Isn't the guy that ended up directing the movie someone that was brought in after the original director was fired? If there are any problems with the movie, they likely stem from the producers and company not understanding the premise. Remember, at one point they were going to change the name of the movie to something like Flight 135. They thought they were making a thriller, Jackson and the original director knew what they were really going for, but somewhere along the way it got diluted.

EXcellent.

You rock, Steph.

Then I guess "Snakes on a Plane" lives up to its name. Or did your copy editor write that stupid subhead?

This is definitely an event. A stupid, ridiculous, amazing event anchored by top-notch, hamming it up Samuel L. I was much more fond of the movie than Ms. Zacharek; you can line it up next to Delta Force, Airport, and all those other too-stupid-to-be-anything-but-wonderful plane chaos pictures. Some of the choices are inexplicable, and great for that: the first 4 minutes could be called “Guy On A Moped,” and the gratuitous scenes of our non-snake villain kickboxing and flexing and contorting his face are awesome. The famed “I want these snakes” line delivers, but even better are the tiny asides that the director somehow decided were valuable: “Unh, my ass”; “Hop on my back, I’ll lead you to safety!”; and everything the hypochondriac rapper (yes, hypochondriac rapper) says. It truly feels like the product of at least three teams of people who had no idea what the others were doing. In the long view, won’t hold up next to the greatest shlocky B-movies like Road House and Commando, but on opening night, it sure felt like it could. Ms. Zacharek is absolutely right when she suggests that you see it immediately if you’re going to see it at all. I had a great, great time.

I'm curious to see it this weekend, but I have a feeling it won't be in the same league as that true work of bad cinematic genius, Jaws the Revenge. But in that case I think Michael Caine was the only one involved with any understanding of the outstanding "badness" being produced.

Because "Snakes" would not be nearly as much fun without the Net, I want to chime in and post a pointer to the discussion of said slithery opus in Salon's Table Talk:

http://tabletalk.salon.com/webx?13@@.773bb0b7

The movie looks ridiculous. I have to go.

In what universe do people want to see this movie? I just polled the office and no one is going to watch this film. I think the media was brainwashed into building this movie up.

I thought Snakes on a Plane was the much anticipated documentary about Air Force 1.

SNAKES ON A PLANE!!

SNAKES ON A PLANE!!

SNAKES ON A PLANE!!

SNAKES ON A PLANE!!

SNAKES ON A PLANE!!

SNAKES ON A PLANE!!

SNAKES ON A PLANE!!

SNAKES ON A PLANE!!

SNAKES ON A PLANE!!

Somebody was asking if anybody was really anticipating this. I promise, the answer's yes. We, a group of San Franciscan professionals in our 20s and 30s, rented out a 350-seat theater, hired a catered open bar, and sold tickets at cost to our friends. We sold out in three days, and ended up with a 100-person waitlist before we closed it three days after that.

We are not expecting this movie to be good. We have some hopes that it will be in the so-bad-its-good category. But we are mainly going because the title and Samuel Jackson are an unbeatable combination, at least as a pitch. At this point, we have wound ourselves and our guests up so much that this will be fun no matter what. Some people have been working on costumes for weeks. People have bought hundreds, perhaps thousands of rubber snakes. Some people are even bringing live snakes.

To the extent that the movie is good, we'll enjoy it. When it's bad, we'll razz it exuberantly. And if it's neither, it doesn't matter: with 350 amped-up, drunken loudmouths, we'll make our own fun. The movie doesn't really matter; it's what we and others made out of it, mainly via the internet.

The hype was so relentless that I don't think I'm going to see another movie for the rest of the year.

From the moment I heard of this, and confirmed when I saw the TV ads for this, I knew this would be exactly as Ms. Zacharek described. It would be an attempt by megacorporate Hollywood to reproduce the kind of schlock films that Irwin Allen and Roger Corman made in the past. And it would fail.

Joe Dante's movie "Matinee" showed the true spirit of schlock filmmaking, as well as the environment in which it flourished. John Goodman's character, based on real-life director William Castle, was a liar and a con man, but a man in love with showing his audiences a good time. In fact, in a beautiful little narration, Goodman provides the best explanation of why people really want to go to horror movies - reasons ignored and spit upon by today's gorehounds and cinematic sadists.

In one of the best plot elements, "Matinee" takes place in one of the most genuinely fearful moments of the 1960's, the Cuban Missile Crisis. And the teen who's the film's central character, a lover of fake horror, is experiencing real horror; his dad is serving on the Cuban blockade, and he has a nightmare of a nuclear holocaust that is NOT cheesy or funny.

In this time of real war, real terrorism and real lunatic politics, we could use some escape. But the filmmakers of "Snakes" didn't provide it.

The people behind "Snakes" had no desire to show the audience a good time while taking their money; getting the gelt was their only motivation. The audiences who will pile into the theatres this weekend are wishing and hoping for someone to entertain them on a basic level, an idea foreign to today's megacorporate suits. The crowds want William Castle, but they got Enron.