FAQ

While escorting surfer dude Sean Jones (Nathan Phillips), witness of a murder committed by notorious gangster Eddie Kim (Byron Lawson), on the South Pacific Airlines red-eye flight from Honolulu to Los Angeles, FBI agent Neville Flynn (Samuel L. Jackson) is forced to fight off a cargo load of venomous snakes unleashed on the Boeing 747 by Kim and his thugs in order to bring down the plane and prevent Jones from testifying.

Snakes on a Plane is based on a screenplay contributed to by writers David J. Taylor, John Heffernan, Sebastian Gutierrez and David Dalessandro.

The copilot accidentally releases the oxygen masks in the passenger compartment, and the snakes drop into the cabin with them. Later, Agent Flynn discovers, while crawling into the cargo hold, that a door that separated the compartment from the rest of the plane had been left open.

The snakes in the cargo hold have tripped the breaker that controls the air conditioning in the passenger cabin, so Agent Flynn ventures into the hold to rectify the problem (and kill a few more snakes along the way). Meanwhile in L.A., Agent Harris (Bobby Cannavale) and Dr Stephen Price (Todd Louiso), an expert in venomous snakes, have determined from the photos of the dead snakes that many of them are from foreign countries and, thus, have been illegally imported. They pay a visit to a local snake dealer who has been known for shady dealing in the past. In attempting to flee, the dealer is bitten by a desert black snake, and the agents withhold the antivenom until he tells them how he got the snakes for Eddie Kim and made them super aggressive by spraying pheromones on the passengers' leis. They then take his anti-venom supplies to LAX so that it will be available when the plane lands. Just when it looks hopeful that things are going to work out, it is discovered that the cockpit is filled with snakes and that the co-pilot is dead. There is no one to land the plane, so flight attendant Claire (Julianna Margulies) asks the passengers if anyone can fly the plane. The only one with any flight experience, over 2,000 hours on his PlayStation 2 flight simulator, is Troy (Kenan Thompson), an old friend and bodyguard to rapper Three Gs (Flex Alexander). In order to clear the cockpit of snakes, Flynn instructs the passengers to secure themselves in their seats. He then shoots a hole in one of the cabin windows, causing the cabin to depressurize and sucking out all the snakes. When the snakes have been cleared from the cockpit, Troy takes over the controls and successfully lands the plane at LAX where anti-venom is immediately given to those who have been bitten. However, just as Sean and Flynn are about to deplane, Sean is bitten in the chest by a snake. Flynn shoots the snake, and Sean opens his shirt to reveal a bulletproof vest. Sean reminds Flynn of the first thing Flynn told him: "Do as I say, and you live," and turns the tables. In the final scene, Sean is instructing Flynn on how to surf.

No, this myth was busted in an episode of the reality show "Mythbusters", when a controlled experiment demonstrated that a bullet hole in a pressurized fuselage would in fact do no noticeable damage at all. According to Wikipedia, such a hole would merely generate a high-pitched squeal.

However, if they somehow managed to make a much larger hole, the plane could be depressurized in less than a second. This type of explosive decompression has happened. According to Wikipedia, on April 28, 1988, a Boeing 737-297 serving Aloha Airlines Flight 243 suffered extensive damage after an explosive decompression in flight -- a large section of the passenger cabin on top of the plane detached -- but was able to land safely at Kahului Airport on Maui. There was one fatality, flight attendant Clarabelle Lansing, who was ejected from the airplane. Another 65 passengers and crew were injured.

He apparently did. Jackson signed on simply for the title, "Snakes on a Plane" and, when New Line said they might change it, Jackson supposedly threatened to leave the film. He had stated that he loved the title because "it tells you exactly what the movie is about. So you know what you're going to see."

68% of critics liked the film according to RottenTomatoes, with an average score of 6.2 out of 10, meaning it has generally favorable reviews. Most people expected that the critics would hate the film, but, in the end, it received more positive reviews than bad ones.

Yes. There was immense Internet hype over the film mainly because of its title and lots of users rated it a "10" without even seeing it. The film's user rating was originally 8.4, before dropping after more people had seen it.