Snakes on a Plane
New Line Cinema | Release Date: August 18, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
58
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 31 Critic Reviews
Positive:
15
Mixed:
13
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
Snakes was the most exuberantly trashy delight of this summer movie season or last. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy Burr
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. Read full review
88
PremiereJessica Letkemann
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”). Read full review
75
New York PostKyle Smith
The film failed to be frightening, suspenseful or dramatic but accidentally succeeded in being absolutely hilarious. Read full review
75
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
Looming large over all this is Jackson, who glowers and growls and acts the hero better than any actor out there. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
If you can find a better time at the movies this year than this wild comic thriller, let me in on it. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Hilariously funny, full of fang-popping scares, and guaranteed to increase travel by train. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
This is a coolly efficient, tongue-in-cheek horror-comedy. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
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. Read full review
70
SlateDana Stevens
Who knows whether Snakes will have--forgive me--legs, but it's more than awesome enough to assure opening-weekend euphoria. Read full review
70
Dallas ObserverJim Ridley
There's something almost refreshingly venal about a movie with no purpose other than to meet intentions this cheesy. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
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. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia Puig
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). Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
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. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Stephen Cole
There is also a capable, wisecracking stewardess (Julianna Margulies) and, what a surprise, a steward who appears to be doing a Paul Lynde impersonation. Read full review
60
Film ThreatPete Vonder Haar
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. Read full review
60
VarietyJustin Chang
Snakes on a Plane is exactly the sort of tasteless, utterly depraved, no-nonsense sluts-and-guts extravaganza it was meant to be. Read full review
60
SalonStephanie Zacharek
While Snakes on a Plane barely stands up as a movie, it definitely qualifies as an event. Read full review
60
EmpireKim Newman
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. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
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. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerDavid Hiltbrand
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. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
Snakes on a Plane represents a fairly craven mixture of deliberate cheese and inadvertent lameness, plus fangs. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
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. Read full review
50
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Nothing at all special. It's one more cheesy, broadly played, poorly paced, instantly forgettable August action movie. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
The whole enterprise has the sweaty sheen that comes from trying too hard to be cool. Read full review
50
Washington PostStephen Hunter
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. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
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. Read full review
50
The New YorkerDavid Denby
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. Read full review
38
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
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. Read full review
38
Rolling StonePeter Travers
It's not so bad that it's good. It's so bland that it's boring. Not even worth a hissss. Read full review
25
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
Not since Pet Rocks riveted the nation have so many gotten so excited over so little. Read full review
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