http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/movies/badassssssss_movies_kyle_smith.htm BADASSSSSSSS
INTERNET PHENOMENON "SNAKES" TIPS THE SCALES
TO HORRIBLY GOOD
By KYLE SMITH
August 18, 2006 -- I saw something stomach-churningly scary at the Lincoln Square in Manhattan Thursday night: the inside of the men's room. I also saw "Snakes on a Plane."
The film failed to be frightening, suspenseful or dramatic but accidentally succeeded in being absolutely hilarious. The movie couldn't be more ridiculous if one of the snakes actually flew the plane while wearing a jaunty little pilot's cap and whistling at the stewardesses. But if loving "S.O.A.P." is wrong, I don't want to be right.
I explained in yesterday's Post ("Awfully Good Flicks") the difference between bad movies, which you never watch twice, and Bad Movies, which can (must!) be watched over and over. "Snakes" is a Bad Movie all right. It has '70s-style plot holes you could drive a Dodge Rambler through, plus can o' corn music, a march of stereotypes (passengers like Snobby Foreigner, Horny Newlyweds, Nervous Flier and Fat Lady are introduced one by one as in "Airport"-and "Airplane"), and dialogue so consistently inappropriate that it just gets funnier.
Samuel L. Jackson is an FBI man who is flying a murder witness from Hawaii to L.A. Since the FBI knows who the killer is and where he lives, they naturally allow him to remain free so he can hatch a nefarious plot to kill the witness by filling the cargo hold with a scaly all-star team of the world's baddest reptiles. He has inside men at the airline to set up this elaborate trap, but wouldn't it be more foolproof to simply murder the witness as he's getting on the plane?
When the snakes bust loose, so does the movie. Snakes dangle with the oxygen masks, pop out of airsick bags and grab more hooters than Bill Clinton. Fighting them isn't easy, but the microwave beckons: Who says it's hard to get a good meal on a plane? Men who aspire to join the Mile High Club, be warned: haunted memories of the bathroom scene may impair the future functioning of your, um, club.
You laugh at, not with, a Bad Movie, and here you can tell the comedy is unintentional because of the absurdity of the action and the clichés ("My baby! Where's my baby?"). Even the attempts at wit are funny for the wrong reason, and the snake attacks are choreographed with a giddy lack of decorum: one viper slips itself right onto a chap's manly undercarriage. Maybe it's one of those rare Trojan snakes.
There are as many funny lines as in "Talladega Nights": "I was hoping you'd be the sky candy on this flight," "Who's your daddy now, bitch?" "Get this f---ing snake off my ass!" Some lines are great because they've never been used before ("Time is tissue"), others because they're overused ("I need you to be strong") or racially uncool ("Wassup, wassup y'all. What it is, what it is") or because their jocularity is so wrong for people about to die at 30,000 feet. If a guy who saved your life was venturing into a snaky hold, would you quip, "Sucks to be you right now"?
Director David R. Ellis, who after many years in the business has worked his way up to anonymity (he was a stuntman in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High") treats us to an amusing SnakeVision lens (apparently the footless fiends see us as green, blurry and tasty) and lets Jackson open up a jumbo-sized can of badass.
SLJ holds off the snakes with his Taser and when he finds out they have been chemically encouraged, he says, "That's great news -- snakes on crack." You'll have to wait most of the movie before he finally delivers the mother#$%@ing line of the summer, but when he does, you'll be proud to be an American. The Japanese may make all the cars, the Chinese all the clothes and the French all the, um, Frenchmen. But damn if we don't lead the world in catchphrases.
"I've lost everything! Luis, Marty, my baby with Chris, Chris himself, James. All I ever wanted was love." --Sheridan Crane "Passions"
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"Housework is like bad sex. Every time I do it, I swear I'll never do it again til the next time company comes."--"Lulu"
from "Can't Stop The Music"
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"When the right doors didn't open for him, he went through the wrong ones" - "Sweet Bird of Youth"
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"Passions" is uncancelled! See NBC.com for more info.