Saturday, March 12, 2005

I Know You (Don't) Got Soul


Soul Plane

When I was a young boy, A Florida judge banned 2 Live Crew for being obscene and ever since when anytime some one finds something morally offensive or corrupt, I eat it up. South Park is rude, I watched it. Grand Theft Auto is the downfall of Western Civilization, I bought it. Bush is the next Hitler, I voted for him. So when Soul Plane came out and everyone was saying it was the most racist movie ever, I knew I had to see it. So I finally broke out the old Blockbuster Card and gave it a spin on the DVD player. I think I may be getting old because I think the critics were right. The makers of the film claimed that Soul Plane was the black version of Airplane!. But they replayed funny one-liners with overused racial stereotypes.

The movie centers around a gentleman who sues an airline after it kills the dog, which was one of the few funny scenes in the movie (keep in mind no animals were hurt in the making of this movie). He takes the massive settlement to buy his own airline, which his cousin, played by
Method Man, who makes some adjustments to the plane. So it now has gold rims, hydraulics, and every ridiculous accessory you would see on Pimp My Ride. And the racial stereotypes don't start there; every black stereotype is brought up. They like chicken - check. They are lazy - check. They like weed - check. They are, umm, well endowed - check. Then sprinkle the rest of the movie with other racial stereotypes. The Arab (alleged) terrorist. The token hot Latina chick (wow, she can dance and likes sex, and that's basically it). The gay guy. The corny, old white guy named Mr. Hunkee. Then there's Mr. Hunkee's son who thinks he's black. And Mr. Hunkee's daughter, who just turned 18. Cue up obligatory Kobe joke.

After an hour of making poor racial jokes (not too mention underutilizing
D.L. Hughley and John Witherspoon), they finally get back to something that resembles a plot when pilot, Snoop Dogg, dies (remember it's based on Airplane!) and they need to figure how to land the plane. In the end everyone learns a lesson. And then they form a Soul Train line (sans Don Cornelius).

Soul Plane gets a Terror Alert Level: Low [GREEN] on my Terror Alert Scale.


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