Craiger’s Cinema Corner

*** out of ****

The marketing behind the 1996 sci-fi, popcorn thriller INDEPENDENCE DAY should have received some sort of Special Academy Award for Best Achievement in instantly hooking a viewer’s interest.  As far back as Christmas of 1995 film goers all over North America got a small teaser of the film, which culminated in two potent and memorable shots; both of them were real hum dingers, for lack of a better phrase.  The first showed an incalculably large alien spacecraft destroying New York’s Empire States Building with one blast of a laser beam.  The other – and perhaps the most unforgettable – was a shocking clip of a similar extraterrestrial craft blowing the White House to kingdom come.

Now, who the hell would not want to see more of that?

If anything, 20th Century Fox really knew the strength of advertising when it came time to tout their next bankable blockbuster, and INDEPENDENCE DAY was no exception.  A few months later the film had an extended teaser that again showcased the most famous political home in the world easily being destroyed, except this time the venue was the Super Bowl.  Once those ads hit America was sold on ID4 as being the eminent big budget, science fiction blockbuster to see.  Like the STAR WARS and JURASSIC PARKS that preceded it, ID4’S summer success really hinged on audience anticipation.  With wall-to-wall advance press spouting that this science fiction, special effects heavy epic would dwarf anything else that the summer had to offer, there were few that were unaware that ID4 was coming.

The trailers themselves knew that the best way to get people in the cinemas was by wetting their appetites to want to see more.  Unlike modern day previews for epic escapist entertainments that are too revealing for their own good (like Peter Jackson’s recent remake of  KING KONG), the makers of ID4 knew that the most crucial element to their film being a huge success was to not show too much ahead of time.  Those trailers for the film, in retrospect, were expertly handled.  You got glimpses of the ships here and there, a basic understanding of the overall story, not one shot of an alien entity at all, a few scattered shots of the big celebs, and finally the prerequisite “money shots” of those famous landmarks being wasted.  Quite frankly, the film may not be a masterpiece of the genre, but it certainly was a masterstroke work of pre-release hype.

The film has been compared (both favorably and unfavorably) to STAR WARS.  Some of that holds water.  ID4 has some not-so-subtle references to Lucas’s space series.  For instance, just look at the opening sequence, where the alien mother ship flies overhead of the camera, almost identically to similar space vessels in the landmark opening shot of A NEW HOPE from 1977.    ID4 also is special effects heavy, like the STAR WARS films, and the aerial dogfights between the humans (in their F16’s) and the aliens in their own attackers has even more distinctive echoes of similar scenes in any of the WARS films.  The third act of ID4, which involves the heroes commandeering an alien craft to dock with the mother ship in hopes to blow it up, will have many people hiccupping “Death Star.”

Yet, most of those comparisons are somewhat superficial.  More than anything, ID4 is a film that owes more to the 1950’s flying saucer invasion flicks than it does to the fantasy works of Lucas.  There is a small scene in the film where the 1951 film, THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, is shown on a nearby TV.  Now, ID4 does not have nearly any of the compelling allegorical element’s of that Robert Wise film (there’s not much of a brain in ID4’s head), but the homage and reference here is apt.  ID4 remembers a more innocent time where end of the world stories were crafted to include aliens, not some man made calamity like nuclear Armageddon.  That’s why I think those B-grade 50’s films were – despite there often crude production values – fun for what they were.  In an age of heightened Cold War tension, it was comforting to know that damn dirty aliens would annihilate us all instead of super powerful weapons of mass destruction.

ID4 does have all of the standard elements that the flying saucer/invasion genre had, like the initial alien visitation where everyone hopelessly thinks that the visitors are benign.  Furthermore, it has the scenes where the aliens demonstrate their malevolence and destructive power, which is followed by even more scenes of the US government deciding what their next move will be.  Hell, to be even more slavish to genre conventions, the President in ID4 even attempts to use “the bomb” on the pesky aliens (he obviously did not watch the original WAR OF THE WORLDS, because he would have known that advanced alien technology would have found a way to deflect A-bomb attacks). 

Sure, ID4 is not in the grand tradition of thought-provoking sci-fi (for that, consult Verne, Bradbury, or Kubrick).  It’s more in the tradition of big, sprawling, goofy escapism where things are blown up really well, so much to the point that the only human survivors around want to retaliate and blow up alien things really well.  Beyond that, the film owes a lot of its inspiration to the disaster films of the 1970’s that were all but extinct in the mid-1990’s.  Those films managed to throw in just about every stock and stereotypical character type out of the cliché factory, and in the process involved them in woefully disposable subplots amidst the mayhem.

ID4 is no exception to this rule.  Between all of the alien invasions and destruction we get stories involving the US President (a Persian Gulf War air pilot veteran, whose services may…just may…prove to be useful in a counterattack); a homosexual;  various black characters, one being a pilot and his girlfriend being a stripper; a Jewish man that is incredibly resourceful and ingenious with a laptop; his very devout Jewish father; various Pentagon stooges who seem tight lipped about everything; one cute, but very sick, child; and finally we have a subplot that involves a very alcoholic crop duster that may…just may…become a full-fledged hero before the end credits roll by and the curtain roles up.

The film’s story starts out fairly promising.  A vast and gigantic mother ship (one fourth the size of our moon, as one scientist tells us from satellite images) makes its way across the lunar surface and on a course for Earth.  Hmmm…that is one big ship and, judging by the size of the moon, that would make it about 4-500km in diameter, which would further make one think that it would be visible from the ground on a good clear day if in a low orbit, but never mind.  Soon, the mother ship sends out dozens of other smaller crafts (these ones are only 15 miles in diameter) to several of the largest cities in the world.  As far as the film shows us, most of the places fall in Europe and the US, with Canada apparently being saved.  Chalk up another point for us Canucks.

Anyhoo’, the Pentagon gets wind of these alien craft that are coming and they got very itchy bomb-trigger fingers.  However, the humongous spaceships, initially at least, don’t directly attack the world’s cities, but they sure do cause mighty big cast shadows.  They sure do know how to instill widespread panic.  As one humorous TV broadcast states, the coming of the ships causes over 10,000 fender benders in minutes in the Big Apple, where another from California pleads with Los Angelinos to “not fire their handguns at the ships so they do not provoke an inner stellar war.”  Yeah, no kidding!

US President Whitmore (played by Bill Pullman) fears that ordering evacuations could cause even more panic.  He’s got his head well on his shoulders considering his youthful age.  As a veteran of the Persian Gulf War, and judging by his modest GQ looks, Whitmore would have to be the youngest man ever in the White House, but never mind.  He has a plucky press secretary that is supportive of him, but she is also separated from her husband, David (Jeff Goldblum), a broadcast technician and computer hack genius that once believed that the Prez and his wife were having an affair.  Oh well. 

Needless to say, while other people are pondering what the aliens want, David uses his incredible computer skills to discover the shocking truth.  The aliens are using their own satellites against the Earth by coordinating a widespread attack.  How does he know this?  Well, with several scenes of technological mumbo jumbo flying by, he is able to get this information from his PC.  Oh, his PC also knows that the aliens will attack at one precise time, which laughably is revealed by a timer he has on its monitor.  Gee, it sure is nice that both he and his computer understand the intricacies of both alien language, technology, and war strategies.  David’s very Jewish dad (played well by TV vet Judd Hirsch) thinks his son is a bit nutty.  He dryly tells him at one point, “If the President wanted HBO, then he could call you.”

During these opening scenes we are also given a few superfluous sub plots involving a crusty old drunkard named Russell (Randy Quaid) who is a crop duster that claims to have been kidnapped by aliens in the past.  Well, maybe he’s not so crazy after all.  Furthermore, we are briefly introduced to the First Lady (the usually dependable Mary McDonnell) as well as a pilot named Stephen (Will Smith, in one of his first major summer blockbuster roles), who has been recalled from his summer leave to potentially engage the enemy and kick some E.T. ass.  Well, after the aliens proceed with their plan with lightening precision (they all attack as soon as David’s PC countdowns to zero; how convenient) and destroy all of the world’s cities, Stephen gets his chance.

Most of the Earth is in ruins, but the human survivors launch a counter attack, which epitomizes hopelessness.  Why?  Maybe because the aliens have invisible shields over their hulls that can stop everything, even nukes (damn them!).  The President starts to realize the futility of their situation, that is until they all discover that there is – in fact – a real AREA 51 that actually has one of the alien spacecrafts that crash-landed on Earth in 1948.  The X-FILES was right!  The whole clan heads their way to the secret underground facility where they are greeted by the very weird and kooky Dr. Okun (in one of the film’s more inspired and wacky performances by STAR TREK’S Brent Spiner).  He definitely looks the mad scientist part, and manages to complain slightly about his job. “They don’t let us out much.”  That goes without saying.

The spaceship and alien cadavers are housed in the compound, which allows the President and company to discover some of their weaknesses (they are as fragile as humans, only their technology is more advanced).  David seems very interested in all of the details of Area 51, so much so that he has an ultimate epiphany and decrees that he has the secret that will destroy all of the aliens, not to mention their mother ship.  He concocts a dangerous plan that involves the piloting services of Stephen and their commandeering of the 60 year-old alien vessel.  I will not reveal how they plan to destroy the mother ship, other than to say that they have obviously seen WAR OF THE WORLDS and that David’s little laptop is the most powerful device on the planet, able to even tap into alien PCs.  Eat your heart out, Bill Gates. 

While the two launch their plan, President Whitmore…you guessed it…gives an impassioned motivational speech to the survivors that is pure, delightful cornball.  He, if you ever doubted it, plans to lead another squadron of planes in a daring attack while David and Stephen try to take out the mother ship.  If my history degree tells me anything, this would make him the first President since 1812 to lead troops into battle.  James Madison took control of an artillery battery during the War of 1812 to assist his soldiers in retreat.  Gee, where was Whitmore during “Operation Iraqi Freedom”?

Now, it may sound thus far that I have regarded ID4 with a large degree of spiteful incredulity.  The film is preposterous and silly, but on a level of summer escapism it still holds up fairly well overall.  Anyone who watched those Super Bowls ads knew they were not getting introspective sci-fi like CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND.  Nope, ID4 is more concerned with large-scale spectacle and action.  No other film of recent memory has had such fun destroying the world than this one.  If anything, the film harkens back to a simpler time when it was not offensive or politically incorrect to see our nations be blown off the map.  In our superhumanly sensitive, post-911 world, I highly doubt that a film would be released today with images of the White House being blown up or a shot of the Twin Towers in flames and half destroyed.  ID4 reminds us of the carefree ambiance of an Armageddon yarn without any geo-political subtext or analogies.  Plus, it’s an alien invasion, for cryin’ out loud.

The film may have the sensibilities of a cheesy 1950’s alien flick, but it sure does not have the technical limitations of those films.  ID4 – to this day – is an impressive tour de force of visual effects wizardry.  The shots of those vast spaceships inspires decent awe and the moments of citywide destruction are expertly handled.  ID4 used just about every slight of hand trick in the book to sell its disastrous images.  It utlized the oldest of the old tricks (it has the record for most model shots in film history) and the then-latest advances in CGI technology.  Make no mistake about it; ID4 is an audio-visual nirvana that is enjoyable to experience.  It goes on a short list of modern films that actually is better viewed on a big screen with booming digital sound.  ID4 would have had a field day in the more modern 3D-Imax format.

To no one’s surprise, the film became the biggest hit of it’s year, grossing over $300 million domestically.  It was the first major blockbuster smash of Will Smith’s career, which helped catapult him into the limelight.  On a negative side, the film ushered in a small resurgence of the disaster genre (subsequent films, like the witless VOLCANO and the sluggish DANTE’S PEAK would come out in ID4’s successful wake).  The film’s director – Roland Emmerich – and writer/ Producer – Dean Devil – were no strangers to sci-fi before it came out, having made earlier forays into the genre, like the wretched UNIVERSAL SOLDIER and the passably entertaining (and unfairly chastised) STARGATE.  ID4 gave the duo a considerable amount of creative clout, and their next big feature, a glossy remake of GODZILLA, hit the screens a few years later with the same level of ID4 buzz.  GODZILLA was, unfortunately, a surprising bomb and a mediocre effort, but Emmerich would go on to make some decent films, like the revolutionary war picture THE PATRIOT with Mel Gibson, not to mention  a successful return to the disaster genre with his well made 2004 thriller, THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW.

Ten years after its release, INDEPENDENCE DAY still remains a derivative, highly predictable, and contrived sci-fi film that reeks of familiarity.  However, the film still commands a modest level of silly, irreverent respect for its otherwise outlandish elements.  The characters are fairly one note and superficially drawn out, the story itself is ham-infested and routine, and some of the big reveals and dramatic payoffs induce more slight giggles than rousing cheers.  Yet, ID4 still succeeds beyond its lackluster ingredients as an entertaining and exciting spectacle.  It’s the kind of brainless, but exuberant and energized, summer popcorn filmmaking that takes great pride in showing us lots of flashy alien invasion and battle scenes, huge segments of the world being decimated, and many things blowing up to chaotic perfection.  Seeing a worldwide apocalypse has rarely been so enjoyable and fun as presented in ID4, which knows the virtues of making a feel-good action thriller about millions of people dying at the expense of an other-worldly menace.  ID4 is tedious moviemaking, but it remains a film that is never lifeless and inert.  And any film that has the US President utter the line “Let’s nuke the alien bastards” in a Clint Eastwoodian manner has to be watched with your tongue firmly in your cheek.  I mean, if they blew up your Oval Office, wouldn’t you think that they deserved some serious comeuppance?

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*** out of ****

If you thought that Philadelphia was home to only one underdog athlete that rose from obscurity and took a chance at a million to one shot, then you obviously have not heard of Vince Papale.  His similarities to a particular Italian Stallion are striking. 

Both live in the city of Brotherly Love.  Both occupy the lower end of the societal totem pole (perhaps, in Papale’s case, he lives a bit more of a cozier, lower class lifestyle than Mr. Balboa).  Both have a passion for their respective sports, so much so that their heart and individual drive oftentimes overshadows their relative lack of depth and skill.  Perhaps most importantly, both men were at their absolute rock bottom when they were given a chance to fulfill a lifelong dream.

The real life Papale had an obsession with his hometown Philadelphia Eagles, and with the sport of football as a whole.  Having played only one year of high school football and not a single day of College ball, Papale seemed like the least likely candidate to have any amount of success as a professional football player.  By the time he was thirty years old in the mid-1970’s he was living in South Philadelphia and was barely making end’s meat as a substitute high school teacher by day and a bartender at night. 

Things changed miraculously for him in 1975.  After taking a chance at an open tryout for the Eagles under the then new head coach, Dick Vermeil, Papale was able to see his dreams materialize when the coach placed him as a wide receiver on the team.  At 6’2” and 195 pounds, Papale looked the part, but at 30, he became the oldest rookie in NFL history, not to mention the oldest to play for a team without the benefit of any college experience.   He would go on to a three-year stint with the franchise and played 41 of 44 regular season games from 1976 to 1978.  In 1979 a shoulder injury ended his career and he worked as a radio broadcaster for eight years until he became a commercial mortgage banker. 

Papale earned the nickname of “Rocky” by his team-mates while playing for the Eagles, and it’s no wonder that his story was the inspiration behind the largely fictional Walt Disney biopic, INVINCIBLE.  It could have easily had the working title ROCKY WITH A PIGSKIN during its production.  I guess it’s also not surprising that Disney made the film, seeing as they have recently carved a small niche for themselves as the studio that releases a lot of family friendly, audience pleasing, and uplifting underdog sports pictures.  I will made no bones about it, the genre of the down-on-his luck little guy that rises out of the ashes of his insignificance and overcomes all odds to become a success is one that I don’t hold in the highest regard.  Honestly, have they not told this same story countless times before, like in REMEMBER THE TITANS, THE ROOKIE,  MIRACLE, and – yes – in the original ROCKY?

Contrived, rudimentary, and formulaic are all apt descriptors while describing INVINCIBLE.  Calling the film predictable would be somewhat redundant.  I have seen the type of film INVINCIBLE wants to be so many times in the past that I initially developed ambivalence about the material from the get go.  It certainly has all the prerequisite ingredients that has made these films a relative dime a dozen these days.  Add one world weary underdog; throw in a ragtag group of friends and family that support him at every turn; a plucky and gorgeous babe that gets involved with the underdog and instills in him confidence and self respect; a resourceful and daring coach/mentor figure that sees potential in the underdog when no one else will; and finally team-mates that initially hate the young hotshot but grow to respect and admire him for his penchant for having P.I.G. – perseverance, integrity, and guts.  Put all of these elements into a saucepan and add a pinch of squeaky clean sentimentality and a heaping tablespoon of hero worship, cook on high for 105 minutes, and you’ve got yourself a saccharine, PG rated feel good sports picture that only Disney can make.

At the risk of being even more sarcastic, I will say that – on its levels – INVINCIBLE never goes against the grain.  It facilitates the meager demands of this genre and does not deviate from them.  The film is yet another sanitized and ooey, gooey uplifting fable of a man realizing his aspirations.  There is nothing hard-edged or invigorating about this material.  However, the more I watched INVINCIBLE the more engaged I became in the Papale character and his relationship with the Eagles coach.  There is a respectable level of chemistry between them both (played by Mark Wahlberg and Greg Kinnear respectively) and their interplay is well handled.  Not only that, but the film has terrifically realized period design, to which South Philly of the mid-70’s has a decent aura of authenticity.  On a character front and on the level of creating a fairly realistic backdrop that maintains a semblance of verisimilitude, INVINCIBLE is intermittently enthralling and entertaining, in non-demanding ways.

Our resonance with this material is dependant on our liking of the main character, and Wahlberg crafts a fairly empathetic character in Papale.  He seems to be right at home in terms of playing characters in the 70’s (he was wonderful in 1997’s BOOGIE NIGHTS - one of the best films of that decade - which chronicled the rise and fall of a porn actor during the heyday of adult cinema).  In INVINCIBLE Wahlberg displays a sort of neighborhood, everyman charm and underplayed charisma that hits most of the right beats.  There is an earnest level of eagerness to his performance that allows for our emotional buy-in that much more.  With his soft-spoken and carefree disposition, Wahlberg easily makes Papale a working class figure that commands respect.  He delicately balances vulnerability and a macho determination.  For what it’s worth, the film works mostly because of his performance.

INVINCIBLE also benefits from another fine performance by one of our most underrated actors, Greg Kinnear.  Honestly, Vermeil could have been played as a standard, SOB coach, but what Kinnear does here is kind of subtle.  He’s not a rough n’ tough motivator that has all of the right answers, nor is he confident in all of his decisions.  He’s a man that stands by maintaining his character first and foremost, even in the midst of an unruly and unforgiving Philly-fanbase that wants to crucify him for every bad decision he makes.  There’s a nice little moment in the film where we hear someone vomit in a bathroom stall.  Papale comes out of one, but we still hear puking.  Then out comes Vermiel, who too has pre-game apprehension.  The dynamic here is kind of interesting; an underdog sports picture where the coach is just as much of a concerned underdog as his protégé.

INVINCIBLE has a very assured man behind the camera in terms of realizing Philadelphia of the 1970’s.  Ericson Cole does a great job of transporting the viewer to the desolate streets the city during a time of worker’s strife.  Cole films many scenes with a sepia-toned wash that reinforces Papale’s early disillusionment.  He also is resourceful with the camera, as with one virtuoso establishing shot of Veteran’s Stadium (recreated with CGI augmentation of Franklin Field; Veteran Stadium was destroyed in 2004) that pans across the snow covered parking lots and then over into the field itself, all in one smooth shot.  Core has a good eye for detail, and making a film in this decade is a challenge.  Go too far stylistically and the 70’s can look unintentionally goofy and silly.  With the proper aesthetic restraint – as used here – the period can look real without being a distraction to the overall story.  The football montages as well are also well handled and get the overall cadence of the game right, although Core makes use of slow motion far too much in key moments.

Aside from its look and performances, there is not much to INVINCIBLE that is all that compelling.  Papale’s buddies are  your usual assortment of supportive pals, and his father is right out of the cliché factory (at first, he has his doubts about his son’s chances, then he grows to respect and love him even more).  Also thrown into the mix is a remarkably routine love interest in the form of Janet, who is played by the absolutely luminous Elizabeth Banks, whose smile alone could convince an out-of-shape sloth like yours truly to try out for an NFL franchise.  Banks is a decent actress who has some admirable range (her part here is a far cry from her sexaholic bookstore vixen in THE 40 YEAR-OLD-VIRGIN), but her role in INVINCIBLE has too many familiar vibes to be considered compelling.  I am sure that the real life courtship of Janet and Vince did not happen so smoothly as portrayed in the film.

INVINCIBLE is also a film that suffers from a horribly mishandled ending.  Just when we get into the more exciting segment of Papale’s rise in the NFL, we abruptly get title cards that details the rest of his brief NFL career with the Eagles and where he ended up in the present day.  At barely 105 minutes, INVINCIBLE could have easily benefited from a more thorough examination of Papale’s career in football.  The way the film sets up and then sidesteps his story for a quick conclusion is kind of a cheat.  Imagine watching ROCKY where he knocks down Apollo Creed in the first round of their fight and then the screen goes to a title card to give us the details of the rest of their match and you sort of get the idea.

Nevertheless, I am giving INVINCIBLE a marginal recommendation despite its obvious faults.  This real-life inspired sports picture that details a lower class stiff materialize into a professional football hero has seen its themes permeate other better films (like 2005’s CINDERELLA MAN, to name one).  INVINCIBLE is as generic as any other stand up and cheer sports film that you’ve probably seen.  Let’s face it, the formula here is growing stale and lethargic and has been worn out so thin that why any studio would want to tackle it again is kind of stupefying.  Yet, INVINCIBLE has a few very decent, low-key performances, a good eye period detail, and has a certain respectable professional polish.  The film has a particular authenticity to its two main characters and its look.  It does not do very much to improve upon a labored film genre, but the sum of its good parts overshadows its few poor ones.  As a disposable, but entertaining, Disney sports film, INVINCIBLE fumbles at times under the weight of its own redundancy, but it still manages to make it across the goal line.

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**** out of ****

“Madness is rare in individuals - but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

There are dysfunctional families, and then there are insanely dysfunctional families, much like the one portrayed in LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE.  Sure, we have seen families on the silver screen with various forms of odd, personality quirks and faults, but the Hoover family takes top honors for being one of the most bizarre.

We have the father, who is an absolutely wretched motivational speaker that blindly thinks that he is poised for stardom.  We have the determined mother that desperately yearns to make her troubled family live cohesively together.  Then we have the teenage son that is in such an existentialist funk that he has vowed never to speak to anyone again.  He has been successful at it for nine months, perhaps from his readings of Nietzsche.  He hates everyone around him, including his family. 

It gets even stranger.  We also have the grandfather that spouts out moral platitudes with the f-bomb accentuating every other word.  He has a razor sharp edge and a bit more than his fair share of cynicism.  He was kicked out of his retirement home for sleeping with too many of the other residents.  Perhaps he was also kicked out because of his nasty habits, like being a chronic heroin user.  Then we get a kooky uncle that has been invited to stay with the family when he has fallen ill.  He’s your typical family uncle.  You know, one that was once the “Number One Proust scholar” in the world and was a successful professor until he fell in love with his younger, male grad student who did not love him back and subsequently went on to get involved with the “Number Two” Proust scholar” in the world.  The Uncle, as a result, tried to commit suicide, but failed. 

Oh, thrown into this eclectic mix is the very cute little daughter that has aspirations of being a young beauty contest winner.  In a clan filled with unmitigated weirdoes, this girl just may be one of the sanest of the bunch.

Now, it would be easy to dismiss LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE as a contrived and formulaic family film.  Yes, we have a colorful assortment of deranged personas that don’t seem to get along very well until the end where the find that their differences eventually breeds their acceptance of one another.  Of course, they all grow to respect and love one another dearly during one long road trip where - just when you think they are going to tear each other apart - they band together in unison and discover the real meaning of “family.”  On these superficial levels, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE does not break new ground.

Yet, what makes the film a resounding success and ultimate crowd pleaser is in the way it finds that always-difficult happy medium between pathos and laughs.  No other film thus far in 2006 has demonstrated this work’s keen introspection with its characters.  The simpler approach would have been to play this film as a broad, one-dimensional farce.  Surely, with the assortment of unusual people that populate the film, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE could have degenerated into a mindless and soulless road picture. 

However, the subtle brilliance of the film is that it displays a remarkable level of simultaneous scorn and empathy for its characters.  It is to the filmmaker’s credit that they do not sugarcoat this creepy family for easier digestion.  Instead, they allow them to be presented to us, warts and all, to the point where our own inherent unease with their personalities nourishes the comedy.  Some say that we laugh at things because there are subtle layers of truth that is buried underneath.  In LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE we see characters that overcome their sheer absurdity and become figures we can relate to.  That’s the underlining strength of the film; it never panders down to us.  Instead, it searches for humanity in its characters beyond their outward facades of irregularity.

More importantly, this film celebrates the all-American loser family and never compromises.  LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE might be a surprise for some that are looking for an idiosyncratic family/road picture.  There is not a hint of normalcy to the Hoovers.  The emotional spectrum of the film is kind of amazing.  It’s oftentimes played incredibly broad, but perhaps that’s the only way to drive home the film’s subtle satire and bleakness.  LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE extrapolates uproarious laughs from the most seedy of subject matters (like suicide, drug abuse, irresponsible parenting, to name a few), but it’s the film’s bitterness with the material that makes it funny.  Similar films, like the terrible RV, presented another dysfunctional family, but that film forgot that the key to great black comedy is a willingness to go for the emotional jugular.  LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE has its fair share of sweet and tender moments, but it has teeth and it sinks them into the material and never lets go.

The film opens with a terrific montage where we meet all of the members of the Hoover clan: Richard, the dad (Greg Kinnear); Sheryl, the mom (Toni Collette); the grandfather (Alan Arkin); Dwayne, the teen son (Paul Dana); Uncle Frank (Steve Carell); and finally the “Little Miss Sunshine” candidate herself, Olive (Abigail Breslin).  After these first initial glimpses the film then shifts into its single best scene where the entire family all sits down for a bountiful meal of take out fried chicken.  Witless films would have painfully overwritten this scene as one of needless exposition, but this inspired supper moment in LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE effortlessly defines all of the characters for the rest of the film through their mutual exchanges.    

We learn of Richard’s complete tunnel vision of the relative importance of his nine-step program to success – it’s his own motivational Bible, of sorts.  We witness Sheryl trying to make amends for all of her family members by trying to make things agreeable for all.  We see the son candidly reveal his thoughts down on note pads (remember, he has taken a vow of silence), but his sullen eyes are the windows to his bleak, alienated adolescent soul.  Then we see Uncle Frank who has reached a point in his life where his failures are getting the best of him and his face reveals his unremitting apathy.  Grandpa, of course, is quickly defined in the scene with his first comment - “Do we have to eat Goddamn chicken again!?”

As the dinner scene progresses the characters reveal more subtle layers to both each other and us.  Of course, the naïve and innocent Olive is a beacon of hope and unyielding spunk, but even the sight of Frank’s bandages on his wrists takes her aback.  She politely asks him what happened.  Richard, playing the role of the ignorant and insensitive patriarch, tells her that Frank is a “sick man.”  Sheryl, being a hip and progressive mother, gets miffed with her husband’s comments and tells Frank that he can tell her what really happened because the family lives in a vacuum of truth.  Well, Frank reveals all of the details to young Olive – in one of the film’s many touching and honest moments.  “I tried to kill myself because I was unhappy,” Frank tells her.  When she asks why he responds, “I was unhappy because I fell in love with one of my grad students, but he did not love me back.”  Olive is as shocked as any young girl would be.  “You fell in love with a boy?  That’s silly,” she tells him.  Grandpa harps in with his two cents by deadpanning, “There’s another word for it.”

After this wonderfully written dinner scene, the film segues into its next chapter.  It seems that Olive has been accepted to participate in the exclusive Little Miss Sunshine, Under 10 Beauty Pageant all the way in Redondo Beach, California.  Seeing that they live in Albuquerque, the prospect of a 700-mile cross-country trek seems daunting.  Realizing that a plane trip is out of the financial question, Sheryl decides to drive Olive there in the family VW van.  The problem is that she does not drive stick, so Richard begrudgingly decides to drive.  That leaves grandpa, who decides to tag along to help Olive (he choreographed her pageant routine), Dwayne and Frank.  Obviously, Sheryl does not want to leave Frank alone with her son that won’t speak, so she asks them both to come.  Frank timidly agrees, but Dwayne is a bit tougher to coax.  He finally agrees.  He humorously writes down on his note pad “I will go…but I will not have any fun.”

It is here where the sharp and pointed comedy of errors turns into a family road picture.  Yet, make no mistake about them, the Hoovers are definitely not the Griswalds.  The long trip helps to embellish their characters even more.  One enormously funny scene shows Grandpa revealing why it’s “okay” to use heroine (his philosophy is that, yes, you’d have to be nuts to do it when your young, but when you’re old, why the hell not?).  He even offers up Dwayne some lifetime advice.  “F—k as many women as possible.  Never stick with one.  If you wanna f—k more than one woman at a time, that’s okay too.”

The family hits a lot of hardships on their way to California, oftentimes with much hilarity.  Frank accidentally runs into his ex-lover at a convenience store (he’s there buying porn magazines for Grandpa, who instructs Frank to buy “really dirty” mags for him and at least one “fag rag” for himself).  Then, the hapless Richard tries to carve out a book deal over his cell phone while trying to drive the rust bucket that is his van.  At one point the van’s transmission get wrecked so – instead of forfeiting Olive getting to California – they proceed to drive the VW, but they need to push the vehicle in order to get it to pop into the higher gears.  The van itself becomes an even larger cauldron of sidesplitting scenes; especially one where it’s horn will not stop intermittently going off.  In a way, the van itself is an odd metaphor for the family.  It’s rusty, damaged, and run down, but come hell or high water, it will overcome its deficiencies and make it to California. 

Clearly, it could be said that LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE is predictable (you’d have to be blind not to see the family coming together in a unilateral show of support for Olive’s big finale at the beauty pageant). Yet, the film is able to sidestep it’s more clear-cut elements are instead becomes something more mature, off-kilter, and refreshingly original.  It has a sort of gracefulness and poignancy buried underneath its inherent wackiness.  There are moments where the film does have some superficial similarities to comedies like NATIONAL LAMPOON’S VACATION and – trust me – WEEKEND AT BERNIES.  However, there are no cheap laughs in the film, nor is there any false dramatic beats.  LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE reaches out for the truth behind how people and families live with each other and interact.  Much like recent films (the horribly underrated GARDEN STATE, for instance), LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE uses irreverent comedy to tap into the souls of its characters.  The laughs are riotous at the expense of people that are tortured. 

The performances are as uniformly strong as any assemble work of recent memory.  Kinnear, one of our most dependable of actors, creates a shallow desperation in Richard.  Toni Collette, equally reliable, paints her mother figure as one that has the conviction to stand by her family, no matter what.  Paul Dano creates a truly pessimistic teen (he says so much with his often stoic expressions and body language; since he does not speak, he has the most thankless job in the film).  Alan Arkin gives one of the funniest performances this year with his nail-biting and wickedly foul-mouthed zingers.  No grandfather has been as big of a potty mouth as he is in this film.  Steve Carell, who can play broad comedy better than anyone, gives a brilliant performance of restrained and muted ambivalence.  We laugh harder at him usually at his underplayed and expressionless energy.  Finally, there’s Abigail Breslin, who has so much spirit, so much vitality, so much boundless optimism, and so much resiliency.  She is the glue that holds the family together, and her never-ending adorableness made me smile in every scene that showed her bright, inquisitive eyes and those thick rimmed, oversized spectacles. 

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE made a huge splash earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, and for good reason.  It takes the standard conventions of some familiar genres (the dysfunctional family and the road trip picture) and infuses ingenuity into them to the point where the film becomes one of 2006’s most transcendent and gratifying surprises.  With fantastic performances across the board, a sharp and intelligent screenplay that is cynical and bleak enough to go for broke, and laugh-out-loud sequences that generate comedy out of suffering, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE deserves high kudos for being an ingenious fusion of a funny satire and a honest commentary on the flawed human condition.  Very few entertainments are shrewd and daring enough to be hilarious and caustic, but LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE bravely and successfully marries sly and sarcastic humor with deep truth.  Farcical comedies about flawed families have rarely been as open and honest as this one.

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** out off **** 

I sure liked RV a lot better when it was called NATIONAL LAMPOON’S VACATION, or EUROPEAN VACATION, or CHRISTMAS VACATION…or…hell…even VEGAS VACATION.  Let’s face it, the overall premise of RV is nothing entirely new and it could occupy an entire genre in itself.  Having said that, it pains me to see celluloid wasted with decent, proven talent that regurgitates old stories and conventions. 

The film has all of the staple elements of these types of familiar comedies (The Clark Griswald-doofus dad; his loyal, but cankerous wife; the unruly and selfish adolescent children; and finally the cross country trip that involves some sort of cramped and confined vehicle).  Well, RV does have two fresh things about it – the family king sizes their ride and instead of taking the family truckster (a station wagon) like Chevy Chase’s clan did, they opt for a large recreational vehicle.  Oh, the other thing is that, as far as I can remember, the fathers in other family vacation movies did not get themselves covered in human fecal matter. 

The father this time is played by Robin Williams, who must have lost some serious side bet with someone to agree to parade around in this barrage of inane and recycled jokes and pratfalls.  I myself fear for Mr. Williams, who himself is one of the funnier men on the planet, but his willingness to let himself appear in far too many mediocre comedies is kind of startling.  Ironically, for a man that began his career as a stand-up comic, Williams has carved out for himself a highly respectable career as a serious, dramatic actor.  His most memorable roles are ones where he rigidly plays against type.  For my money, his weakest films are ones that let him meander aimlessly into his endless, hyperactive and incessant improvisations.  His energy can be funny, but if the film around him does not frame and harness his comic abilities, then what are we left with?  Oh, an Oscar winning actor that just may be the only one in Academy history that has played in a scene where an RV’s septic tank explodes like a geyser and its contents find their way all over his visage.  Do studios think we desperately yearn for more poop humor?

Williams can’t be the only one to blame.  The man helming this unfunny and B-grade comic enterprise is Barry Sonnenfeld, who has never been able to recapture his sarcastic and daft touches he infused in winning comedies like the first MEN IN BLACK film and the wonderful GET SHORTY, his best film.  Yet, it’s been all down hill since the latter mentioned John Travolta vehicle and Sonnenfeld has allowed himself to waiver in a string of witless and moronic films, like MEN IN BLACK 2,  WILD WILD WEST, and BIG TROUBLE.  Now comes RV, which goes a long way to demonstrate that the director peaked several years ago without much future hope in sight.

I guess that if you going to tell yet another would-be hilarious family road trip film, why not dare to be something different?  Is that too much to ask?  At least the opening moments of RV have a slightly subversive and sly satiric edge.  There are a lot of nail-biting sarcasm and biting laughs within the film’s first few minutes.  Yet, once the film gets bogged down with the particulars of the family’s trip and once they start their cross-country trek, everything goes down a narrow and all-too-familiar path. 

The film side steps black humor and slips into a sporadically funny and monotonous series of dull sight gags and silly dialogue.  Sonnenfeld is no stranger to finding the most macabre things funny (he helmed the two ADAMS FAMILY films, which had the appropriate level of sardonic edge and creepiness), but he cops out of the film’s promising beginning and coasts throughout the rest of the it on a stream of blunt predictability.  And…c’mon…Robin Williams covered in feces?  Is that really funny?  For a film that has teeth, it never really bites down into its underlining material.  Instead, RV just becomes a torrid snooze fest.

Here’s an idea – why not make a family road trip film where the family does not grow to love and respect one another in the end?  RV sets up its family as being a bit off from the norm (“We watch TV in four separate rooms and I.M. each other when it’s time to eat dinner,” Williams points out to his wife at one point.  She later deadpans, “Remember dear, we are not friendly people”).  In terms of superficial comparisons to the Griswalds (their not-too-distant cinematic relatives) this family – the Munro’s – are noticeably well off and affluent.  They are not a middle-class, blue-collar family.  Instead, the Munro’s have a slimy snobbery about them.  Why not truly channel their egotistical impulses throughout the film and more fully explore their dysfunctionality?  Maybe there would have been more spirited and wickedly dark laughs by chronicling a vindictive and mean spirited family carving their way through the highways of America on their way to their vacation destination.  Nope, instead we get a comedy that drains out any inkling of originality and wit and instead becomes something wasteful and tedious.  I hate to say this, but where is Chevy Chase when we need him?

The family in this road film are the usual grab bag of clichéd characters.  We have Williams as the dad, Bob, a man that only wants to reconnect to his aging kids that want to have nothing to do with him.  We have Cheryl Hines as his wife, Jamie, who loves her husband but rigidly questions his every vacationing decision.  Then we have the two kids (there are always two in these type of films).  First there is Cassie (Joanna “JoJo” Levesque), who worshiped her father as a young child and now treats him as an utter nuisance during her rebellious and independent teen years.  Secondly, there is Carl (Josh Hutcherson), who seems to have an incredible fondness for bodybuilding for a young lad that barely has any abs of steel to speak of.

Of course, as is the case with this “genre”, dad begins to fear that his best days with his once-loving children are leaving him, so he desperately hatches out a plan to spend some quality time with them.  His plan was to take the whole Munro tribe out to Hawaii, but it is foiled by his obnoxiously callous boss, Todd (Will Arnett, giving the film’s only inspired comedic performance).  Forcing him to make a last-ditch and all-too crucial presentation in Boulder, Colorado, Bob is forced to cancel his trip with his fam’ to Hawaii.  Completely afraid to tell everyone that he has to put business before pleasure, Bob concocts an ingenious (but somewhat mean-spirited and self-serving) plan of taking the family camping to Boulder via a rented RV.  Jamie, being the pragmatist, states the obvious to the hapless Bob (“We are not a camping family!”).  Bob, blindsided by tunnel vision, sees things otherwise and loads up the RV and they all hit to highway.

A lot of unforeseen problems ensue for the family, not the least of which being the incessant bickering of Bob’s two kids and his complete inability to empty the RV’s sewage properly.  He gets smothered in crap.  Ho, Ho.  Then their worst nightmare comes true in the form of another cross-country traveling family – the Gornickes, Travis and Mary Jo (played by the funny, but slight underused Jeff Daniels and the teeth grating Kristin Chenoweth) and their kids Earl (Hunter Parrish), Moon (Chloe Sonnenfeld), and Billy (Alex Ferris).  The Gornickes are friendly, in a persistent Ned Flanders kind of way.  They are a bible thumping, country song singing, RV worshipping group of squeaky-clean Americana.  In short…everything that the Munros are not.

Okay, the Gornickes are super nerds (their RV’s air horn plays the theme from STAR TREK), but they are not mean people.  The Munros sort of treat them like some unwanted excrement that is found on the bottom of their shoes.  There is an vile hostility that they display that is not played up to decent effect.  They will do absolutely anything possible to get rid of them once and for all (my favourite moment between the two involves Bob explaining the origin of his son’s name.  “This is Carl…named after Carl Max, the father of modern Communism.  You may have heard of them?”).  The Gornickes take all of the Munros’ efforts to distance themselves with a grain of salt.  Even after they make it clear that they want to have nothing to do with them, the Gornickes still try to impart their wholesomeness to Bob and Jamie.  “Do you wanna hear about the time Jesus saved us from a tornado,” Mary Jo asks the two at one point.

There is a subtle harshness that permeates the Munro family, especially in their reactions and treatment of others (specially, the Gornickes).  Yet, the film would rather be a play-it-by-ear family comedy than a twisted and scatological black comedy of manners.  They film gets too quickly bogged down in its routine story and its paradoxical sugarcoating of the Munro family.  There are hints here and there of the family’s more perverse sides.  Some of the exchanges are real zingers, like when Cassie tells Bob, “Maybe we can feed Carl to the raccoon,” to which Carl replies, “Maybe we can get him to eat you because he’s on the south bitch diet.”  Bob proudly and hilariously says, “Good one, son.”  There is a raw edge buried deep down in this atypical family, but RV is too scared to go the distance with channeling them as bleak charcaters.

The film could have had a level of toxic and acerbic laughs but gets too polluted with lame and tired slap stick moments, like a painfully unfunny bit with Bob trying to back the RV up or him trying to get his seat belt on.  Other moments in the film desperately try to garner big laughs and instead generate our ridicule.  A short scene with some raccoons making their way into the RV - and Bob’s attempts to get them off - are pathetic in execution and payoff, as are other scenes with Bob trying to get his RV off of, get this, a peak on Diablo Pass.  Miraculously, Bob manages to get his vehicle balanced perfectly on the peak, so much so that neither the front or rear tires are hitting any type of ground.  Then we are forced to sit through an extended and inane scene of Williams trying to rock the RV back and forth to gain momentum.  There is a desperation and forcefulness to Williams’ comic timing here that is kind of unappealing.

Mixed in with all of these excruciatingly juvenile moments is Williams talking like a gangster rapper, him trying to pull up the RV as it sinks into a lake, some heavy handed sermonizing of the importance of family bonding and a speech by him near the end that should get him the PATCH ADAMS LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD for nauseatingly soppy and laugh-inducing sentimentality.  For a film about a family that is kind of horrible at their core, the film’s willingness to make them into likeable personas in the end is a bit of a cheap shot.

The material of RV has been done and done to far better comic potential in other films of the past, which ultimately makes this rudimentary and criminally lacklustre Robin Williams vehicle all the more difficult to sit through.  The film, to its credit, has a funny set up and some of its dialogue hits the right cynical notes, but it’s a failure in terms of its inconsistent tone mixed with a scattershot assembly of exhausted and stupid physical comedy.  Instead of trying to tell perhaps a bit more of a darkly funny comedy about a dysfunctional family that tries to reconnect on the highways of America, RV sidesteps good satire and an acidic edge for a more run-of-the-mill and massively predictable family road movie.  And on a personal note – for shame Robin Williams.  You are capable of being funnier than anyone, but you all owe us an apology for this wasteful effort.  As to paraphrase one character’s description of the family RV itself, this film is just one “Big Rolling Turd.”

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*** out of ****

SNAKES ON A PLANE is a giddy and hilariously silly title if I ever heard one, which leads me to give my most sincere props to Samuel L. Jackson…on two fronts.  Firstly, he knows what he wants.  Secondly, he stands by his convictions.  In a widely publicized story, the only reason Jackson agreed to star in the film was because of its title alone.  When the studio in question – New Line Cinemas – wanted to change name to the egregiously lame PACIFIC AIR FLIGHT 121, Jackson got upset.  “We’re totally changing that back,” he demanded in an interview, “it’s the only reason I took the job: I read the title.”

Well, the title stayed and in a fury of pre-release Internet fan fever, SNAKES ON A PLANE has finally been released to the film-going masses.  The back-story behind the film could be made into a fascinating movie all on its own.  With the film being in development hell as far back as 1999, SNAKES ON A PLANE went though many writers, screenplay drafts, and directors before finally being made.  The film truly became a hot button topic when Jackson lambasted New Line late in 2005 for changing the film’s title.  His very public assault on the marketing gathered a real firestorm of free publicity and fan interest around the globe soared.  Proving the often unyielding power of bloggers and chat room film lovers, SNAKES ON A PLANE was delegated away from being a throwaway and highly disposable action film to being one of 2006’s most preordained, must-see films. 

Jackson alone should get a serious amount of commendation.  He had the perseverance to know the type of film he was staring in and had the foresight to see the strength that online fans had in marketing.  One website alone had a real inspiring interactive feature, which allowed for its readers to input a home phone number to which a pre-recorded “special message” from Jackson would be sent to the person in question.  Having heard the message myself, it would be hard to see how Jackson could not be poking fun at his involvement with this film.  His overwhelming support and lack of embarrassment for participating in the movie is kind of refreshing.  Whereas most actors would come out and publicly disown a film like this, Jackson did something that much more inspiring.  He actually flooded the film with praise and support.  His phone message has him saying, “I know this may sound crazy, but SNAKES ON A PLANE just may be the greatest motion picture of all time.”  I mean, his irreverence and level of self-deprecation is kind of amusing in its own right.

Yet, all of this leads me to the inevitable: is this film any dang good?  I guess my short answer to that would be this: relative to its motives and aspirations – SNAKES ON A PLANE is a gloriously insipid thrill ride.  It’s a masterfully realized bit of unrelenting, B-grade, exploitative filmmaking that is just one Frank Drebbin shy of being a qualified camp classic.  It’s one of those works that harkens back to the type of cheap, low rent, and disposable entertainments that were barely worthy of being shown as a second feature in a cheesy drive-in two for one special.  

I mean all of that as a sincere compliment.  SNAKES ON A PLANE just may be one of the most self-aware bad films that I have ever seen.  There is a strength and commitment to its awfulness that is kind of infectious and sublime.  Far too many dumb action films hide behind a façade of pretentiousness and groan inducing dramatic beats.  Here’s a film that is worthy of being belittled during an episode of MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATRE 3000 and goes completely out of its way to jump up and scream, “We want your ridicule!”  There are no cheap charlatan tricks with the film, nor does it insult your intelligence by trying to be solemn and serious.  SNAKES ON A PLANE demands our immediate scorn at its laughable premise, which is really what makes it entertaining.

Is this film critic proof?  Maybe.  It’s the ultimate poster movie for critiquing films on a relative – not universal – frame of reference.  SNAKES ON A PLANE is not high art, nor is it particularly well made from a technical point of view.  The direction is spotty, the visual effects inconsistent, the performances are wooden, and the dialogue is filled to the rim with real howlers.  However, maybe that’s all beside the point.  SNAKES ON A PLANE knows what it is – a bad and obsessively enjoyable exploitation film – and it never fails to deliver on that basic level. 

Yet, a catastrophic error would have been for the makers to sidestep the film’s awfulness.  Too much of a tongue in check approach would have been incorrect.  Instead, SNAKES ON A PLANE embraces its over-the-top absurdity and gratuitous flamboyances like they were perverted virtues.  The film does not shy away from any of the key staples of these types of films, like hard core violence, a cheerful amount of superfluous sex and nudity, a ludicrous and gimmicky premise, characters that are carved out of cardboard, and a lot of marvelously insipid dialogue (my favourite being from Jackson, whom at one point says, “It’s my job to handle life and death situations on a daily basis.  It’s what I do, and I’m very good at it.”  A close second would be when he instructs the passengers, “We need to create a barrier between us and the snakes!”).  Oh, and the film has snakes…a lot of snakes…and it highlights yet another brilliant moment where Jackson showcases why he is the best actor today at uttering one 12 letter variation of the F-bomb better than anyone. 

The paper-thin plot is pure, cheese-infested cornball that perhaps an Ed Wood Jr. in his prime could have came up with.  Characters and their development are superfluous entities.  Jackson, in pure, unadulterated Jacksonian fashion, plays tough-as-nails FBI agent, Neville Flynn, who has taken it upon himself to transport a Federal witness, Sean (Nathan Phillips) from Hawaii to LA to testify against a terrifically evil Asian mobster.  Now, this is not just your typical Asian mobster.  Most good fellas would (and could) arrange for Sean to be whacked in the most expeditious and easy manner possible.  A couple of bullets to the brain, or maybe a car bomb, perhaps.  Nah, that would be too easy.  Instead, he options for the least likely successful plan to take out the witness – smuggle hundreds of poisonous snakes from all around the world on board the plane and put them in a special, digitally timed crate that can open in mid-flight and take out the entire plane.  Eat your heart out, Dr. Evil.

If Jackson and the story were not a hoot enough for you, then the film offers up a pleasant parade of funny stereotypes and stock characters.  We get the obsessive compulsive Hip Hop artist that is about as germaphobic as Howard Hughes.   There is also his entourage, one of them played by the funny Kenan Thompson, who loves video games so much that you think – maybe for a minute or so – that his skill with a joy stick just may come in handy in the cockpit later.  We also get the sexy flight attendants (played by Juliana Margulies and Sunny Mabry, the latter being a bit more promiscuous than the average stewardess).  We also get a young couple of attractive newlyweds who feel the need to join the mile high club, a nasty, British SOB snob who hates dogs and kids, as well as a couple of cute kids and one dog.  Oh, we also have an annoying woman that loves this dog a bit too much.  Thank God that there finally exists a movie that has the nerve to actually serve up the cute pooch to the enemy without coping out.  I mean, when that a-hole Brit tossed that irritating little doggie in the mouth of a giant, 22-foot long python, it was easily the most shockingly funny moment of the year.

Anyhoo’, the snakes do, in fact, get loose (this is not called SNAKES ON A PLANE for nothing) and the film has a lot of creepy and schlocky fun showing the slithery beasts bite and kill their prey. They sure do seem a lot more violent and hostile than your typical rattler.  Hmmm…maybe the evil Asian mobster ensured that there were some flowers on board that contained a pheromone in them that acted as a catalyst for the snakes to channel their hostility to the point of killing everything in their path?  A long shot you say?  Yet, like I said, this is not you typical Asian mobster.  Oh, he is also a martial artist that likes to pound on sparring partners for kicks, if putting killer snakes on board an airplane was not fun enough for him.

Most of the passengers – along with Jackson – desperately try to make the most of their situation.  That is to say that they scream with hysteria, run frantically, and try to kill every one of those little (and big) mother f’ers with the implements they have available.  Some of the ways Jackson’s character takes out the reptiles is kind of ingenious.  At one point he makes a flamethrower out of an aerosol can with a lighter attached to it (I am sure that anyone involved with airline security will definitely take note).  Other times, less sophisticated methods are used, like stepping on snakes, zapping snakes with stun guns, and shooting snakes with bullets and arrows.  A life raft at one point is put to very effective use, as is olive oil.  Call me crazy, but who would have thought that using a household cooking product that can deep fry food to perfection could be utilized as such an effective aid for sucking out snake poison?  Note to self on next camping trip: take tent, sleeping bag, and a 2 liter jug of olive oil.

It should be pointed out that SNAKES ON A PLANE was originally rated with a more audience friendly PG-13 rating.  However, with the incredible Internet buzz (and with Jackson’s own convictions), the makers gathered back the crew in March of this year to film additional hard-core, R-rated footage to help guarantee the film a more adult rating.  In an age where films are slashed and burned to get their ratings down, SNAKES ON A PLANE must be the first film in recent memory to have a studio give its blessing for it to be more blue with its material.  Some of the more raunchy and violent footage sticks out, like the full on nude sex scene involving a busty blonde that thankfully shows off her assets, as well some of the snake kill shots, and one infamous moment where Jackson, having enough of the snake vermin, lashes out, “Enough is enough! I’ve had it with these motherfuckin’ snakes on this motherfuckin’ plane!”  Some members of the audience cheered and applauded at this moment.  I was one of them.

I am not sure what else to say about the film.  I guess that, on its levels, SNAKES ON A PLANE is in the grand tradition of grindhouse cinema; a type of easily dismissible and disreputable movie that achieves a level of B-grade, campy entertainment value that a lot of other “bad” films never attain.  As a sublimely ridiculous and unpretentiously silly horror action film, SNAKES ON A PLANE never disguise its true motives.  At face level, it does exactly what it promise to do and never – not for one of its 105 minutes – hides its true colors.  When it comes right down to it, I loved the film’s energetic disregard for taste, quality, political correctness, and style.  Instead, it dives headfirst into exuberant and trashy waters where clichés are thrown out at the audience as fast a cobra’s venomous attack.  I have no doubt that – within a few years – the film will achieve a die-hard cult following that will turn it into a event picture to be savoured, like the ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW’S and DEATH RACE 2000’S before it.  As a cheap, low budget foray into exploitation filmmaking, SNAKES OF A PLANE is a conquest of hype that is simultaneously crude, unrefined, and lacking in any semblance of professional polish.  In other words, Roger Corman would approve.