Unseen Movie Review: Snakes on a Plane

By Robert Dixter Aug 15, 2006, 4:08 GMT

Hollywood has never quite figured out the best way to get your butt into theater seats.

They’ve tried all sorts of elaborate marketing schemes to raise awareness for a movie, and tell you what the film is all about. It never really works.

How many times have you been at a dinner party where your next door neighbor gets too drunk and begins telling the three other couples present how his wife is not attracted to him anymore even though he switched colognes and lost the tighty whities he used to wear to bed, then someone mentions a movie, say ‘Nacho Libre,’ and then someone else asks if that’s a foreign film, then someone else says it’s about wrestling, and someone responds that they thought Jack Black was in it and it was a romantic comedy, and then someone finally says “I’m not attracted to you cause you’re a drunk!”

I figure that happens about every other weekend. 

Finally the studios (or rather Sam Jackson) decided to just tell the theater going public   what they want to know. What is this film all about?

It’s about snakes on a plane.  It’s that simple.  No confusing message, no stupid trick title, and no misleading genre.

This film is about snakes on a plane. Hey Jarmusch, I didn’t understand ‘Broken Flowers’ and I watched the whole thing! 

This movie explains it all in the title!

By now we’ve all heard the famous story about how the studio wanted to change the name and Sam flipped out saying he only signed on to the film because of it’s name.

Should Sam Jackson be running a major Hollywood studio?  It seems he knows what it is the public wants.

Stop holding our hands trying to guide us into the seats, just tell us what the hell the film is about in plain English. Unless you’re Jim Carrey, then you can just talk out of your butt because it really doesn’t matter what your film is about anyway.

Because of the great title, there is a lot of hype on the film. People are aware of it, people are talking about it, and people are anxious to see it.  The buzz on the film started early, and by chance really. When word leaked that there was a film in production called ‘Snakes on a Plane,’ the internet community (because it really is more like a family, with perverted uncles and all) jumped on it and embraced the name.

Word spread that there was a new film with a great title.

That’s all people knew, and that’s all they really needed to know. Pretty soon, there were Snakes blogs and people making viral snakes videos. The online buzz was so great that the filmmakers even incorporated some of the online suggestions into the film.

I don’t think there’s been a film with such a successful online component since 'Blair Witch Project.' The only difference being that this one wasn’t started by the filmmakers. 

If this film is successful, studios are going to be looking at the online chatter in a whole new way. My Space has already launched certain films above and beyond their expectations (‘John Tucker’ and ‘Stick It’), but this is a whole new realm.

So New Line’s marketing department can pat themselves on the back for a great marketing job they never did. Word is out, there is a brand new Sam Jackson movie called ‘Snakes on a Plane’ about snakes on a plane.

The awareness for this movie is huge, which has always been the first problem for films.  Now the question is, is it any good? 

Sure everybody knows about it, but do I want to see a movie where there are snakes on a plane?  Personally, I don’t.

I really wish I could jump on the bandwagon with this one, but I really have no desire to see this film. Lucky for me I know what it’s all about before entering the theater, and snakes let loose on a plane just doesn’t interest me.

But hey, that’s just me.