things I’m going to do tonight if I finish this writing assignment: drink two cans of rosé and live-tweet “Snakes On a Plane”

please bookmark this thread if such content is of interest

Many people have described “Snakes On a Plane” as, quote, a “bad movie” (it has a 5.4/10 on IMDb and a 58% on Metacritic), though my contention has always been that those people did not understand its aims

frankly it deserves a 10/10 for achieving exactly what it set out to do

For example, the minute you see Juliana Margulies playing a mere one of several flight attendants, you know she is going to have to end up having to fly the plane

It is also fantastically easy to predict, thanks to every beloved action movie trope, who will live and who will die

To describe “Snakes On a Plane” as a “bad movie” is to define Bad as an objective measure - a fixed point, the 180-degree opposite of movies defined as objectively Good - and i simply refuse to grant the premise of pretentious white dudes that films can be measured that way.

You will not catch this bitch watching Fight Club or The Big Lebowski or anything by Quentin Tarantino or Gone With the fucking Wind when I could be watching Indiana Jones or Frozen II, and I will not apologize for this

SOMETIMES YOU JUST WANT TO SEE SOME SNAKES

The good news is I have finished my writing

The bad news is that there is a high wind advisory here and the power is flickering and my wifi went out, so it may be that I have to save the cans of wine and try this another time, and for now just read a BOOK like a PEASANT

HERE!!!! WE!!!! GO!!!!!!!

I’m so happy

KENAN THOMPSON IS IN THIS????

We open on a Chad zipping through an island on his motorcycle to the sounds of a total bop the Internet informs me is “Lovely Day” by Donovan somebody

but TERROR STRIKES IMMEDIATELY, as a bloodied and beat-up man in chinos, hanging upside down from a tree, DROPS IN CHAD’S FACE

Chad hides in the palm trees as a group of Scary Asian Clichés get out of their black SUV and helpfully exposit, while murdering Chinos, that Chinos is a prosecutor who has a son and did something they’re mad about

CHAD ESCAPES BUT HIS LIFE MAY BE NEXT!

Oh they’re in Hawaii FYI

Mr. Kim’s henchmen show up at Chad’s apartment but Chad escapes thanks to SAMUEL L. JACKSON, who materializes out of nowhere at 6 minutes and 8 seconds to intone “DO AS I SAY AND YOU LIVE,” because this motion picture knows exactly what you came here to see

Keeping you waiting longer than ten minutes for Samuel L. Johnson is for FOOLS

Does he drop each henchman with one perfect shot to the knee each, rescue Chad, and then screech out of the parking lot in a black sedan

Of COURSE he does

He is a SPECIAL AGENT who somehow knows Chad witnessed a murder (how? who cares) and is now bare-lightbulb interrogating Chad to get him to testify against Mr. Kim in LA

Queen of Honolulu International Airport

Kenan is here!!!! He is a member of the entourage of a douchey rapper we meet hitting on groupies and then quickly sanitizing his hands after high-fiving a child, which at the time I’m sure was supposed to make him look arrogant but now I’m just like “well yes of course”

Juliana’s character is named Claire HELL YES HELL YES and she is leaving flight attendant-ry (flight .... attendance?) to become a LAWYER, is the timing right for this to be a “Good Wife” joke

the other crew have champagne for her it’s very cute they’re def gonna die though

The blonde with the purse dog named Mary Kate (this sentence is correct, that is the dog’s name and not the blonde’s name) is also gonna die because she’s introduced to us as demanding and princessy

She’s making her assistant get BRUNO to pick her up, NOT a DIFFERENT driver

There are some other people I don’t care about yet

oh btw it’s a fancy two story plane and Samuel LJ and Chad get first class all to themselves SUCK IT OTHER RICH PEOPLE WHO AS A PLOT CONTRIVANCE MUST NOW RIDE COACH

oh god and now we come to the amazing, amazing plot setup of HOW the snakes GET on the plane

Step 1: purchase many enormous boxes of flower leis

Step 2: fill the bottom of each box with snakes

Step 3: have your guy on the inside spray them with Time-Delay Snake Pheromones

“but claire, if Mr. Kim already has a guy on the inside with access to the ship’s cargo hold, why couldn’t he also have arranged for a guy on the inside ABOARD THE ACTUAL PLANE to handle this discreetly with poison coffee or something”

what kind of question is that

Drug-sniffing dogs cannot smell snakes, so really, this is a perfect crime

Blonde rejects the proffered lei because it will mess up her hair and is aghast about FLYING COACH

This is so you don’t feel bad when she’s murdered by snakes

Bobby Cannavale is here!!! He’s the Fun Agent, which you can tell from the Three Stooges bobble heads on his desk and the fact that he spends his work nights fighting with “some kid in Iowa” on eBay over “a black velvet Pamela Anderson poster”

I have no notes on this scene

He also very heavy-handedly informs Samuel LJ that he has three teams watching Mr. Kim so nothing bad could possibly happen but oh by the way he misses the action now that he’s not in the field anymore and his desk job is very mundane

What a perfect trope fest

Gay flight attendant guy is really putting his all into this safety briefing, his “OH NO THE OXYGEN IS GONE I’M ASPHYXIATING whew thank god for this YELLOW MASK” performance was Emmy worthy

Chad is spilling the entire story to hot blonde flight attendant, a plan I’m sure won’t backfire

The sinister tattooed kickboxer who is very obviously working for Mr. Kim shares my blatant disbelief when the gay flight attendant mentions also taking kickboxing classes with his girlfriend

Our first shot of the snakes!!! Writhing and hissing inside their flower lei boxes in front of a handy countdown timer

who is the timer FOR, you ask?

since the whole point of this plan is that it involves no people?

well maybe the snakes are anxious about opening night and just want to know how long they have to warm up before curtain because there’s no backstage monitors in the green room

timer: three minutes to curtain!

snakes: THANK YOU, THREE!

Samuel is making small talk with Chad about Bali and surfing, and also flirting with Claire, this is so we know he is not JUST a Tough Guy Federal Agent but also a PERSON

Mercedes (blonde dog mom) and Three G’s (rapper) are flirting and they’re both very bad at it

he obviously hates dogs

The snakes’ triumphant entrance is too glorious not to let you witness in real time

me, the first time I saw this, when the tacky young couple sneak off to the bathroom to smoke pot and have sex: you will be first to die when the snake revolution comes

a snake: this is correct

one truly delightful detail of this movie is the periodic cuts to Snake-o-Vision, for a snake’s eye view of the narrative as it unfolds

This, for example, is what the mile high club looks like to a snake

It’s funny because the flight attendants hear their screaming, thumping death sounds and think it’s just EXTREMELY vigorous banging

Oh did I mention the super convenient electrical storm

or the fact that the snakes appear trained to bite through wires and now the cockpit is calling in a mayday because they’ve lost avionics

Mr. Kim has chosen the most nonsensically convoluted murder plot in human history

I actually hate snakes with my entire being so it goes to show you how fundamentally comical and non terrifying these snakes are that I enjoy this movie so much

Sorry but if you unzip your jeans to pee and greet your own dick with “how’s my big boy?,” this is the fate you deserve

“FUCKING SNAKE, GET OFF MY DICK!!!!!”

and then he dies

this movie is wonderful

One detail I genuinely love is all the fakeouts before any of the main cast clock the snake invasion. A woman puts up her feet to sit cross legged just as one slithers past her shoe; Mercedes reaches into her bag and the snake inside it DUCKS; everyone ignores the panicked dog.

Kenan just yelped aloud and you THINK, “Aha! He has seen a snake!”, but he’s just really invested in his PlayStation

Perfect balance between slowly mounting overall tension, and letting us see some awesome snake murders immediately

My favorite passenger so far is the paranoid husband who hates flying and is constantly anxious because he is actually right about everything and just doesn’t know it

“Why does my lei smell weird” DUH, SNAKE PHEROMONES!

Just in case you’ve forgotten about the snake pheromones, we get a truly wild shot of a snake spotting a discarded lei on the floor and doing what I can only assume is an extremely aggressive horizontal tango with it

yes this movie has snake-on-plant porn

Claire has discovered that shit has absolutely hit the fan in the cockpit, where they have to something something hard reboot to fix the controls, and the captain just got snaked to death, so it’s a real doozy of a day

JV Captain is surely next

Claire is really good with the two scared kids which is how you know she is NOT going to die

The moral laws of the snakes are very strict

AAAAAAAAAAAAND, SHOWTIME

The funniest part is how it literally includes, like

every kind of snake

there are garter snakes and rattlesnakes and that one random cobra

if you’re wondering whether an anaconda will show up later, you are right

I had to stop the movie to make that but I regret nothing

while I’m paused, time for my second can of wine

The woman leaning down to vomit into her barf bag only to have a snake PUNCH ITS WAY THROUGH THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG AND ATTACK HER FACE is a classic

Snakes just POURING out of the ceiling of coach, but so far none upstairs where, you know, the one actual witness Kim needs to kill is sitting

Such a great and very manageable plan

Don’t worry guys, Samuel LJ is here to take charge! Also the gay flight attendant killed a snake by microwaving it, making him so far the only person who has notched a win

Samuel’s brilliant plan is that “we have to put a barrier between us and the snakes”

They are now building a wall of suitcases

Mercedes got left behind, she and Mary Kate are alone in coach with the snakes and the corpses

oh, kickboxer came to rescue her! maybe he’s not evil and that was a fakeout

Not for one second should you be worried about the fate of this baby, this isn’t that kind of movie

Backup agent has died, but not before helpfully expositing that no one caught the snakes because they are cold-blooded

I think dogs know about snakes though so I’m not sure this science checks out??

Samuel LJ calling Bobby Cannavale to solemnly tell him his partner is dead and “Eddie Kim somehow managed to fill this plane with poisonous snakes” while Bobby points out, quite reasonably, that that plan is absolute fucking bananapants nonsense, has me howling with laughter

Bobby is now the ground team

“Get me the cargo flight manifest and the best poisonous snake expert in the city! STAT!”

There are a few snake bites on the safe side of the plane, but the nice young Eastern European girl with the baby is taking care of the little boy (olive oil and a razor blade cures snakebites? I guess? DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME!)

There’s a satisfyingly revolting moment where she slices open the kid’s wound with her earring (MOMS!!! CAN DO!!! ANYTHING!!!) and all the grossness drains out

The snakes have figured out how to get through the suitcase barricade!!!!!

Samuel LJ trying to get a weapon from the kitchen and realizing they only have sporks HAHAHAHAHA

fortunately Claire is a badass who smashes a beer bottle in half and hands it to him

Cut to Bobby and the Eccentric Snake Expert

if you had “I don’t think you understand the magnitude of what you’re dealing with here” on your action movie cliche bingo card, take a drink

Scientist Guy has immediately figured out about the snake pheromones, it was literally his first guess

This seems unlikely, but then I’m not a snakethropologist (just assuming that’s what they’re called don’t correct me)

Chad just told the whole crowd his tale and somehow everyone knows who Eddie Kim is???

Samuel LJ is awkwardly trying to describe the color of a dead snake to Snake Expert Man over the phone and Mercedes goes “why don’t we take a picture” and everyone screeches with laughter like that’s the craziest notion ever because this movie came out in 2006

But MERCEDES HAS A BLACKBERRY SO ALL YOU HATERS CAN CHOKE

And the gross pervy co-captain has now been snaked, Juliana Margulies is alone in the cockpit with two dead bodies, an axe, and a huge fucking snake

GET IT, QUEEN

Chad disobeyed the order to stay in his seat and instead charged in to rescue the hot blonde flight attendant! Will this experience turn him into a Real Hero???

I love that they manufactured a plot reason for no two snakes to be the same kind of snake (to up the drama factor for the ground team who have to get every hospital prepped with like every kind of antivenom) but what I REALLY love is that the ANACONDA is about to get in on this

a chonky boi

The stairs leading up to first class just ...... totally collapsed

I’m not clear why, except to more efficiently dump screaming humans into piles of snakes

Asshole British guy fully just THREW THE DOG AT THE GIANT SNAKE but if you were worried he would not be punished by the narrative, this happens IMMEDIATELY after

Maybe it’s a boa constrictor and not an anaconda and I’ve been drinking

either way watching it unhinge its jaw to swallow his bald head like an egg is hilarious

Oh also Jackson and Margulies get the plane to pull up JUST as it’s about to crash into the water because TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK also they should kiss but I don’t think they do

They are now trying to keep the snakes from slithering up the stairs to first class by ..... inflating a giant life raft and placing it over the top of the spiral staircase to block the entry

good thing snakes don’t have, you know, FANGS that can PUNCTURE stuff

Snakethropologist guy is explaining to Bobby that these snakes are from all over the globe, but this whole thing unfolded in like a DAY which means that Eddie Kim just ..... had them??? Lying around??? Like in case he ever needed them for an elaborate evil plan???

Or did he have to rush ship them in from somewhere and pay the exorbitant same-day FedEx rates

Also very conveniently because they are Foreign Snakes there’s little chance of hospitals in LA having the right anti venom

they’re also assuming that the dead snakes they sent him pictures of are the only snakes there are but like idk maybe no one has killed a boomslang yet??

I just like to say boomslang

It’s the best animal name

Oh the kid is coloring and Mercedes is nice now and she’s like “what are you drawing” and of COURSE it’s a COBRA

Listen the young mom thanked the dying-of-snakebite older flight attendant for saving her baby and I might be crying but it’s chill

Snakes are not indigenous to Hawaii!!! I learned a fact!

“Only one guy could have arranged this many illegal snakes. He lives out in the desert.”

“TAKE US TO THE HELIPORT!”

Oh also because we didn’t have enough drama, the air conditioning is out on the plane (so everyone is sexy and sweaty rn but also won’t be able to breathe soon) AND Three G’s the rapper is having a whole panic attack and just grabbed Samuel LJ’s gun

Kenan talked him down!!!!! The real MVP!!!!

I SHIP THIS SO HARD I MIGHT DIE

“I went through a pyromaniac phase as a kid” I would die for claire

Samuel has to go down into the plane basement (the placement) to find the something something panel to reboot the whatever and fix the air

Isn’t this exactly how he died in Jurassic Park

He is crawling through a fuckton of cords, there will absolutely be a snake fakeout (a snakeout)

He fixed the air!!! But oh no there be SNSKES

Cut to Bobby and the ground team chasing the illegal snake dealer, how is it daytime there when it was just like HARDCORE nighttime where the plane is

I mean I know about time zones but Hawaii and LA aren’t A WHOLE SOLAR CYCLE APART

So the snake dealer did not sell Eddie Kim his entire inventory, there are just enough poisonous snakes left in fragile glass cages to really up the stakes for this chase scene when he FALLS THE FUCK INTO ONE

no antivenom for you until you give Bobby a full snake inventory!

Super conveniently, the snake inventory is written on a clipboard right in frame as soon as Bobby Cannavale asks for it

This guy is a very bad at crime!

Oh the sun just came up over the airplane so I guess once again time zones have confounded me

“how can it be DAY when it’s also NIGHT” I don’t understand science

The sun is up! They have the antivenom! People are smiling! The plane is under control! Everything is great! JK THERE ARE 20 MINUTES OF THIS MOVIE LEFT, TIME FOR THE FINAL SNAKE BOSS

MOUNTING DREAD

RICK THE VICE-PILOT IS NOT ANSWERING THE COCKPIT DOOR

why is it called a cockpit tbh

rip rick, there are snakes on the bridge

I FORGOT THAT KENAN GETS TO FLY THE PLANE also v. cute that he and Three G’s have made up and Three G’s is so supportive of him getting his pilots license, friendship is magic

Also I’ve finished my second can of wine so that’s why I’m like this

YASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS THE FAMOUS LINE

Honestly this really is a great plan because everyone knows snakes can’t wear seatbelts

AHAHAHAHAHA the inflatable life raft blew away so all the downstairs snakes are getting zorped up by the wind vortex

PHYSICS

PLOT TWIST! Kenan’s experience is only with flying VIDEO GAME PLANES, air traffic control is not reassured but that’s because they don’t know what movie they’re in

I on the other hand have 1000% faith in him

EVERYBODY BRACE YOURSELVES WE COMIN IN FOR A LANDING

HE DID IT I’M SO PROUD OF HIM

Swear to god I thought there was one last snake

And they figure out which snake bit little brother because big brother drew a picture of it! The kids are gonna be okay!! Also the baby and her mom made it, I told you

0 kid fatalities

LMAO YES THE FINAL SNAKE!!! One just zorps out of fully nowhere to bite Chad in the chest just as he and Samuel LJ are about to get off the plane

Samuel fully just SHOT HIM IN THE CHEST to get it off him

Thank god for bulletproof vests

Everyone is astonished that the gay flight attendant’s girlfriend is real lmao

MY HEART

UGHHHHH how come hot blonde flight attendant fully kisses Sean (Chad’s name is Sean) but Juliana and Samuel do not kiss, this is an attack against me personally

I do like that the happy ending of the movie is Chad and Samuel LJ surfing together, what an iconic bromance

They got COBRA STARSHIP to write the closing credits song

I am telling you, these people knew exactly what movie they were making

(also watch this insane video with me please)

can you fucking believe “Crash” beat this out for Best Picture

Have just now realized that at least once in this thread my brain was confused by the fact that I am currently working on a grant for the Samuel Johnson Foundation so take a shot every time I get his name wrong lmao

also for everyone astonished or intrigued by the concept of canned rosé, buy this if you can find it and get your best life