I Have Had it with These Mother(Expletive Deleted) Snakes on This Mother(Expletive Deleted) Plane

Much has been made about the power of the internet in terms of marketing but the medium seems to cut down the people that they just built up. Howard Dean used to internet to became the front runner for the Democratic nominee until his scream became one of the first hit videos on YouTube. Recently Rolling Stone featured an article on how bloggers quickly turned on bands they just called the next big things like the Arctic Moneys and Cold War Kids. No one had a bigger build up or bigger fall than the movie Snakes on a Plane.

The internets went into full buzz mode when word broke on Aintitcool.com that New Line was putting into production a film with the working title Snakes on a Plane with Samuel L. Jackson as the lead. Websites popped up, tribute movies were uploaded to YouTube, New Line even went back and re-shot some scenes to include the infamous Jackson line after it appeared in a online comic book a fan made, and the movie may have become the very first cult to be one before it was actually released. Then the reviews started to come in and the general public turned on the movie which had a disappointing opening weekend.

The movie follows Jackson as an FBI agent who is in charge of transporting a witness to a murder from Hawaii to testify against the gangster who did it in Los Angeles. Needless to say the gangster doesn’t want the dude to testify so he had hundred of poisonous snakes released on the plane. Being a commercial flight, the plane onto which the snakes are released is full of your token stereotypes filled with C-Listers who you most likely would recognize even though you wouldn’t recognize their actual name. The only other name besides Jackson one would know is Julianna Margulies, who after this must really regret leaving ER, as a stewardess who just so happens to be on her last flight as she just passed the bar and is leaving to become a lawyer.

The rest of the cast is filled out by the chick from Clueless (the show not the movie) as the socialite complete with miniature dog, the dude from Homeboys in Outer Space as the rapper who happens to a germaphobe. One of his bodyguards is video game obsessed and played by the current token black dude for Saturday Night Live. The token hot chick from The New Guy is your flirty stewardess while Todd Packer from The Office is your horny pilot. On the ground, the dude from High Fidelity not named John Cusack or Jack Black is the snake expert who races to find anti-venom to treat the survivor when, or if, they reach LA. And poor Tim Riggins, he was the first to go, but at least he did so while joining the Mile High Club.

And of course with that as your movie, the bad reviews came pouring in which I never understood. What were all those people expecting, the Citizen Kane of disaster movies? The movie is called Snakes on a Plane, you should know from the title if you are going to like it or not. But for those of us who sat back and took the movie for what it was thoroughly enjoyable. In fact, I’m not sure if it was the intent, but Snakes on a Plane was one of the funniest movies in recent memories thanks in part to one of the most improbable ending of all time. Now is it too early to get some early buzz on the hopeful sequel, Snakes on a Boat, Snakes on a Train, and/or Snakes on a Spaceship?

Snakes on a Plane gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.