SNAKES ON A PLANE. Snakes. On. A. Plane. Snaaaaakes on a plaaaaane. The rest of this review is frankly surplus to requirements.

Still.

Man witnesses murder. Samuel L Jackson (cop) forces man to fly to LA to testify. Murderer leaves hundreds of poisonous SNAKES on the PLANE to kill witness.

Convoluted? Dumb? You bet your ass. But it doesn’t stand in the way of a great movie. I laughed all the way to the bus stop and then some.

So. Sam L is on the PLANE (which for no discernable reason is from the mid-70s and has an upstairs) with his witness and a handful of regular passengers, including a Heather Graham-a-like and a cute blonde kid (who will clearly survive), an uptight Brit and a randy honeymooning couple (who will clearly die a horrible death. Satisfyingly, a handbag shitzu also dies a horrible death).

Out come the SNAKES, some rather more convincing than others, and kill off the most annoying characters by biting their asses, tits or dicks. Yes, really. This causes Sam L to get a slight sweat on, raise his voice/eyebrows in turn, tut a little, and finally get the passengers to pull together to keep the SNAKES at bay and get the PLANE to safety.

That’s kind of it. There are a couple of token love stories, neither of which holds much interest when there’s SNAKE action to be had, and a show-stealing minor character in the form of SNAKE expert Dr Price (Todd Louiso), who delivers the soon-to-be-immortal line, “Remember: time is tissue.” And no, it doesn’t make any more sense when you’re sitting in the cinema.

Sack off your parents’ silver wedding party tomorrow: SoaP is definitely the best evening’s entertainment you can have right now.

by Laura Phelps