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Snakes on a Plane is a unique movie: once the ridiculous name became common knowledge, it became legendary almost overnight, accumulating a huge online following for no other reason than it sounded stupid. Millions flocked to the idea of such a silly film, all of them driven by the fact that it was the antidote to modern cinema. Surely a film with such a daft name could only result in the best no brainer of all time?
Make no mistake. They were right. This is, hands down, one of the stupidest movies ever made. From start to finish I’m convinced I have never seen anything quite as brainless and juvenile in my entire life. It’s incredible.
The best thing is about this film is the honesty in it all. The name alone is a piss take of everything Hollywood, shedding any trace of pretension or grandeur until all you have left is the greatest B movie pitch of all time, and easily one of the best spoof disaster movies since Airplane!
The genius of it all is in the cliché. Where most films stick to them as lazy plot devices and bad characterisations (S.W.A.T, I’m looking at you), Snakes on a Plane embraces them and creates a brilliant send up of formulaic action movies.
From the start the film throws an amazingly contrived cast of swarthy gangsters, stuck up brits, a badass rapper (complete with fat comedy duo sidekicks no less), a Hilton inspired society girl, a hapless and love struck honeymoon couple (yes, they did go there) and, of course, Samuel L Jackson as a token badass black government agent. All this builds up into what can only be described as the greatest ‘spot the stiff’ sequence as each and every character is lined up to be viciously dispatched later on in the film. It’s an absolute classic of a scene.
But that’s the thing about this movie. As a critic, I should probably be ripping into it with abandon, lamenting the death of modern cinema and passing comment on the decline of social standards or something. That’s how shit this movie really is, but I simply cannot bring myself to do it, so self inflicted and tongue in cheek is the entire proceedings. Whenever the film is presented with an opportunity to ham it up and take the piss, it does so. Weather it’s the brilliant of (and I shit you not) Snake-Cam vision or the self conscious cliché of Samuel L Jackson’s entire script, it pulls it off brilliantly.
I’m of the opinion that everyone, and indeed anyone, should go and see Snakes On A Plane. If you’ve ever got a kick out of spoof movies, shit horror, bad action movies or Samuel L Jackson (in any shape or form), you owe it to yourself to go and see it. Anyone who hasn’t done any of the above should also go and see it, simply because they urgently need to embrace the fine art of self inflicted viewing of bad movies. Anyone who doesn’t love it needs to learn to switch off their brain.
7.5 out of 10 |
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