Snakes on a Plane (2006)
★★½ — Snakes on a Plane (2006)
There is a moment in Snakes on a Plane where Samuel L. Jackson looks down the cabin of a snake-infested aircraft, squares his jaw, and delivers the line. You know the line. Everyone knows the line. And I'll tell you something: it lands exactly as hard as you want it to. That's either a sign of brilliant casting or a sign that we're all very easy to please. Probably both.
This is a film that does precisely what it says on the tin, and I mean that as genuine praise. Snakes. On a plane. Drug dealers release a crate-load of venomous reptiles mid-flight to take out a witness before he can testify. That's your lot. That's the whole thing. And within that utterly ridiculous premise, the film mostly delivers. I've sat through plenty of B-movies that were embarrassed about what they were, winking at the audience so hard they pulled a muscle. This one is different. The tone is self-aware enough to let you in on the joke, but not so smug that it breaks the spell. It treats the mayhem with just enough straight-faced commitment to make the mayhem actually work.
Jackson is the reason for that. He plays this completely seriously. Not ironically, not campily, but with the full weight of a man who believes he is the only thing standing between a plane full of passengers and a horrifying death by fang. He's elbow-deep in snake carnage at various points, and he never once gives you a raised eyebrow or a smirk. That discipline is what separates Snakes on a Plane from something truly unwatchable. Plenty of actors would have phoned this in, coasted on the absurdity. Jackson brings his whole self to it. It's not unlike what he does in Jackie Brown, funnily enough: finding the real person inside a genre frame and playing them straight.
Kenan Thompson turns up early and it's a genuine delight. If you grew up watching Good Burger, seeing him pop up here is exactly the kind of surprise that makes you grin like an idiot. It's a small role but he makes the most of it, and honestly the film could have done with more of that energy throughout, because the middle section is where things start to sag. The supporting cast beyond Jackson and Thompson is largely forgettable, and there are stretches where the pacing goes slack and you're reminded that even a film about snakes on a plane needs to earn its runtime.
The snake attacks themselves range from inventive to absurd to genuinely disgusting in ways I wasn't prepared for. The film earns its R rating, let's put it that way. If you've ever seen Anaconda and thought "this needs to be nastier and sillier at the same time," well, here's your answer. There's a gleeful cruelty to some of the set-pieces that tips into proper schlock territory, and I mean that as a compliment to the commitment of the whole enterprise.
What I keep coming back to is that phrase: our generation's "chicken jockey." That comparison landed with me because it's right. It's a piece of pop culture that became a meme before memes were really a thing, a moment so perfectly distilled into its own absurdity that it transcended the film around it. The line exists now in a space beyond the movie. But the movie exists too, and it's worth watching, even if it doesn't always deserve the mythology.
It's not great, and it's not trying to be. There are stretches that drag, characters you won't remember five minutes after the credits roll, and logic that evaporates the second you squint at it. But as a campy, over-the-top thrill ride with one genuinely committed performance holding the whole chaotic thing together, it earns its cult status fair and square.
Two and a half stars.
Rating: ★★½ | Year: 2006 | Watched: 2025-09-22
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
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Buy: Apple TV Store · Amazon Video · Sky Store
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Related on Movies With Macca
More with Samuel L. Jackson: Black Snake Moan (2006) · Jumper (2008) · Pulp Fiction (1994) · The Hateful Eight (2015)
More from the 2000s: Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) · Daredevil (2003) · Apocalypto (2006)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)
More thriller: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) · Angst (1983) · The Long Walk (2025) · Punishment Park (1971)
