Snakes On This MF’n Blu-ray
Samuel L. Jackson stars as an FBI agent tasked with escorting a witness to a mob murder from Hawaii to LA. Eddie Kim, a mobster who the FBI have been wanting to take down for some time, recently committed a murder that surfer and dirt biker Sean, played by Nathan Phillips, witnessed. Sean’s life is in danger now and it’s up to Samuel L and his partner to get him on board a plane and to LA so that Sean can testify against Eddie Kim to put him away for good.
Kim’s connections allow him to not only discover what plane Sean in on, but also implant it with dozens of venomous snakes. The snakes are encouraged by a pheromone that is spread throughout the plane’s ventilation system to become hyper-aggressive, attacking every human in sight, although oddly enough not each other. During the first half hour or so, we’re introduced to a variety of characters, including a rapper, Three Gs (Flex Alexander) who is also a germaphobe. Rachel Blanchard’s character, Mercedes, is your Paris Hilton character with Julianna Margulies acting as the successful flight attendant who is ready to retire after this flight. There are about a dozen other characters that are given emphasis aboard South Pacific flight 121, but these are several of the primary roles.
Anyway, after hitting their cruising altitude of 36,000 feet, a timed device unleashes the snakes from their cargo hold. They quickly slither about the plane, popping out of every crevice and hole that they can get to. At first, no one realizes the snakes are in the passenger area, but it isn’t long until a wide spread panic erupts whenever the snakes start to appear everywhere and they snakes start killing. Samuel L., Agent Neville Flynn in the film, has to act quickly after his partner is killed by a poisonous snake and the panic continues. In his typical firm, commanding role, Samuel L. gets the passengers to calm down and work together as they move to a different area of the plane and barricade themselves. They’re too far into the flight to turn around to Hawaii now, but LA is still almost two hours away. In the meantime, the passengers must deal with the death of both pilots, the air conditioning being broken, and the continued aggressive actions of the snakes. Can they work together to survive?
This was actually the first time I had seen Snakes On A Plane despite everyone else I know already having seen it and in spite of all of the hype during its theatrical release. It’s honestly a better film than I was expecting, but it isn’t one I seem myself watching again. A lot of the movie is made up of suspense, but that wears off greatly after a first time viewing, especially in a film that is almost as much comedy and drama as it is horror or thriller. Snakes isn’t a bad movie, but only ardent fans of Samuel L. will probably want to add this to their collection because it just doesn’t garner much reason for a second viewing.
Slithering Onto Blu-ray
Warner Brothers brings Snakes to Blu-ray with excellent image and sound quality. Despite it being a fairly new film, 2006, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the transfer onto Blu-ray. The film started off looking great, and it maintained that high image quality throughout. From a technical standpoint, the film looks solid no matter how you slice it. The colors are crisp, darker scenes are without grain, and the quality really shines in brightly lit scenes. Where it’s less impressive is not so much in the technical quality of the Blu-ray as in the CG of the snakes. It’s hard to get over the cheesy look of the CG snakes that look completely CG; they’re way too shiny and plastic looking and I think that honestly takes away a lot of the thrilling/scary effect this movie could have had. Real snakes were used in some scenes, but for all of the ‘action shots’ of the snakes were done in CG and while they’re fluid in movement, they look bad. Of course, real snakes couldn’t be used for everything but it seems like the CG could have been a lot better.
As for audio, Warner brings Snakes to Blu-ray with a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track that does very well for itself. I thought the film in general could have used more of Samuel L.’s classic yelling, but who can forget the classic “enough is enough!” line, and the variations on it since?
As for extra features, I was surprised at not only how many there were, but that they were in HD, too. I haven’t seen the DVD of Snakes so I don’t know if any of these are new, although I doubt it. The breakdown looks like this:
-Audio Commentary with Director David R. Ellis, Samuel L., and several other crew members.
-Pure Venom: Making of Feature (HD, 18m) – Samuel L., Julianna, Nathan Phillips and several other actors and crew, including writer John Hefferman, talk about making the film. Plenty of footage from the finished product and production footage are shown.
-Meet the Reptiles (HD, 13m) – This feature takes a look at the real snakes used during some of the scenes and the five snake handlers in charge provide their insights and thoughts. Lots of production and behind the scenes footage included.
-VFX (HD, 5.5m) – We’re taken to the CG house that worked on the snakes for Snakes On A Plane. Some crew there talk about the process and what was involved in getting the snakes to come to life on screen.
-Snakes On A Blog (HD, 10m) – Several folks behind the film talk about all the hype leading up to its release from the first post on aintitcoolnews.com to all of the newspaper articles, blog posts, and fan promotion leading up to the release.
-Music Video (HD)- Artist Cobra Starship performs Snakes On A Plane (Bring It); a separate behind the scenes feature for this video is also included.
-Deleted Scenes (HD, 12m) – Ten deleted scenes with optional audio commentary from Director Ellis, Actor Samuel L., and several other crew members.
-Trailers & TV Spots – Three different trailers for the film and five TV spots are included.
-Gag Reel (HD, 4.5m) – A collection of bloopers and other gags filmed during production.
And that’s it; let’s get to the summary…