Metascore
58 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 31 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 31
  2. Negative: 3 out of 31
  1. 90
    Snakes was the most exuberantly trashy delight of this summer movie season or last.
  2. Reviewed by: Ty Burr
    88
    A movie called Snakes on a Plane had better be one of two things: So bad it's good or so good it's great. Darned if it isn't a little bit of both.
  3. Reviewed by: Jessica Letkemann
    88
    Why is this movie so watchable? Four simple reasons. It's truly funny. It's truly scary. It's truly gruesome. And Samuel L. Jackson is the cool head who prevails ("You stick with me, you live").
  4. Hilariously funny, full of fang-popping scares, and guaranteed to increase travel by train.
  5. Reviewed by: Kyle Smith
    75
    The film failed to be frightening, suspenseful or dramatic but accidentally succeeded in being absolutely hilarious.
  6. If you can find a better time at the movies this year than this wild comic thriller, let me in on it.
  7. Looming large over all this is Jackson, who glowers and growls and acts the hero better than any actor out there.
  8. This is a coolly efficient, tongue-in-cheek horror-comedy.
  9. Reviewed by: Jim Ridley
    70
    There's something almost refreshingly venal about a movie with no purpose other than to meet intentions this cheesy.
  10. What they give us is the chance to win, not with righteous morality, but with an old-fashioned swagger that says, much like the film itself, Hey, we may be stupid, but we rock.
  11. Reviewed by: Dana Stevens
    70
    Who knows whether Snakes will have--forgive me--legs, but it's more than awesome enough to assure opening-weekend euphoria.
  12. 67
    To be sure, Snakes on a Plane is going to inspire some highly readable graduate-school film theses. You may even want to re-enroll to pen one yourself.
  13. Reviewed by: Claudia Puig
    63
    Cheesy, campy B-movie fun, thanks mostly to the cadre of cobras and their ilk and also to Jackson (probably the only actor alive who could pull off this save-the-day bad ass movie role).
  14. 63
    To an extent, Snakes on a Plane reminds me of "Eight Legged Freaks." It has the same kind of off-the-wall, don't-take-it-seriously comedic horror sensibility.
  15. There is also a capable, wisecracking stewardess (Julianna Margulies) and, what a surprise, a steward who appears to be doing a Paul Lynde impersonation.
  16. 60
    1. It has the potential to supplant "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" as the greatest audience participation movie of all time. 2. It is, simultaneously, one of the worst and best movies I've ever seen.
  17. Reviewed by: Kim Newman
    60
    It's the sort of picture you'll either queue all night in the rain to see twelve times or avoid like a Wayans Brothers Retrospective for the rest of life.
  18. 60
    While Snakes on a Plane barely stands up as a movie, it definitely qualifies as an event.
  19. Reviewed by: Justin Chang
    60
    Snakes on a Plane is exactly the sort of tasteless, utterly depraved, no-nonsense sluts-and-guts extravaganza it was meant to be.
  20. More potent than anything in Snakes on a Plane is the fantasy offscreen: that if enough people talk up their desire to see this film and, at the same time, take an overt delight in what an unabashed piece of junk it is, they will fuse with the hype, with the movie's mystique. They will not just watch Snakes on a Plane; they will own it.
  21. Reviewed by: Michael Phillips
    50
    Snakes on a Plane represents a fairly craven mixture of deliberate cheese and inadvertent lameness, plus fangs.
  22. This hotly anticipated film delivers on the premise of its celebrated title. But it offers little more in terms of suspense, originality or enjoyment. Mostly, it lays there on the screen like a big lazy boa.
  23. 50
    The whole enterprise has the sweaty sheen that comes from trying too hard to be cool.
  24. Nothing at all special. It's one more cheesy, broadly played, poorly paced, instantly forgettable August action movie.
  25. The result is not quite a horror movie (too cheerful and can-do) or a thriller (too cheerful and stupid), nor does it parody itself or take itself seriously, thereby canceling out the camp factor. It's more like an improv sketch at 30,000 feet.
  26. The movie's highest level of artistic expression was the ingenious Internet campaign that catapulted it to culture phenom months before it even opened. The thing itself turns out to be pretty much an afterthought, cheesy and not very well worked out.
  27. 50
    The audience decided to sell Snakes to itself, and that became the event--the actual movie could never have been more than another exploitation picture.
  28. 50
    The plot is ridiculous and the characters are cardboard, but none of that really matters once the snakes get into the cabin and start zapping people, the very definition of entertainment.
  29. 38
    It's not so bad that it's good. It's so bland that it's boring. Not even worth a hissss.
  30. 38
    Neither as good nor as bad as you'd hoped it would be: It's just a mediocre exploitation picture with an inspired premise (succinctly spelled out by its title), loads of gratuitous gore, a dash of equally gratuitous nudity and enough inanities to make you wonder if Ed Wood rose from the grave to serve as a creative consultant on the project.
  31. 25
    Not since Pet Rocks riveted the nation have so many gotten so excited over so little.
User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 364 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Negative: 21 out of 141
  1. Avec Des Serpents dans l'Avion, je ne vais pas tourner autour du pot : c'est scénaristiquement invraisemblable, visuellement laid (en tout cas, pour les effets numériques), joué sans conviction... En somme, et je pèse mes mots, c'est entièrement con (il n'y a qu'à voir le titre...). Et pourtant, ce nanar se laisse regarder avec un plaisir coupable, parce qu'il est en quelque sorte fun, et notamment grâce à des séquences plutôt désopillantes et énergiques avec les serpents, et surtout que le film ne se prend pas au sérieux. En somme, le film de David R. Ellis (à qui l'on doit Destination Finale 2) arrive à nous livrer un film, certes ridicule, mais qui se révèle être un divertissement de taille si l'on veut s'éclater entre potes avec du grand n'importe quoi. Full Review »
  2. This movie was really good, frightening and a little bit funny. But it had a lot of flaws- Goddamn it I sound like a real critic. This was a freaking great movie Full Review »
  3. An unfamiliar plot with likable leads, Snakes on a Plane (2006) can almost live up to its original. The story is based on a guy who witnessed a murder by a violence gang member. The witness was suppose to fly to LA to testify against the murderer. To prevent the witness from going, the murderer puts hundreds of poisonous snakes in the cargo to kill everyone and bring the plane down. Although this plot isn't anything new to Hollywood, Snakes on a Plane features Samuel Jackson and Julianna Margulies, likable stars, and a lot of snakes on a plane. It's all we wanted. Full Review »