Brief Essays With Pictures

As far as I’m concerned, the reviewers over at The Onion’s AV Club are some of the slickest in the business. They almost always get it right, and I have to admit to being turned on to numerous movies, albums, and books through their efforts.

But what can I make of Nathin Rabin’s abysmal review of Snakes on a Plane? How could a reviewer so badly miss the point? I’m going to fisk my way through the review in an attempt to more clearly explain the movie’s inherent greatness, while at the same time addressing this obvious inability of some people to get it.

If historians of the future decide to write an updated version of Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds, Charles MacKay’s book on popular manias throughout history, they’d be wise to include a chapter on Snakes On A Plane. Thanks to a happy convergence of star, title, and premise, as well as an unprecedented level of Internet hype, Snakes morphed from a low-budget B-movie to a pop-culture phenomenon.

No it didn’t. Every cautious critic has made the same mistake in examining this film. It never morphed from a low-budget B-movie to a pop-culture phenomenon. It remains a low-budget B-movie. It certainly did become a pop-culture phenomenon, but it became so precisely because it was a low-budget B-movie with a low-budget B-movie premise. How a critic as usually on point as Nathan Rabin could get this wrong is shocking.

Now that Snakes has finally been released, all the bandwagon enthusiasts who thrilled to snakesonablog.com and made their own fan art can officially experience crushing disappointment in a movie theater.

I will admit to be a fan of the movie long before it was ever released. I will admit to be a fan of the premise, of the title, of the story that Samuel Jackson took the part precisely because of both the film’s premise and title. But Rabin’s tipping his hand here, doing all but telling us that he’s knew that the movie wouldn’t work out. He might as well have written, “Hey you losers, I told you it wouldn’t be any good. Why didn’t and of you fanboys listen to me?”

For Snakes isn’t awesomely bad, or hilariously bad, or so bad it’s, like, totally the most funnest movie ever. It’s just plain bad.

Rabin’s gleefully writing this stuff. He’s clearly thrilled the movie didn’t meet his own aesthetic needs. Which is fine for a critic. It’s his job to criticize that which doesn’t satisfy him. But we again have to revisit this important issue: what on Earth was he expecting? He clearly acknowledges that the movie is nothing more than a “low-budget B movie.” Did he really think his low-budget B movie was going to be anything but?

In the most overhyped role of his career, Samuel L. Jackson plays an FBI agent assigned to transport witness Nathan Phillips to Los Angeles so he can testify against glowering kingpin Byron Lawson.To keep Phillips from making it to the courtroom, Lawson conspires to unleash poisonous snakes onboard his flight.

This is precisely the sort of plot that you get from low-budget B movies. I knew that this was the plot going into the film; how did Rabin miss the memo? Did he genuinely believe that from a plot description this ludicrous he was going to get Citizen Kane? And Rabin again objects to the movie’s internet promotion, calling Jackson’s role “overhyped.” Heaven forbid fans appreciate Jackson for doing what he does. It’s almost as if his own importance as a critic was undercut by the fact that David Ellis, the film’s director, didn’t give a shit about his opinion, and now he’s getting his glorious revenge.

Early in the film, it’s established that Lawson only resorted to such drastic measures because he ran out of other options, which demands the question: How many options do you have to deplete before resorting to snakes-on-a-plane?

Let me get this straight: Nathin Rabin, a film critic, is objecting to snakes being released on a plane to kill a witness? In a film called Snakes On A Plane? I mean, he’s got to be kidding. Did he come out of Titanic objecting to the iceberg? Or Schindler’s List objecting to the Holocaust? It is quite clear that when Rabin purchased his ticket for Snakes on a Plane, he expected a movie that didn’t actually feature snakes or a plane or any combination of the two.

Once the self-perpetuating Internet hype engine took off, Snakes On A Plane underwent five days of raunchy re-shoots so it could pander more effectively to its growing cult, and it’s hard to avoid the sense that the film was de-fanged for a PG-13, then hastily re-fanged for an R.

This is criticism more worthy of Rabin’s skill. He makes an excellent point here: the movie could have been raunchier, more salacious, more over-the-top. (Although he still objects to the movie’s internet popularity.)

Snakes takes forever to get going, wasting half its time on warmed-over sitcom banter and scenes establishing a sprawling cast of one-dimensional caricatures.

Let me get this straight. Nathin Rabin, who is paid to review movies, went into a “low budget B movie” expecting something other than, “warmed-over sitcom banter…and one dimensional characters.” Seriously? He’s seriously this stupid? To revisit the Titanic example, what on Earth was he expecting?

But once the motherfucking snakes get loose in the motherfucking plane, the film doesn’t improve much. Granted, a movie called Snakes On A Plane isn’t shooting for gritty verisimilitude…

If Rabin knows that the movie, “isn’t shooting for gritty verisimilitude,” then why was he expecting it to? Because the internet got excited about it? Because he was hoping for some post-modern critique of B-movies? Again, he can’t possibly be this stupid.

…but it simply isn’t scary or fun watching computer-generated snakes attack sentient slabs of cardboard. Not since Pet Rocks riveted the nation have so many gotten so excited over so little.

“…so excited over so little.” He just doesn’t get it, does he? The problem with critics is that they’re tolerant of two things: art and criticism. In other words, Rabin was ready to praise Snakes On A Plane if was either artfully conceived, or if it mounted a seering criticism of the form. Because it did neither - because it happily rolled around in typical B movie excess - Rabin objects. He sees the film as being, “so little,” simply because it didn’t meet his own needs.

But Ellis (the film’s director) clearly wasn’t trying to meet Rabin’s needs. He was trying to meet mine. And my buddy Mitch the Killer’s. And my friend ReTahTah Amanda. And the rest of the people who enjoyed the film. Ellis clearly knew that there are some people who revel in filmmaking that doesn’t shy away from what it is: a low budget B movie.

There are thousands of low-budget B movies with directors that believe they’re directing the next Citizen Kane. And there are hundreds of high-budget A movies with directors that believe that they’re directing the next Citizen Kane. And almost always, these directors are wrong. Their movies are bad, their plots are ludicrous, and their attempts to force a Citizen Kane out of something like The Core are beyond farcical. They just can’t stop shooting for the stars, and we’re left with terrible movies that absolutely waste our time.

But sometimes, we get movies absolutely honest about what they are. Snakes on a Plane is one of them. (Want some others? Try movies put out by Cannon. At any point did those guys genuinely believe that Death Wish 3 was going to be an overnight, arthouse sensation? Of course not. They thought that people wanted to see Charles Bronson shooting baddies in the chest with a rocket launcher. And they were right.) At no point was anybody confused about SOAP’s content. Well, except for Rabin, who apparently believe that he because he got into the movie for free, he deserved something more than snakes on a plane.

The rest of us? We knew. We knew that the title told us everything we were going to get, and lo, we were correct. And it isn’t that we’re smarter than Nathan Rabin. It’s just that there are times when we’re smart enough to stop thinking.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 22nd, 2006 at 8:34 PM and is filed under Blog Posts, Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.