"Snakes on a Plane" is the greatest movie ever made.
Forget about "Citizen Kane" or "Casablanca" or even "The Godfather." "Snakes on a Plane" reigns supreme.
And the craziest part is: I didn't even have to see it before I figured that out. But even these most lofty of expectations could not live up to seeing the spectacle in the theaters.
Though not making big box office bucks, "Snakes" has become an Internet hot topic and has the makings of a cult film.
"Snakes" may not be remembered for its depth of character development, or its drilling philosophical underpinnings, or its performances, or its visual effects, or its subtle writing, or . lots of other stuff, really. So what is it that made us salivate like Pavlov's dog over the release of this cinematic bombshell?
"What's in a name?" William Shakespeare once asked, to some note. Apparently a whole hell of a lot, as it was enough to get Jackson to sign on to the film without having even seen the script.
And it was enough to drive movie fans and bloggers nearly out of their heads with anticipation and even anger when the film's studio, New Line Cinema, moved to change its title.
Jackson, as cool as ever, put it best in an interview with Entertainment Weekly: "The thing they said to me was, 'We really don't want to give too much away about the movie.' I was like, 'ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MINDS? That's EXACTLY what you want to do!' . Let 'em know, if you're coming to see this movie, you're going to see a plane full of deadly-ass snakes."
And, lo and behold, that's exactly what the movie has to offer.
Once called "Pacific Air 121" (before Samuel L. Jackson got his way), "Snakes" has inspired people to plan parties, pull pranks and pose with plastic figures (okay, so it was really wax) to celebrate the opening of a movie that has snakes attacking all sorts of anatomical features in a murderous plot.
The movie, which has gone from PG-13 to R, has been controlled creatively by the fans almost as much as by the director himself.
Originally, "Snakes" had fewer curse words and less gratuitous nudity, but after Jackson and the fans had their say, they went back for re-shoots after deciding it wasn't violent enough. Now there are casualties galore. There are puffy, snake-bitten limbs. There are snakes crawling under people's clothes, striking with abandon at anything that moves.
Let's run down the basic premise for you in case you missed it: There are some snakes - deadly-ass snakes - and there's this plane. Said snakes (provoked by a pheromone spray) get released on said plane by criminal mastermind Eddie Kim (Bryon Lawson) in an attempt to kill Sean Jones (Nathan Phillips), a key witness in a murder trial against the gangster. Mayhem ensues as Jones's FBI escort Neville Flynn (Samuel L. Jackson) tries to save the plane from the serpentine slaughter-fest.
In its obligatory mile-high-club scene, a snake bites this girl right in the nipple! In an unrelated incident, another snake bites a guy's penis! No shit, his penis!
Another dude gets squeezed by a big anaconda until his eyes fill with blood and then the fucker eats him! Whoa!
Yep, so there you go. It's a B-movie. It's proud that it's a B-movie.
No wonder everyone is celebrating all those "motherfuckin' snakes" on that "motherfuckin' plane."
A poll posted by Internet Movie Database ranked it as the most highly anticipated movie of August, with 30.5 percent of respondents choosing "Snakes" as their must-see movie.
Some of the College's students even got together for the release of "Snakes." Nicole Pfeiffer, junior English and international studies major held a Snakes on a Barbecue party.
About 25 people attended, including other College students, to "celebrate the wonder that is Sam Jackson and his savvy decision to choose such a masterpiece screenplay to work with," Pfeiffer said.
The barbecue was held on the opening day of the movie. Pfeiffer and her friends grilled hot dogs and hamburgers before attending a showing of "Snakes" at the Loew's on Route 1 in New Brunswick.
"At one point, the 16 of us who were seated in the same row orchestrated the wave with some success," Pfeiffer said. "Aside from that, we inserted the 'f' word into every other sentence in order to keep consistent with the dialogue of the movie."
She said the theater was not crowded but the audience was boisterous nonetheless. There was a sense of camaraderie, even among strangers, she said. "Sam Jackson is definitely a uniter."
At the barbecue, the decorations followed the tone of the movie. In addition to snake decorations, she served snacks in genuine airline vomit bags.
She said a 10-foot tall cardboard plane served as a backdrop for the party. "We also featured a 'Snakes on a Plane' cake as well as a homemade Samuel L. Jackson pi?ata.
Even Madame Tussaud's wax museum in New York City got in on the action, standing a wax Samuel L. Jackson outside of the museum for photo ops, a snake draped over him.
In an AMC theater in Phoenix, pranksters released two live diamondback rattlesnakes during a showing of "Snakes," according to the Star-Ledger.
Though no one was injured, the snakes caused a panic in the theater. While the culprits were not caught, the snakes were, and they were released into the desert.
So yeah - that's really all you need to know about "Snakes." Just don't take it too seriously and you'll be able to appreciate it for what it's worth - hilarious entertainment for the sake of nothing else.
