Haggisboy
18-08-2006, 04:19 PM
Given the year long hype that preceded the release of Snakes on a Plane, almost all of it playing up the movie’s hoaky title and B movie connotations, one could easily be forgiven for thinking that this was going to be a stinker destined for cult status. The fact that New Line Cinema ordered additional footage to be shot after the film had wrapped, coupled with their refusal to allow critics advance screenings, only raised the red flag further.
Samuel L. Jackson further stoked matters when it was learned that he insisted that the title be changed from Pacific Air Flight 121 to Snakes on a Plane, and joked at this year’s MTV awards that he would be walking away with an Oscar for the movie.
Ok, so maybe Jackson got ahead of himself with the Oscar wisecracks, but as it turns out sly Sam knew something few of us did – that Snakes on a Plane is one helluva good movie. In fact, it ranks a close second to Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man's Chest (http://www.zgeek.com/forum/showthread.php?t=54416), for pure fun, action and entertainment.
By now you’d have to have been living on Mars to be unaware of the film’s premise: Hawaiian drug kingpin plants a container full of poisonous snakes to be released in flight to take down the plane carrying an eyewitness destined to testify against him.
What that simple premise fails to convey is the movie’s riveting mix of airline disaster flick and lurking terror of Alien. Director David R. Ellis and his screenwriting team manage to find the perfect blend of humor, suspense and action in a movie that no doubt Las Vegas odds makers were pegging to be a turkey.
There's no surer sign that a movie has hit it's mark when a theatre full of rowdy mouth breathers loudly doing their best sorry ass Samuel L. Jackson impersonations prior to the film, are silenced throughout and applaud at the end.
So folks, the next time Samuel L. Jackson tells the world that one of his movies is going to be the best motherfucking movie of all motherfucking movies, people might want to at least take him seriously.
Samuel L. Jackson further stoked matters when it was learned that he insisted that the title be changed from Pacific Air Flight 121 to Snakes on a Plane, and joked at this year’s MTV awards that he would be walking away with an Oscar for the movie.
Ok, so maybe Jackson got ahead of himself with the Oscar wisecracks, but as it turns out sly Sam knew something few of us did – that Snakes on a Plane is one helluva good movie. In fact, it ranks a close second to Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man's Chest (http://www.zgeek.com/forum/showthread.php?t=54416), for pure fun, action and entertainment.
By now you’d have to have been living on Mars to be unaware of the film’s premise: Hawaiian drug kingpin plants a container full of poisonous snakes to be released in flight to take down the plane carrying an eyewitness destined to testify against him.
What that simple premise fails to convey is the movie’s riveting mix of airline disaster flick and lurking terror of Alien. Director David R. Ellis and his screenwriting team manage to find the perfect blend of humor, suspense and action in a movie that no doubt Las Vegas odds makers were pegging to be a turkey.
There's no surer sign that a movie has hit it's mark when a theatre full of rowdy mouth breathers loudly doing their best sorry ass Samuel L. Jackson impersonations prior to the film, are silenced throughout and applaud at the end.
So folks, the next time Samuel L. Jackson tells the world that one of his movies is going to be the best motherfucking movie of all motherfucking movies, people might want to at least take him seriously.