zubkavich ([info]zubkavich) wrote,
@ 2006-08-19 10:44:00
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Snakes on a Plane
Saw Snakes on a Plane last night.

It's a great film to watch with a big and bosterous audience. Home video viewing will take the wind out of this thing's sails like nothing else. Campy and ridiculous with a good blend of set-up and action, I had quite a bit of fun. The crowd yelled commentary and laughed or yelled at the appropriate parts, ramping up the amusement. I had a blast.

Is it a "good" film? Hell, no.

The core premise of the whole thing, that the bad guys would go to the trouble of getting a huge time-release box filled with hundreds of rare and hard-to-gather snakes on a plane compared to using those same resources to just get a big bomb on board, is completely ridiculous and mind-numbingly stupid.

Does it make for a fun B-movie worthy conflict? Yuppers.

The film advertised itself as a fun film and delivers on that level. Nothing more and nothing less.

Well worth checking out if you can bring a group of friends and turn your brain off at the door.

When the film has a great opening weekend, Hollywood types will misinterpret this as a trend shift and dump tons of crappy knock-offs at us. They NEVER understand innovation, a good idea in the right time and place and the simple theory that a good story and good production will lead to a solid box office performance. They're 100% convinced that there's a magic formula which doesn't involve creative talent at all... that there's a profit switch they can just turn on if they can just follow a popular film and beat it into the ground. It's not that Pixar makes solid films, it must be that 3D animation is hot, hot, hot! It's not that Spider-Man was a faithful adaption of one of the most popular characters in the world, it's the power of comic-based movies! It's not that Snakes on a Plane has caught lightning in a bottle, it's that internet involvement/hype and b-movie badness is the next big thing!

PS: I'm not saying Snakes is a good story... I was talking more of broader trends. Snakes definitely falls in the "right time and place" category.


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[info]jenngo
2006-08-19 03:15 pm UTC (link)
IT IS THE GREATEST MOVIE OF OUR GENERATION!!!!!

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[info]grinningskull
2006-08-19 03:18 pm UTC (link)
tis true!

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[info]ocarina
2006-08-19 03:27 pm UTC (link)
Frank and I just watched Spider-man last night (because it was on TV, so we got out the dvd) and I am still amazed how well the movie is done. I don't think it even had to be based on anything - if Spider-man was a new superhero, it still would have been a fabulous movie because it all just works so well.

I'm looking forward to seeing Snakes, but yeah, hope it doesn't turn into a trend of crappy imitations.

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[info]kinra
2006-08-19 06:00 pm UTC (link)
You're right that it wasn't great strictly because of the pre-existing property -- but I think that the property had a clear enough sense of itself, its characters, and its purpose that a faithful adaptation of that property would inherit the sense of itself, characters, and purpose.

Peter Parker. Power and Responsibility. Balancing the Personal with the Greater Good.

And yeah -- it's so easy for people to say "Digital stuntmen! That's why Spider-Man made money!"

It's just so easy to miss the point. :/

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[info]zubkavich
2006-08-19 06:10 pm UTC (link)
I agree that the film would've done well on its own even if Spider-Man wasn't... Spider-Man, but it definitely wouldn't have had the biggest opening weekend (at that time) and sheer mass market penetration that it did.

It's got a core that rings true and is incredibly iconic. The outsider trying to figure himself out and become an adult is a universal idea that's delivered incredibly well in the early Spider-Man stories.

Which is why the current comics where Peter Parker has revealed his identity to the world and become a worldwide celebrity just feel very wrong to me. Characters do eveolve, but this particular evolution seems to haul us way too far away from what made Spider-Man empathetic.

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