Last night I went to the drive in to see a double feature of Snakes On A Plane and The Descent. But really, I went to see Snakes On A Plane, but sat through Descent (which came first) just go get to it. The result, I’m afraid, was a bit disappointing.

If you’re not familiar with Snakes On A Plane, the wikipedia entry is here. But basically it’s a movie that’s driven by a bad concept, namely that a bunch of venomous snakes get loose on a plane, killing passengers and wreaking havoc.

The problem with the movie is that it neither took itself seriously enough, nor took itself too seriously. The result was a movie was was neither funny because it was meant to be, nor funny because it was “so bad it’s good”.

The plot line was insanely complicated for a movie of this variety, and seemed to indicate that the movie meant to take itself seriously when it was initially made. Frankly, all I expected from the plot was a mad scientist transporting snakes in a flimsy container, and the snakes get out. But instead we get this mob boss who kills a prosecutor, but is accidentally witnessed by this surfer dude, who then flies to LA to testify against the mob boss, but the mob boss decides to kill the surfer dude by releasing thousands of snakes on the plane, in hopes of bringing it down. In an age of terrorism, a bomb snuck aboard would both make more sense and be logistically easier than sneaking thousands of snakes onto the right plane, but whatever. And by the end, the whole plot line is basically dropped. We never see testimony, or the mob boss put away, or anything.

Wikipedia has this interesting paragraph about the movie:

In recognition of the unprecedented Internet buzz for what had been a minor movie in their 2006 line-up, New Line Cinema ordered five days of additional shooting in early March 2006[2] (principal photography had wrapped in September 2005). While re-shoots normally imply problems with a film, the producers opted to add new scenes to the film to take the movie from PG-13 into R-rated territory and bring the movie in line with growing fan expectations.

Unfortunately, you can really kind of tell where these additions were made. What they attempted to do was to make the movie make fun of itself, even though it was never intended to do this from the beginning. The result was a bunch of comical throw-away characters put on the plane, and killed immediately, one couple killed while having sex in the bathroom, and a man killed while peeing, the snake having bitten him on the end of his penis.

All in all, the movie was stupid, and not in a Barbarella kind of way. No, it was just plain old dumb.

The Descent, on the other hand, was fantastic. The Descent really did have a flimsy premise that was both improbable and uncomplicated at the same time. Basically, a group of ten or so young, hot, British women are thrill seekers, and they go spelunking together. But one of the girls wants to go to this unexplored cave, instead of the mapped out cave for “tourists” and of course there are a family of Nosferatu looking monsters living down there, and all but one gets eaten alive.

Of course, seeing this in a double feature with Snakes On A Plane lead me to devise a new name for the film, Dykes In A Cave. In fact, we kept waiting for the invariable lesbian kiss or nude scene in the movie, and it made for great fun watching the film, but alas that scene never came. Still, I think I like my movie title better than “The Descent”.

The Descent was exactly what one would expect with a stupid horror movie with a flimsy premise that is “so bad it’s good”. If only Snakes On A Plane could have lived up to it.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 19th, 2006 at 10:21 am and is filed under Humor & Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.