Snakes in a Review

There are two parts to this post. The story and the review. I have labeled them as such so that you can read a review if you would like or the story if you prefer.

Story: Last Friday my dog, Cassius (four-toed dog), needed to go to a vet. A fancy vet. A fancy vet many, many miles away in Buffalo Grove. Two years previous he had his ACL replaced with a bit of nylon. His body apparently has been rejecting the nylon and he had developed a bad infection in his knee-knee. The specialist in Buffalo Grove was to fix it. After the initial consultation the vet told me that he would perform the surgery that day. He would open the leg, clean out the infection, remove the nylon, and stitch the old man back up. The surgery would take about 4 hours.

From my house, Buffalo Grove is about an hour and a half. Longer with Friday traffic. It seemed unreasonable to drive home and back for a few moments at my house. I opted to drive around the suburbs instead to kill time. Cranking up my NWA album, I leisurely drove on peaceful streets named after presidents and trees. After a few moments I saw one those thing that seem to be in abundance in the suburbs. A mall. This particular one was called a "strip-mall." I turned into the parking and was saddened to find out that it is not named such for the reasons that I was hoping for.

In the string of shops and restaurants I found two things that grabbed my attention. A movie theater and a large sign that proclaimed, "Large beer, cheap!" I started at the theater. Looking over the selection of films available, I noticed that "Snakes on a Plane" was playing. I figured since I have been chirping about this flick for months I should probably go in and give it a viewing. The movie was to start in an hour so I cruised over to the bar next door to find that although the beer was not particularly large it was cheap and ferociously cold.

This bar was a sports bar which I am familiar with from the city. It had a variety of overly large televisions. Unlike any other sports bar that I had been in however, this bar used its high-definition televisions to play VHS tapes of somebody's favorite games. Bulls, Bears, the World Series of Poker form 1872. The high-definition TV's gloriously showing every nuance of the videotape technology, the field that I worked in throughout the 80's.

After the inch of ice melted off of my beer, I headed next door to enjoy the sure to be cinematic masterpiece. In the theater with me was one other person, an Asian lady in her late twenties that was on of those "screen-talkers." In this theater they played movie previews consistently from the moment you walked in until the start time on the ticket at which point they turned down the lights and switched to the newer movie previews. I like that. None of the be courteous signage, or ridiculous trivia, or tubular meat being enticed into a warm bun who is resistant at first. Nope. Just that movie voice guy. "If you only see one movie this year . . . "

Finally, the movie started. I switched my phone to vibrate in case there was an emergency I would be able to respond and leaned back in the seat.

Review: The movie starts out like an episode of Hawaii Vice. After about ten minutes or so it is time to get on the plane. And a scant five minutes after that it is time to release the snakes. This is why myself and chatty Cathy were here. For snakes. On the plane.

This movie did three things particularly good. The first was the fact that the plane was filled with a VARIETY of snakes. Good move. This allows many types of death. Some snake bites will kill you instantly, some will take time. Some snakes will constrict, some spit venom, some big, some small, some even had teeth. Good variety allows for many types of death. It also allows some people to be able to flee the slower snakes while some, well, not so lucky.

The second move that was above average for this kind of flick was the use of the plane. When I saw Pirahna I knew who was going to die. The person I just met or the person they suddenly cut to who was about to jump in the water. On the plane, sure there some passengers that were sure goners from the get-go (quiet lady in the back I am looking at you) but there were many that were introduced that could be gone at any moment. I don't think I would ruin the movie by letting you know that Sammy makes it but everyone else is pretty much fair game.

Last, and best, plot point that the makers of SoaP made was giving a reason that the snakes were so aggressive. I haven't seen that move since Orca saw his son die on the boat of the Killer Whale hunters. Let's face it Grizzly was just a dick and Jaws: The Revenge just hated that fucking Michael Caine. And who could blame him. Here the snakes are mad because of . . . ready? . . . pheromones. OK, I didn't say it was a good reason but dammit at least they had one.

I found the movie to also be educational. I learned that snakes see things in a fuzzy infrared green popularized by the first Gulf War. I also learned that snakes love to bite private areas of people. I was always under the impression that they would go for moving targets but apparently they like to bite dicks, tits, and asses. The asses being for humor, the breasts for titillation.

Finally, the famous line. As we know from previous posts they added the line, "I want these motherfucking snakes off the motherfucking plane!" by popular demand. It is very obvious in the film that this was added after the fact. Sammy's character is not the kind of guy who says this until all of a sudden and then, back to regular Sam.

None of this is to say that this is a good movie. In fact, I would recommend that you wait for the DVD. I bet the extras on the DVD are more entertaining than most of the film. The method of fear used in this film is a "jump fear." Meaning that snakes pop out of unlikely places suddenly rather than you just wanting the plane to land. In fact, I was hoping that it would take longer so I could see the maximum number of different deaths that the writers could think of.

I also felt that the ending was blah. I won't ruin it but blah.

Out of five stars: ***