Snakes on a Plane (2007)

- written July 2007






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Summary: Riding his motorcycle in Hawaii, Sean witnesses the murder of a county prosecutor. When the bad guys realize he’s a witness, they’re off to kill him but Federal Agent Nelville Flynn comes to the rescue. They try and ship him quickly back to Los Angeles for his own safety but the bad guy is ahead of the curve and the plane is already wired with death!           Overall: I’m gonna do pros/cons for this review. Cons, first. Although having the potential to be a scary film, the film ignores this purely for the action. There’s so many snakes, so much deaths, it’s almost over the top. It’s almost cheesy and for that reason, the film tends to lose its specialness. It’s not as great when you see half the plane dying minutes into the snake attack and the film still has an hour to go.           In addition, the film messes with the facts a little too much. The bad guy and the witness are in Hawaii. The guy who supplies the snakes is in L.A. In the time it takes the Government to get their witness to safety and onto the plane, our bad guy has concocted the plot, gotten a hold of a rare snake guy, gotten 450 snakes onto a plane to Hawaii and then onto this plane for the trip back. Isn’t there a cheaper way of killing the witness??           And our bad guy, Mr. Kim. After we see him beating up a punching bad and telling an associate of the snakes…he vanishes for the rest of the film. Now that I magically expected him on the plane, but frankly how about more integration of the character into the film???           And the snakes…a little too much CGI folks. You can tell the real snakes because they look bored, handing from the luggage racks and occasionally crawling on the floor. The CGI snakes are the ones doing the biting and attacking, and it’s obvious. The effects aren’t perfect so at times it looks as fake as it really is.           Now to the pros. It can be a scary film…when it wants to be. Which is good because it wants to be a Steven Segal-type film when really it should focus on scares too.           And the action is pretty decent – constant pace keeping the audience interested and energized.           And the death scenes totally had originally to them. Obviously come good calls there and that kept one’s eyes glued to the tv.           Nothing special in the deleted/alternate scenes…but overall a decent film and worth a viewing.           Comparison: Venom meets King Cobra

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