"I can't believe I'm about to say this, but..." Snakes on a Plane is hardcore awesome!
First of all, I finally finished reading and summarizing all of the articles I had for the SGGK research project! Huzzah! There were over 120 of them, and I did not think there was much of a chance of my getting through them all. But I did! This means I have done my job for the summer, and my conscience is much more clear on this topic than it has been in a long, long time! Also, I am dead from overanalysis.
A short time ago, I went with Whitney to see Snakes on a Plane. I have to say, Whitney was probably the best person hands down to see it with, because she also likes to talk and laugh during movies and we have similar senses of humor.
There was no way we were going to take this movie seriously. There is no way we could have even if we had wanted to. The script was just... so bad. So bad that it circled back around and became wonderful. I keep trying to explain this to people and they don't understand: it's horrible, yes. But it's horrible in a good way.
You've got to love a movie with a premise this ridiculous. Come on, they say "I can't believe I'm about to say this, but..." twice! TWICE IN ONE MOVIE! And that's exactly the kind of humor the movie needs to float.
SPOILERS AHEAD! I'M NOT GOING TO PUT IN A CUT, BEWARE OF SPOILERS!
So, it starts out with Some Guy motorbiking through some jungle. He happens upon Eddie Kim's Asian Assasins assassinating some importnat prosecutor. Some Guy does not wait until the Asian Assassins leave the area, nor does he walk away quietly. He hops back on his little motorbike and careens through the brush while the dangerous men are still standing RIGHT THERE. So now they know they have to go get him.
Later, Some Guy is in his hotel or apartment or whatever, and Eddie Kim's Asian Assassins come to kill him for being stupid. But then Samuel L. Motherfucking Jackson jumps in out of nowhere and is all badass and awesome and saves Some Guy, who reveals himself as Some Bad Actor. "Do what I tell you and you live," says Sam Jackson, as we will be reminded fifty billion times throughout the movie. "Don't move, don't even breathe." Then they run away, and Sam Jackson is like, "Why are you such an idiot?" And Some Bad Actor is like, "I don't know?"
So then Sam Jackson interrogates Some Bad Actor, and finally gets him to admit that he saw Eddie Kim's Asian Assassins, even though SBA really doesn't want to testify because Eddie doesn't mess around with dealing out the revenge. He's basically a whiny bitch about it, and Sam Jackson is like, "Fool, you're not even making any sense!" And SBA is like, "I know, we'd better just move on to the snakes on the plane." And Sam Jackson is like, "Damn straight."
Also, Sam Jackson's character's name is Neville Flynn. I mention this because he looks and acts the least like a Neville Flynn out of anybody in the whole entire world.
At the airport, three stewardesses are boarding the Flight of Doom, making all kinds of comments which will become very ironic later. Their names are Grace, Tiffany, and Julianna Margulies. You can tell Julianna Margulies is the serious stewardess because she is wearing pants. It is Julianna's very last flight, and she really hopes it is not going to be the worst flight ever. Unfortunately, it is. Because FBI agent Sam Jackson and his peeps are taking over the entire first class section.
Among the pissed off first-class passengers who now have to sit in coach are Some Rapper and his two bodygaurds, Kenan Thompson and Other Bodyguard, (Seriously, I did not catch half the names in this movie. ) and a Poor Man's Alicia Silverstone with a dog in her purse (the dog's name is Mary-Kate! I knew that one!) who is totally the same person as Tiffany the Stewardess. I swear, that part was double-cast. Other passengers include a Sweet Newlywed Couple, a Kickboxing Asian who we immediately assume to be evil because of Eddie Kim's Asian Assasins, two Cute Little Boys, Bitchy Old Man, Gross Slutty Couple, and Hispanic Woman With Baby. Sam Jackson introduces SBA to his partner and special friend, who he clearly has very strong feelings of some sort for. The pilots' names are Rick, aka That Guy from Anchorman, and First Pilot.
There is a funny scene in which Tiffany comes and flirts with SBA, even though for all she knows he is a dangerous wanted criminal. She seems slightly let down when he tells her he's just going to LA to testify. "Have you ever heard of Eddie Kim?" She's apparently not the brightest bulb, 'cause she's all ,"Yeah, I heard that once he gouged out the eyeballs of a witness who testified against him and fed them to ravens just like that scene at the beginning of the new Pirates of the Caribbean, wasn't that gross, why do you ask?" "...he's the... guy I'm testifying... against..." "Oh... Awkward."
At some point, SBA tells Sam Jackson that he doesn't seem like an FBI agent, and Sam Jackson is like, "Well, I don't seem like a Jedi either, but you know what? I motherf*cking am, bitch!"
Aaaaanyway, Eddie Kim has had the most devious plan. He wants to kill the guy on the plane. What would be the most logical way to do that? If your guess is: Place a crate full of exotic poisonous snakes in the cargo hold and rig the crate so that it opens at a certain time and lace the leis lying nearby with pheremones that will make the snakes really angry and wait for the snakes to bite the guy and kill him and/or bring down the entire plane, YOU ARE APPARENTLY CORRECT!
The snakes start crawling all through the plane and the passengers are all oblivious. The Slutty Gross Couple go into the bathroom to do the sex, which clearly means they are going to die, and the snakes come down and bite them in inappropriate places, and I could really have done without seeing that, but oh well. Some other guy goes to the other bathroom to use the facilities, and a snake bites him in an inappropriate place, which I could also have done without. It's just... unnecessary.
Then the snakes start crawling all through the plane and crawling into more inappropriate places. They also mess up the wiring, causing the plane to almost crash oh noes. So First Pilot goes down to fix the problem, and while he's down there a snake crawls up to Rick and is all "Hey, baby." And Rick freaks out and hits the console with it, and First Pilot is all, "Dude? Not helping!" He gets the problem fixed but then a snake bites him and Julianna Margulies and Rick are all, "He must have had a heart attack, woe!" They have Sam Jackson come in and examine him, because wouldn't you? And Sam Jackson confirms that yes, he is dead, and completely fails to notice the suspcious bite marks. Julianna is like, "Worst. Last. Flight. Ever."
Rick tries to fly the plane some more, but more bad stuff happens, and the oxygen masks come down, and with them, the snakes. EVERYBODY PANIC! About fifty extras die. Sam Jackson takes charge: "We have to put a barrier between us... and the snakes." So they try to build a luggage barrier, which doesn't hold for long. Two Cute Little Boys and Woman With Baby both get trapped behind the barrier, and Kickboxing Asian I think maybe saves the kids... somebody does, anyway. But the Littlest Boy is bitten. And Grace saves Woman with Baby and Baby, but gets bitten by snake. His arm starts to swell up grossly, but it turns out Woman With Baby has mad venom-sucking skillz and saves him. People make really inappropriate jokes about her sucking abilities. Why she does not save everyone else this way I do not know. Anyway, eventually Grace dies, and it is sad, becuase she could have taken early retirement blah blah blah heartstringcakes. And Woman With Baby is like, "It's okay, because you saved my baby, and she is a cute baby." And everyone is all, "Awwwww." Except for Julianna. "Worst. Last. Flight. Ever." She goes and cries and Sam Jackson comforts her and they bond.
In the second onslaught of snakes, Sweet Newlyweds and Sam Jackson's Special Friend die, and it is sad. They block the stairway with a life raft, which magically is just the right size. SBA is all, "I want to help!" and Sam Jackson is like, "This whole thing is to make sure you get to LA safely, so stop being a moron! Remember the first thing I said when I met you?" "Stop breathing?" "Good idea, but no-- besides that." SBA tries to save people anyway,especially Tiffany. Also, Mary-Kate the dog gets fed to this random GIANT SNAKE-CROCODILE HYBRID MUTANT. And then it also eats Bitchy Old Guy. Germophobic Rapper freaks out and takes Sam Jackson's gun and threatens to kill everybody, including his new girlfriend the Poor Man's Alicia Silverstone and the Cute Kids, but then Sam Jackson and Kenan Thompson tell him to calm the hell down.
Sam Jackson contacts his FBI friend, Will's Cop Boyfriend from Will and Grace. They have previously bantered about his wife and kids so we know he is not gay in this role. He is all, "I can't believe I'm about to say this, but... get the best poinsonous snake expert you can find on the phone RIGHT NOW." They do, and he's like, "Well, shit." They send him pictures via cameraphone, and he's like, "That's not even an actual species of snake! That's some giant snake-crocodile mutant hybrid!" They have to go to some venom dealer or something to get the antivenom for the foreign snakes, which should teach us all something about how unprepared U.S. hospitals are for snake attacks on planes.
The air stops circulating in the plane, which is bad because everybody could suffocate. Sam Jackson has to go into the cargo hold and fix it. Julianna Margulies can't go because she is girrrrl. But she does lend Sam Jackson her homemade flamethrower, because fortunately she was a pyro as a child and still carries this thing around everywhere, especially to her place of employment. She talks to him via radio to tell him what to do. He's like, "This is really familiar... I feel like I've done this before... Except it was raptors instead of snakes... and I had hair... and instead of this flashlight in my mouth it was a cigarette... and it ended really, really badly." Fortunately, when he loses Julianna's flamethrower, he discovers that somebody has helpfully packed a harpoon gun in their luggage. Yeah, I totally take mine everywhere, too. He fixes the air.
But then Rick dies from snake. Woe. Julianna: "I can't believe I'm about to say this, but... does anybody know how to fly a plane?" Kenan will do it, because he has mad video game skillz. Sam Jackson has finally had it with these MOTHERFUCKING SNAKES on this MOTHERFUCKING PLANE. "It's time to open some windows." Wait... what? "It worked in Star Wars! It must work here, too!" So they totally break the windows of the plane so that the snakes will be sucked out and they all hold on tight and nobody suffocates or dies although the plane is crashing because it is no longer stable because you punched holes in it and for some reason you all thought this was a good idea.
Sam Jackson finds out that Kenan's only piloting experience is of the Playstation variety, and he gets that "I can't f*cking believe this," *facepalm* look on his face, and looks like he wants to beat Kenan senseless. But Kenan does manage to successfully land the idiot plane, and Sam is impressed and might make him an honorary Jedi.
At the very last minute, SBA The Very Important Witness looks like he gets bitten by snake and shot by Sam Jackson, but he had on a bulletproof vest. I bet it felt good for Sam Jackson to shoot him.
They get the antivenom to the bitten people who are not dead, and Sam Jackson realizes that it is now obligatory that he as Julianna Margulies out, just like at the end of Speed. She says yes. SBA asks Tiffany out and she says yes and gives him her number, and Sam Jackson is like, "OMG number! Dammit! How am I supposed to contact Julianna now? *facepalm*" And then he and SBA shake hands and he gives SBA the name of his acting coach and all is well.
And then SBA and Sam Jackson go surfing. What? No, seriously, they totally do.
Fin.