Snakes on a Plane.

Review #2571: Snakes on a Plane.

Cast: 

Samuel L. Jackson (Agent Neville Flynn), Julianna Margulies (Claire Miller), Nathan Phillips (Sean Jones), Rachel Blanchard (Mercedes Harbont), Flex Alexander (Clarence "Three G's" Dewey), Kenan Thompson (Troy), Keith Dallas (Big Leroy), Sunny Mabrey (Tiffany Engelhard), Bruce James (Ken), Lin Shaye (Grace), Terry Chen (Chen Leong), Elsa Pataky (Maria), Mark Houghton (Agent John Sanders), David Koechner (Rick Archibald), Bobby Cannavale (Special Agent Hank Harris), and Todd Louiso (Dr. Steven Price) Directed by David R. Ellis (#437 - Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco, #2137 - Final Festination 2)

Review: 

Hey, this is a month dedicated to the flops from audiences in its time, and this technically counts. 20 years ago, New Line Cinema believed they were on the cusp of a pretty good hit on their hands with an "internet phenomenon"...and then it wasn't. I'm not kidding, there were magazines that put it on the cover and asked if the "Hokey Horror Flick" could "Change The Movie Business". The project was first discussed in 1999 after a Dreamworks executive in Craig Berenson read a script called "Venom" by David Dalessandro, an administrator at the University of Pittsburgh and first-time scriptwriter that had been inspired by reading an article about Indonesian brown tree snakes climbing on cargo planes in World War II and eventually was inspired to have a script, with, well, lots of snakes. Berenson found that script and on a "happy hour" type of party, he pitched it as "Snakes on a Plane" and thought, hey, maybe there is something to it, which is where he got the services of John Heffernan to work on the story. Years of pitching and re-writes (which added one more credited writer with Sebastian Gutierrez) eventually got it to New Line Cinema and Ronny Yu to direct and Jackson to star in it, mainly because of the title. Sure, they quickly lost Yu due to disagreements (which led to the hiring of stuntman-turned filmmaker Ellis, behind films such as Final Destination 2), and sure, New Line tried to rename the project "Pacific Flight 121" (others report it as "Pacific Air 121"), and sure, they initially aimed for a PG-13 rating even during shooting, but eventually there was a movie ready to go for people to speculate on (such as screenwriters) online. New Line aimed to engage with fan-generated speculation and take the movie seriously. Debuting for audiences (with no screenings for critics) on August 18, 2006 (other choices that month included films such as Barnyard, The Descent, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, World Trade Center, Step Up, The Illusionist) and released on a budget of $33 million, the movie made almost double its budget that was labeled as just an "Internet-only phenomenon" and a "dud". Ellis directed three further films (one direct-to-video), with the last being Shark Night in 2011 prior to his sudden death in 2013 at the age of 60.

For a movie that shows at least a dozen people joining the body count movie, it sure doesn't feel like a horror movie (that "hokey" label seems more like a joke). The opening seems more of a reworking of the crap you saw in those Airport movies (27 minutes, mainly) but it eventually becomes obvious where they tried to shoehorn it being an R-rated movie (with the occasional shot of blood). It may interest you to know that most of the snakes in the film are either CG or animatronic, especially the ones that don't attack people or encounter Jackson. I suppose it could make a doubleheader with Cocaine Bear (2023) in the "hey, it's a movie with a title like that, why not?" department*, although most people probably are more spooked by bears than wondering about what type of snake is venomous. To be honest, as a person who actually has had a snake around their shoulders (as I vaguely remember from a trip to a nature center), I'll take the snake over flying right about now, trusting a tin can flying in the air where you could theoretically get blown up or deal with aircraft decompression or deal with, well, a crappy-made plane. I guess I'm stalling at trying to understand what all the fuss about this movie was, which, really, is it known for anything other than that one line said about 80 minutes into its 106-minute runtime about having had enough of these [you know the swear] planes on this ... plane? Anybody? It's an overgrown B-movie made for way too much money to be considered one that has exactly one joke (tongue in cheek because ha ha, get it, it's a movie that can be used in a punchline of a sitcom) and the bare minimum to actually have fun with. You've got three folks better known for TV (Margulies, Alexander, and Thompson*) paired with basically nothing from Phillips for a movie that thinks throwing snakes around the compartments and having the bare minimum of carnage is enough. Nope. I like Jackson, and he seems to be having some fun here, but this is a movie that begs to just be an Air Force One (thought be some as a Die Hard pastiche) ripoff rather than pairing him with basically nothing to really engage with (imagine if it was say...Gans Hruber threatening to release snakes from a time-controlled crate unless he gets money while also motioning to kill the witness anyway - it would be the most delusional movie ever). Creature features can't really reach the levels of Jaws (1975), so folks basically try to get on the level of trying to rise above say, Anaconda [1997] (honestly, that movie might be a bit more interesting, at least it has an actual adversary in the mayhem).

Oh, but you don't need to know much about their personal lives besides the intro, well, I want to at least feel like people are going to go through peril, and it's not saying much when Shaye's character going down under is the highlight of seeing sacrifices and "into the jaws of death" moments (you could count a yapping dog being thrown into the path of a snake, but, well, really?). You'd think going around using a taser on snakes and having a kickboxer character would be enough, but it just feels like a movie going through the motions with an assured feeling of doing enough without actually proving anything. The snakes just aren't that spooky enough to make me unsettled beyond the "will they take down any of the comedy relief?" (get it, the musician with guards is actually a germophobe? get it? get it, one of them gets bit in the ass? get it? get it, the movie rests on the power of PlayStation* flight simulating? get it). There are certain movies that feel like "fast food movies" that basically go through you with one viewing and satisfy the bare minimum, and some of them accomplish the job of satisfying the general expectation laid out by its viewer (action movie with explosions, horror movie with scares*, whatever). Snakes on a Plane just feels like microwaved leftovers: you've done this before and you just don't feel like it matters to actually do it again (to say nothing of those mockblusters that come out from folks such as The Asylum - a waste of time if there ever was one!*). Some movies can get on by with an decent lead among its cast and middling tension, but this is one that has no actual fangs in it that results in an overhyped, overblown mediocrity.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

Next up: who knows? 

*Also the department of "includes kids in the peril but in the mildest possible way that totally isn't cowardly". 

*The three in particular for 2006 was ER*, One on One and Saturday Night Live. Anyway, The only modern TV show I really got into when it was *new* was Lucifer (before Fox was too stupid to cancel it) and The Blacklist. as for Margulies, what the hell is a The Good Wife?

*Lmao, Nintendo forever.

*I don't care what they say, you do have to be a bit scary in your horror movie. 

*Sharknado was made for television but at least that went into a few theaters for midnight showings. But most of their crap goes direct-to-video, which is something I explicitly do not aim for. 

Final Destination 2.

Review #2137: Final Destination 2.

Cast: 

Ali Larter (Clear Rivers), A. J. Cook (Kimberly Corman), Michael Landes (Thomas Burke), David Paetkau (Evan Lewis), James Kirk (Tim Carpenter), Lynda Boyd (Nora Carpenter), Keegan Connor Tracy (Kat Jennings), Jonathan Cherry (Rory Peters), T. C. Carson (Eugene Dix), Justina Machado (Isabella Hudson), and Tony Todd (William Bludworth) Directed by David R. Ellis (#437 - Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco)

Review: 

You may remember Final Destination (2000) came from a spec script by Jeffrey Reddick that would've been proposed for The X-Files if it wasn't for the fact that he had a suggestion to pitch it to New Line Cinema (which led to ensuing writing contributions by James Wong and Glen Morgan). The resulting film was such a success that New Line approached Reddick for a sequel. He agreed while Wong and Morgan (unavailable due to other projects) were replaced by J. Mackye Gruber and Eric Bress. If you would like an impression of what I thought about that first film, here goes: "Cardboard cut-outs getting killed with Rube Goldberg-type deaths is still cardboard cut-outs getting killed. The curse of knowing the potential for death could have made an interesting movie, really. That, or maybe it really was something suited for television." 2021 me did not have much patience for the original Final Destination, of course it took me two years to return to this series. Actually, he thought of a movie where instead of a bunch of bland cutouts led by a guy who looked like a nerd until it became more apparent that "Death" really was coming for them, time would be best served by just making that character a real loser. Two years later, I have come up with one other idea that was inspired by viewing this cheap sequel: a killer that goes around offing people in a manner that look like accidents just so that way he can get people to believe that Death is coming for them (if you have seen a film or story that is based on any of those premises, that is cool, because, well, you won't hear me whining).

Okay, so you can't just say a movie is not good just because it doesn't have the premise better than the one you imagine in your head. But you can say it is not a good film if it doesn't do anything to improve on the original beyond perhaps diving into what might as well be ripe for parody. Maybe I should've seen it coming before, since I never really thought much of naming a character "Clear Rivers" the first time around until I thought, wait, really? I think the only time I felt anything with this film was in laughing at it rather than with it, such as the case of one death scene: a teen spooks some pigeons, which leads to them buzzing by a crane operator that leads to the operator dropping a windowpane right on the teen that reminds me of a Roadrunner cartoon. The scene where a guy decides to just use a gun to try and shoot himself only to have it not fire even with six bullets is probably the only spooky idea presented. Other than that, if you've seen the first film, you basically have seen the second film. I'm not even irritated of what I see here, I just find it hilarious that you retain two castmates from the first and only use them to basically serve as exposition (it amuses me that Larter's character responds to being flipped off by leaving the padded and safe asylum to lead to exposition because [insert reference here]). Wasting Tony Todd the second time around should be a crime, but what do I know? Anyway, the acting is the kind of cut-and-dry stuff you would expect, mildly involving but not nearly enough to make me remember an iota of who these people are. Even Larter seems bemused to be there, as if the only thing worth doing is saying exposition and looking ready for the last check to clear. The death scenes are, well, deadly, which is more of a compliment to the one who had to sketch out how a man will get killed as a result of throwing junk onto pavement minutes earlier (that, or how CGI logs will make a bigger crash than real logs, obviously). You might think I should be more fair with the rating, because, hey, it's not that much better or worse than the original. You know those latter Sherlock Holmes movies Roy William Neill did? Watching those eleven films in all of their average-ness is far more tolerable to write about than being fair to junk like this.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

next up: Night of the Living Dead...remade.

Movie Night: Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco.

Review #437: Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco.

Cast
Michael J. Fox (Chance), Ralph Waite (Shadow), Sally Field (Sassy), Carla Gugino (Delilah), Sinbad (Riley), Tisha Campbell-Martin (Sledge), Michael Bell (Stokey), Robert Hays (Bob Seaver), Kim Greist (Laura Seaver), Benj Thall (Peter Seaver), Veronica Lauren (Hope Seaver), and Kevin Chevalia (Jamie Seaver) Directed by David R. Ellis.

Review
The previous film (#186 - Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey) was fine, a reasonably paced family film with good banter and pairing of Don Ameche, Michael J. Fox and Sally Field, with minimal, but not too little scenes about the family, and it made sure to not run on for too long. The sequel tries to do the same thing, but in someways, that is the major flaw of the film, it just feels like a rehash, only with minor differences. Sure there's a love interest, and...a dog gang, but this film, while okay at best, fails to surpass the original in quality. Fox is good, and Field is as well, and Waite does okay as a replacement actor, as Don Ameche had dies prior to the filming of the second film. The problem isn't exactly with the actors, it's more a problem with the script, which doesn't really go anywhere. It has fun moments, but it feels like it is trying either too hard or not enough. The scenery of San Francisco looks nice, and I imagine families would like it somewhat, but the first one is definitely better.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.