Snakes On A Plane

Samuel L. Jackson delivers all his lines with complete Samuel L. Jackson-ness.

For those who found amusement in the internet-driven hoopla for Snakes on a Plane, hold that thought. The movie itself isn't as much fun as all that feverish anticipation.

Isn't it meant to be self-parodying to get into the spirit of the fanboy-driven phenomenon? Well it's not.

That's other than Samuel L. Jackson's FBI agent delivering every line with complete Samuel L. Jackson-ness. Yes that's frequently pretty funny.

But everything else is played straight and cheesy, when surely a film with a title like that should be demented and trashy to qualify as the so-bad-it's-good B-flick it was angling to be.

No, SoaP just isn't bad enough for it to lift the base material into something truly crudely entertaining.

It does have its moments of impressive awfulness. Scenes involving snake bites to tender parts - breasts, genitals, eye sockets, that kind of thing - undoubtedly suggested by all that chatroom buzz.

And it has equally impressive amounts of product placement that make you wonder if the plane will crash under the weight of it all before the snakes get to the cockpit.

But like all that pre-release excitement, we're getting ahead of ourselves. A recap. In case you missed the hype and disbelieve the title, this film, which was formerly known as Pacific Air 121, is indeed about a bunch of snakes released on a plane.

That's because a nasty Asian ganglord wants a Hawaii surfer dude who's been convinced to testify against him to die a spectacular death on his flight to Los Angeles, along with all the other passengers.

So snakes it is, released from the hold and soon chowing down and/or constricting on the panicked passengers as Jackson's FBI guy tries to rally the survivors with a few well-chosen words.

This comes with some memorable scenes of poison-sucking. Of a baby being rescued in the nick of time. Of small pets dying needlessly. Of the really selfish and irritating passenger getting what he deserved. Of the pilot finding that his snakeskin boots weren't such a good idea.

Despite all that SoaP really fails to enjoy its own stupidity in the way that Jackson seems to in his performance.

The film isn't much of a punchline to the joke set up by the title and all that web attention.

Making a dumb movie then essentially asking its potential audience "how could we make this even dumber?" sure was an intriguing idea. Now I've seen the movie, I still like the idea better.

Verdict: The year's biggest movie marketing phenomenon just runs out of hisssss on screen

Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Julianna Margulies
Director: David R. Ellis
Rating: M, violence, language, sex scenes
Running Time: 105 mins
Screening: Village, Hoyts, Berkeley cinemas