The Shallow End

Parenting 101

Do not take your kids to see Snakes On A Plane. No matter how old they are. 30 is too young.

I cannot believe I went to see this movie. Snakes scare me. I hate most horror flicks. My ticket stub said The Devil Wears Prada. I was with my 16-year old who did not want to see it. So what happened?

What happened after that can only be explained as a moment of weakness or stupidity. As my 16-year-old and I sat alone in the theatre awaiting TDWP, I decided that we should see SOAP on the widescreen while we had a chance and save TDWP for dvd. My daughter fought back. With much coercion, she eventually gave in and we navigated our way over to the other screen. I have only myself to blame for this bad, bad choice. Of course, the 16-year old loved it ("that was fly!" were her exact words). She is also the one responsible for the loose snake in our house. She is deathly afraid of crickets and mice (the food needed to sustain her pet snake) but not at all intimidated by snakes, not even poisonous ones (though I did witness her cringing numerous times in this movie). She's also a product of too much MTV so her opinion cannot be trusted.

I am no movie critic, but the only way to get through this movie is to dissociate yourself from your body somehow. It's just that bad. I expected the creepy factor. I even expected slinkies to rattle their way down the theatre stairs. What I did not expect was vulgarity. Yeah, I know, it's rated R, but still, this one goes over the top in that respect. I nearly walked out after the first snake bite, back down the hall to see TDWP, or Material Girls, anything but this! This is "B" or "C" movie material all the way. I'm very disappointed in Samuel. He knew better than to do this picture (I almost said "film;" this is not a "film"). There were some good lines at the end and I did genuinely laugh, but this is not a comedy (unless like me, you consider all horror flicks to be in the comedy genre by definition; even so, this was somewhere in limbo land as far as the horror-as-unintentional-comedy genre goes). It was utter chaos without any redeeming qualities whatsoever, imho. There were a few decent one-liners throughout, but they were just too obvious, too disconnected, given the otherwise nondescript script. I wasn't even impressed with the videography or the special effects. Unimpressed! Did you hear me?!

This movie was simply too vulgar, too extreme, too violent, too unbelievable, too shallow to be any good at all. The only thing going for it is the title, which is just stupid enough to give you some hope. I hope this one gets bitten by a snake.

Update: Eric has a more articulate review on this flick. Glad to know I'm not alone in being embarassed to have seen it. ;-) I also appreciate one of the comments from a reader about expecting a farce of a movie. Yes! I think that's exactly what was wrong. This wasn't quite a farce, but it was far too farcical to be taken seriously. I don't even think it will stand the test of time as a classic "B Movie."

posted by Gwynne @ 2:08 AM