Last night I saw a sneak preview of
Snakes on a Plane. I drove to the theater feeling like I was being pulled by an invisible tractor beam. Why? I've been asking myself since last night. Is it how this film has tapped into some dormant creative energy of the
MySpace generation? Do I have a hidden fear of snakes and planes itching to surface? Maybe my upbringing in a white bread suburb left me with a fantasy of being a wily black man slapping back snakes like it's my business. It could have been the thousands of rubber snakes sent to theaters playing the movie, but I don't think so.
The first ten minutes showed me why I came. The opening plods through an attempt to piece together a plot and explain how snakes get on the plane. Everyone I was with agreed thirty seconds into the first scene we should be on the plane by now and there should be snakes. We were longing for what we came for. We didn't come for "The movie event of the summer," or something "horrifying," "bone-chilling," "the next generation in terror," or "a non-stop thrill ride from start to finish." The film never claimed to be any of those things. It's snakes on a plane. No more and no less. We wanted it straight and, after some silly patching together of a plot, we got it like a drink from the fire hose.
We hissed when some unsuspecting passenger was about to get throttled by a snake. We cheered if that passenger got attacked in some particularly gruesome way—any possible desire to see snakes bite somebody on the (fill in the blank) is satisfied. We cheered every time Samuel L. Jackson killed a snake. We cheered just to cheer when the movie got a little too serious. By the end of the night, I understood why I couldn't miss this movie for the world. Yelling at snakes with a bunch of people in a dark room is fun. That's what
Snakes on a Plane promises and that's what it delivers. I hope Hollywood learns a lesson and starts marketing movies based on what they are, not what they aren't.