Those Oedipal airborne serpents

What we need here is Leona Anderson, and some new lyrics to "Rats in My Room":

On one level, Snakes on a Plane delivers: you've got your plane, and there are by-God snakes on it. Beyond that, by all rights it should suck, should suck harder than the poor soul trying to extract venom with a razor blade and olive oil, and yet somehow it doesn't suck: the story makes sense, more or less; the scenes that were pasted in after the fact to push the film into R-rated territory seem only slightly obvious; the crowd (smallish, but it was an early Saturday matinee) was appreciative, even of lines like "Time is tissue." It's as though the filmmakers decided, "Yeah, okay, we'll give the fanboys what they want, but while we're at it, let's make a movie."

And of course, there's Samuel L. Jackson. The man has serious gravitas, and Snakes wouldn't have worked if he hadn't; this is the sort of material which, if you try to tack on even the slightest bit of synthetic irony, would dissolve into self-parody almost immediately. So Jackson plays it straight, and even the ostensibly-humorous characters avoid fourth-wall snickering, which is how a film which is basically Airplane! with reptiles instead of punchlines comes off as workable, even likable. If it's not truly first-class entertainment, well, you can still get quite a ride in coach.