Slither slather

Look, if you’re one of those folks who, when they first heard the title to this mind-bogglingly silly camp-fest, thought it was just plain stupid … then ignore my rating. In fact, ignore the movie. You’re just going to think it’s stupid. Just go see that Will Ferrell movie again—the one that you thought was one of the funniest things you’ve seen since the last Will Ferrell movie you saw.

To those of you who abide … it meets the hype. Cheesy? Well, hell yeah … cheesy as pouring blue cheese dressing all over your cottage cheese. Mmmmmm. Look, it’s a B-movie about snakes on a plane. Get it? Like the Germans can compact an entire ethos into a single word, here we have an entire movie pared down into less than a logline (a logline is a sentence-long description used to sell a screenplay … here all they needed was the title). Add Sam Jackson in kick-snake-ass mode, not shark-bait-wussy mode, collecting enough snakeskin to make a wallet that reads “One Bad Mother” (Ed.: Shut your mouth). But I’m just talkin’ ’bout Sam. And it’s directed by David Ellis, the dude who brought you Final Destination 2, the better-than-the-original sequel featuring the most ass-kicking freeway smashup scene evah. How could anything possibly go wrong?

It doesn’t. It hits the ground slithering and delivers with more snakes than the Republican National Convention and a Promise Keepers march combined. Because what we have here is one deliriously self-aware B-movie of the kind that hasn’t hit the big screen since the ‘70s. Does it deliver? Oh yeah … if you could see me now, you’d see me taking a long, satisfying drag from a cigarette and looking over with lover’s eyes to the film unreeled in the bed next to me. We’ve got boobies, one of which has a big ol’ mamba hanging from it, and then we’ve got some dude shrieking as another snake latches onto his junk. Wincing yet? Booyah. We’ve got an annoying rat-dog used as reptile bait and enough other stuff to cause any self-flagellating member of PETA to suck an entire theater seat up their sphincter. That alone should be worth the price of admission.

Of course it’s stupid. It’s a B-movie, with B-movie dialogue and B-movie absurdity and more screams and laughter combined than any movie since the one where Kathy Bates got nekkid and jumped in a hot tub. What’s it about? Right. The Will Ferrell movie is two theaters down that way. Just follow all those dudes with mustaches.

The only reason this sick puppy didn’t get my best rating? Because it didn’t have a big motherfucking shark break free from its tank in cargo and gobble Sam right up in the middle of some inspirational speech. That’s it. And it should have been in 3-D. Otherwise, perfect.