Snakes on a Plane                                ***

 It’s ironic that the last time a movie caused such divisions between people who either wanted to see it or were adamant about not seeing it, was also about people on a plane.  Last time, it was United 93, the well-made but hard to watch docudrama about the passenger uprising onboard one of the planes hijacked on 9-11.  In that case, some people didn’t want to be reminded of the horrible events of that day.  In the case of Snakes on a Plane, some people don’t want to see it because, well, because it’s called Snakes on a Plane.

 I can’t believe how many people insisted on saying how STUPID this movie looks and how could ANYONE want to see a movie about SNAKES on a PLANE and what a complete WASTE of time and money this is!  Come on, this isn’t Citizen Kane, it’s a B-movie style horror/comedy/thriller starring Samuel L. Jackson.  The bottom line is, if you think you might be entertained by a movie in which poisonous snakes are set loose on a red-eye flight from Hawaii to Los Angeles, then you probably will. 

 For the most part, I was entertained.  The scenes of passengers and crew getting on the plane seemed straight out of a 70’s era disaster movie.  Even the hair and costumes of the flight attendants looked deliberately 70s-ish.  The director did a nice job of slowly building up to the expected onslaught of deadly snakes.  A few of the attacks were unnecessarily juvenile and disgusting but mostly it was fun.  I cringed and jumped along with the other people in the theater. 

 I was willing to suspend my disbelief and have fun with the movie.  Can snakes climb stairs?  Does it matter?  Unfortunately, the film makers ran out of the ideas near the end with a ridiculous (even for this move) finale as a person whose only flight experience was playing games on a PlayStation landed the plane.  I know it’s supposed to be silly, but it was a little TOO silly. 

Overall, though, Snakes on a Plane gave me exactly what I paid for and if you don’t know what that is, just read the movie’s title one more   time.