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Decemeber 2006 DVD REVIEW SNAKES ON A PLANE

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by Kam Williams DVD REVIEW SNAKES ON A PLANE Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Julianna Margulies, Nathan Phillips, Rachel Blanchard, Flex Alexander, Flex Alexander, Tygh Runyan, David Koechner, Kenan Thompson Director: David R. Ellis Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Subtitled, NTSC Language: English Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Number of discs: 1 Rating Studio: New Line Home Video DVD Release Date: January 2, 2007 Run Time: 106 minutes DVD Features: Available Subtitles: English, Spanish Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround) Commentary by: director David Ellis, Samuel L. Jackson and moreUnknown Format 10 deleted scenes "Snakes on a Video" Cobra Starship, includes music Featurettes: "Pure Venom: Making of Snakes on a Plane," "Snakes on a Blog," "Meet the Reptiles," "VFX" Gag reel Theatrical trailer, TV spot

The self-explanatory title of this campy disaster flick represents a rare case of cinematic truth-in-advertising, because it’s all about snakes on a plane. The fun starts inside the already claustrophobic quarters of a cramped commercial airliner where the motley assortment of mostly annoying passengers filing in are about to get even more aggravated. Unabashedly politically-incorrect in terms of relying on simplistically-drawn stereotypes, every character here is easily recognizable. There’s the trash-talking gangsta rapper with a couple of bully bodyguards, the spoiled-rotten debutante, the effete coward, the doting mother with the whining baby, two young brothers traveling alone, the bright-eyed newlyweds, etcetera. Even the crew members are all obvious archetypes, from the effeminate flight attendant to the bimbo stewardess to the fanny-pinching pilot. The bad attitudes begin when everyone in first-class is informed that they’ve just been bumped back to coach to make way for FBI Agent Neville Flynn (Samuel L. Jackson ) and the flaky surfer dude (Nathan Phillips) he’s been assigned to escort from Hawaii to Los Angeles to ensure his safe arrival in court to testify at a murder trial. What nobody knows, of course, is that the defendant has hatched a plan to crash the 747 by stowing a crate of venomous snakes aboard. As patently absurd as this premise sounds, Snakes on a Plane does not disappoint. Samuel L. Jackson enjoys his best outing in years as a boiling badass who loses his composure as soon as all hell breaks lose. The special effects are a convincing enough combination of computer-generated imagery and over 400 real snakes seamlessly edited in to keep the viewer on edge. With grisly killings well-concealed and well-synchronized with an alternately ominous and thunderous score designed to elicit screams as you jump out of your skin.

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