Snakes on a Plane (2006)

High-concept film that delivers on it's succulent premise, 'Snake on a Plane' or at least its title was seemingly everywhere in 2006, it really captured the zietgiest. I have had many conversations about this film, especially back then, in fact a friend and I came up with an idea for a ripe off version which we titled 'Serpents on a Dirigible', the misdirect being they are water serpents in the blimps plumbing and everybody on board has just been feed a bunch of bran muffins. Do you take your chances, or do you risk embarrassment? 

The story of 'Snakes on a Plane' is just that, it's like a cross between 'Die Hard' and one of those old 'Airport' movies, only it one ups 'Passenger 57'. Gangsters have loaded the freight of a red eye flight from Hawaii to LA with a plethora of exotic snakes, and timed their release into the cabin to coincide with the release of a pheromone cocktail to make the snake particularly aggressive. The purpose being to cause enough chaos that the plan crashes into the ocean, thus killing a murder witness being escorted by Samuel L. Jackson to testify.

Now most of the characters are stockish, but there was enough of them that I could care about and I'm a second generation sucker for a fun disaster movie so I thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact I liked it a lot more then I thought I would, it was fun, had sufficient stakes, and was surprisingly well executed. Of course there were dumb and hokey bits, and I would have been open to a longer wrap up as it seemed pretty rushed, but to tell the truth it wasn't really necessary, once the snakes have de-planed there's not much of a point to keeping the camera's running. Supporting cast includes Kenan Thompson, Julianna Margulies and Rachel Blanchard. ***