Snakes on a Plane

Snakes on a Plane is one of year's greatest, goofiest movie titles. It sums up the film's plot so succinctly that the name itself has developed its own cult following.

The big question seems to be whether the motion picture that bears the catchy moniker can live up to the hype. Well, like some great drive-in classic from the '70s, Snakes on a Plane is a full-throttle thrill ride that revels in blood, gore, guts and making audience members jump out of their seats every five minutes or so. It's a mystery why this wasn't screened for critics, because it's one of the summer's best popcorn flicks.

The movie cheerfully throws together different genres, as if they were all tossed in a blender. It's an animals-attack shocker, a mobster action flick and a disaster tale all rolled into one. Heck, there's even martial-arts sequences for good measure.

Director David R. Ellis (Final Destination 2) starts the movie at a whiplash-inducing pace that rarely lets up. A surfer named Sean (Nathan Phillips of Wolf Creek) witnesses a brutal mob slaying in Hawaii.

Faster than you can say "needless exposition," FBI agent Flynn (Samuel L. Jackson) is escorting Sean on a flight to Los Angeles so he can testify against the mobster.

To put a stop to Sean, the gangster places hundreds of deadly snakes in the airliner's cargo hold. The serpents have been enraged by pheromones; as Flynn eloquently puts it, they're essentially "snakes on crack."

The movie is aware of its cheesiness, one reason it works so well. It's an exploitation flick that knows what it wants to do, and it gets the job done expertly. The snakes first attack a stoned mile-high couple in the lavatory. In one five-minute sequence, you get nudity, sex, drug use, powerful shock moments and gross-out makeup effects. It's Mecca for B-movie lovers.

The movie is so ramped up the filmmakers should have added an exclamation point to the title to suggest how charged the thrills actually are. It's not just a few snakes slithering around - we're talking hundreds of them biting vulnerable body parts and moving at lightning pace throughout the darkened plane. Even people who like snakes will be squirming.

The film doesn't skimp on gore or grisly effects, so splatter-movie buffs should love the whole thing. The body count stacks up quickly; one annoying passenger actually gets swallowed whole in a gleefully icky moment.

Under Ellis' sure-footed direction, the movie is surprisingly taut, with its claustrophobic setting. But he also injects the film with a charged sense of humor, as the movie practically instructs the audience to yell at the characters on-screen.

The cast is large, but certain players make strong impressions. Julianna Margulies (ER) is a plucky flight attendant who recalls Karen Black in Airport 1975, right down to her '70s hairdo. Todd Louiso (Chicago Hope) is fun as a quirky snake expert, and David Koechner is a riot as a wisecracking co-pilot in snakeskin cowboy boots.

Of course, no one rivals Jackson as the center of attention. He plays Flynn in full badass mode and does it with great style and in a smooth black leather jacket. Jackson has done a lot of good work on film (Jackie Brown, Unbreakable, Pulp Fiction), but few things can match the sight of him moving through an airplane, attacking serpents with a stun gun. Like the rest of the film, it's simply pure fun.