Everyone's a critic: 'Snakes on a Plane'

Two stars (out of four)

Nathan Phillips plays a young man (Sean Jones) who witnesses the vicious murder of an L.A. district attorney. Mob members soon begin looking for this sole witness to their crime. Samuel L. Jackson plays Neville Flynn, the FBI agent who takes Jones into protective custody and is charged with bringing him back safely via commercial airliner to L.A. to testify. Unfortunately, the crime boss has arranged for several venomous snakes to be smuggled aboard their airliner. The snakes are crazy for the pheromone-sprayed leis that have been placed around the necks of passengers.

Soon after the flight takes off, the snakes are released and mayhem ensues, killing many of the passengers as well as both pilots of the plane. As the passengers fight for survival, Samuel L. Jackson saves the day and the movie with one charismatic line. I found this movie to be predictably scary, intermixed with some perverse humor provided by the snakes.

-- Jerry Swan

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Two stars (out of four)

"Snakes on a Plane" is a decent movie, with some holes in the plot big enough to drive one of Cape's new buses through. Samuel L. Jackson turns in his best performance since "Pulp Fiction" as a rough, tough FBI agent entrusted to bring a federal witness to testify against a crime lord. The crime lord wants to make sure the witness doesn't make it to the trial, so he has a big box of poisonous snakes put on the plane, with a timed lock set to open a couple of hours into the flight.

There were a couple of scary parts that made the whole theater jump and gasp. I liked the fact they did make some scenes from a snake's point of view. The writers did a good job of mixing some levity in with the seriousness of having several snake bite victims dead or dying.

The computer-generated snakes were obviously fakes and they didn't try to hide the fact. I was a little disappointed in that; I really wanted to believe that there were real snakes on that plane! So if you want to see a movie you don't have to think too hard during and you are a fan of classic Samuel L. Jackson, this movie is for you.

-- Dan Zimmerman