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Snakes
on a Plane
Genre: Action /
Horror
Rated: R
Directed by: David R. Ellis
Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Julianna Margulies, Nathan Phillips,
Rachel Blanchard, Kenan Thompson
Released by: New Line Cinema
In
Short: In case the title isn't descriptive
enough, poisonous snakes loose on a plane make
for an instant horror classic with a slightly
campy edge. |
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Screaming into Movie History
“Snakes”
Strikes Gold
by
Jenny Peters
Once
in a blue moon, the pre-release hype around a movie is
actually on the money. That's the case with “Snakes
on a Plane,” one of the most talked-about films
of the summer (on the Internet, at least). It was a no-brainer
that a title like that would grab people's attention,
especially fans of the action-horror genre; but it's another
thing altogether for it to deliver a fun flick that stands
up to what our imaginations created from that evocatively
simple title.
Samuel
L. Jackson stars as FBI agent Nelville Flynn, assigned
to bring a witness for the prosecution (Nathan Phillips)
to Los Angeles to testify against a ruthless, murdering
drug kingpin (Byron Lawson). When they catch a commercial
red-eye flight from Honolulu to L.A., they think they
are safe for the next five hours. But the drug lord has
inside info about their itinerary and loads the jumbo
jet's cargo hold full of poisonous snakes and makes sure
to get them hyper-excited before they are set loose. Thus,
the stage is set for “Snakes on a Plane.”
Director
David Ellis strikes just the right tone for this scary,
funny, sometimes campy flick that taps into everyone's
worst nightmare; for what could be worse than being trapped
on a plane with hundreds of ticked-off killer snakes?
Naturally,
the passengers are a cross-section of classic characters:
from the fraidy-cat flyer on his honeymoon to the mother
with a baby, the small kids traveling alone, the fashionista
with the yappy dog (uh-oh!), the fastidious rap star and
his burly bodyguards, right down to the stoner couple
determined to join the mile-high club. Predicting who
lives and who dies is half the fun of the film, while
the other half is hearing yourself shriek along with everyone
else in the audience as scream-and-squirm-inducing scenes
come fast and furious.
Add
in a couple of classic and unprintable lines, along with
iconic scenes (there's a bathroom sequence that will make
every man in the audience cross his legs and cry), and
“Snakes on a Plane” does what every truly
great horror movie before it has done. It slithers under
your skin and delivers!
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