Snakes on a Plane (***)

? The title tells most of what you need to know, but the setup is that a mobster is targeting a witness who’s flying from Hawaii to L.A. to testify against him. The other passengers include a variety of people with distinguishing characteristics. These include sexy woman with dog, snobby European, famous R&B musician, husband who fears flying, fashion disaster, and so on. The big name is Samuel L. Jackson, who’s the FBI guy trying to protect the witness and, eventually, the rest of the passengers. The reptilian menaces are of seemingly every slithery variety.

+ The setup of the movie is actually pretty clever, as it allows for the horror element (who will be the snakes’ next victim?) and the thriller one (will the plane stay aloft?). There ends up being a variety of effects besides snakes popping out from under the seats. Most of them are fairly convincing. The ferocity of the snakes is explained, more or less, because the bad guys spray pheromones all over. Most importantly, the movie walks the line between true thriller and camp. There’s some real scares when the snakes bust out of the cargo hold, but you can also tell that the people behind the movie are having a little fun with the premise. No prizes for guessing, for example, what body part one big sucker goes for when it attacks a couple fornicating in the plane’s bathroom. Jackson’s R-rated dialogue also provides some comic fodder.

- It’s Snakes on a Plane. You’re expecting Shakespearean dialogue and penetrating character insight? Other than that, yes, the premise of the film is ludicrous. A real-life mobster would have to be an idiot to think this plot would work out well for him, even if the plane had gone down. I never did figure out how the villains identify the witness, either. The only character that annoyed me was the German (or Austrian?) guy, who seems to be a tiresome stereotype created only so that he can predictably suffer the worst, or at least the most graphic, demise.

= *** This is no masterpiece, but, given the subject, it’s nearly as good a movie as it could have been. If you’re expecting silly fun, you’ll get it.

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