"
5) Surfuel L. Jackson (This made me choke on my Nobby's nuts.)

Look at that! That's a bucketload of AWESOME!

Snakes on a Plane does exactly what it says on the tin; It's snakes on a plane, but happily there's a healthy smattering of Wonderfulitiness. It could have been better in places, (The CGI snakes spring to mind like a poorly rendered cobra.) but overall it remains charming, silly fun that doesn't need any brainpower to be enjoyed (Like a midnight donkey ride).

If you don't enjoy it, and I'm sure some of you won't, just remember this: at least Owen *ucki*g Wilson isn't in it. That man is like some kind of low fat spread at a Weight Watchers scone tasting night.

Don’t forget - those nice blokes and blokettes at Orange are giving away 2 cinema tickets for the price of 1 every Wednesday so click here to find out more.