SoaP had the impossible task of owning up to the hurricane of hype created by guys who live in their parent’s basements.

If one could sum up “Snakes on a Plane” with just one Samuel L. Jackson one-liner is would be, “Too Mother F---ing Bad to be Bad Ass.”

“Snakes on a Plane” (SoaP) was a movie that dealt directly with the classic filmmaking problem of living up to a cult following, but SoaP had a different type of crazed fanboy.

“Snakes” was not attempting to be a heart-stopping cinematic achievement but to be the greatest cinematic failure of all time and to keep that title even if someone makes a sequel to “Pearl Harbor”: “Pearl Harbor 2: Going Down with the Ship.”

The extreme amount of hype led the director, David R. Ellis, to film several extra scenes that included lines and action written out by geeky Internet fans who spend most of their time pretending they are fuzzy dwarves in a made-up world.

To sum up the entire movie is quite easy. There are snakes on a plane. If I have to explain it any more I feel bad for you.

As a film, “Snakes” surprisingly moved along quite well. The scenes seemed to flow one to the other like a Dan Brown novel.

The computer-generated snakes take one out of the film and made it difficult to suspend one’s disbelief, but unfortunately the film requirements could not be achieved by real snakes. Numerous snake would have been harmed in the filming, leaving a bad taste in PETA’s mouth.

There was a cinematographic triumph in the choice to have “snake vision” in which you view scenes from the snake’s point of view. It was one of the best things about the movie. The shining star of the film, Samuel L. Jackson, plays completely to his strengths in which he ridiculously kills the digital snakes and uses his “trademarked” swear-word-only vocabulary to a “T”.

On the acting side, one can be pretty sure the film will not be a factor in advancing the careers of the B- and C-level actors that make up the supporting cast: the girl from “Clueless” the TV show, the wider half of the Good Burger duo and Champ Kind from “Anchorman.”

Overall one feels that the flick falls just a yard or two short of the tremendous anticipation, but I really don’t see how it could have lived up to it.

Then again, can any film try to achieve the status of “worst movie ever made?” Does setting out to be terrible in the first place therefore make the film unable to reach this expectation?

One would look at movies such as “Gigli” and “Glitter” to observe how these horrible movies flew below the radar and had little to no buzz to live up to. SoaP had the impossible task of owning up to the hurricane of hype created by guys who live in their parents’ basements. Tying to be the worst film ever made is as unachievable as trying to be the best film ever made.

“Snakes on a Plane” was trying to do the impossible and failed, yet it still was worth the $8.75 ticket price seeing as it got pretty close. One should remember they aren’t going to see the Citizen Kane of bad movies, but a movie about some MF-n’ snakes on an MF-n’ plane.

> Comments