Customer Reviews

Snakes on a Train

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

Being a railroad conductor and generally a fan of snakes, I simply couldn't resist picking up "Snakes on a Train" for a depraved 2-day weekend reserved for lazing on the couch, quaffing copious amount of Dr. Pepper, inhaling chocolate, and thinking occasionally about the chores I should be doing. The gal at the check-out counter of my local dvd rental establishment gave me a dubious look and inquired, "You do know this isn't 'Snakes on a Plane'?" Yes, I knew. Apparently some individuals who couldn't read and can't tell a locomotive from a plane had rented it with higher expectations. I however was willing to take a chance, and wasn't expecting a masterpiece.

It's entertainment. Hardly the worst I've seen (not as vapid as "Murdercycle"), but not close to "The Shining", or say the more recent "Jeepers Creepers". The plot centers around a Mexican Indian woman cursed by her own family for rejecting a wealthy suitor...the village shaman she chose instead accompanies her across the USA/Mexico border to a Southern Pacific train depot (yes, the SP of days gone by) where they coax thuggish stowaways in the baggage car into allowing them to board.

Character development is weak, about on par with what you can find on late-night cable or the old USA Network productions from the late '80's through the '90's. Remember the flick with those slug-things that got inside people? Shades of that. Then again, If I wanted character development I would have gotten something boring and sentimental :) My major complaint is that there could have been a lot more spoofing and humor in this. About the funniest part was when the shaman runs over the top of the cars, finds the locomotive engineer smoking ~something~ out of a lightbulb, knocks him out a smashes up the engine's console--or what set crew thinks an audience will believe will pass for a locomotive's control console. I caught a glimpse of a picture which looked like it might have been the engineer and conductor laying down together shirtless...which really is neither here nor there, but provided the one laugh in a film offered numerous ripe opportunities for parody. The Conductor apparently forgets where the energency brake valve is and has some kind of breakdown...so when he is eaten by a snake, I didn't feel too bad. Incompetence!

Of the snakes, plenty of Ball pythons (even an albino!), Boas and garter snakes...and waaay too much rattling for any of those. But I digress. There were some darkened shots of long-haul Amtrak passenger trains with Superliner equipment...and despite this, Amtrak (not to mention the Union Pacific, which owns the rights to the SP logo) did not appear in the credits. The crappy interiors of the crappy coaches used in this film date to the 1940's and thank goodness, are not used by Amtrak :o On second thought, It is probably a good thing Amtrak wasn't credited in any way for this production.

So...to the frat boys and beer-blast entheusiasts, this is a good one to have on during rauccous gatherings when nobody is quite sure what is happening. And for railroaders on their off days...hey, you could do worse! Better to watch than work, right? ;)

This movie was pretty much the best movie i have ever seen! With horrible acting and what could be the worst special effects EVER this movie will make u whoopie in ur pants! With an acidtrip ending which was probably written while the scren writer was high on every drug known to man ull be left sitting on ur couch thinking wtfmate! With random creepy perverts, nudity, bloodsplatters, and little girls getting eaten by snakes u could either find this movie oggly dolefus or peefizzle wankleburg! THE PUMKIN OVERLORDS DO NOT NEED TO EXPLAIN THEMSELVES!!!!!! anyway buy this movie or else pandas will eat your face! also watch vampire assasin SO SAY THE PUMPKNI OVERLORDS!

Here's some advice: if you're gonna make a movie called "Snakes on a "Train", you might NOT wanna save the snakes until the last 5 minutes. Even more so about the ending, which involves not a Snake on a Train, but rather a train in a snake. No doubt about it.

A die-hard fan of SNAKES ON A PLANE, I rented SOAT, and thought it would be good. Instead, it was just worse than I thought it would be. Here's what's wrong:

1. Firstoff, let me say that this movie is BORING- The snakes aren't even unleashed until the ending.

2. When I see a film with a tagline that includes "1000 venomous vipers", I EXPECT THERE TO BE VIPERS. THere was only one viper and the rest are just ball pythons and Garter Snakes (WTF?)

3. The characters are underdeveloped, and totally, are boring.

4. TERRIBLE S/FX! (Spoiler) WHen the chick turns into a basilisk at the end, the S/FX are terrible!

So AVOID THIS AT ALL COSTS!

The remake was inevitable. As was Samuel L. Jackson's decision to opt out. Bereft of any sort of redeemable qualities, Snakes on a Train is a cheap knock off, the cinematic equivalent of an ambulance chasing attorney.

The plot centers around an illegal alien named Alma and her friend/lover/whatever named Brujo - a clever usage of Spanish for the ignorant white viewers - on their way via train to Los Angeles to see Brujo's relative who can cure Alma of her illness. A little thing about snakes coming out her various orifices alongside green jello and/or black sludge. Snakes that look like garter snakes but are deadly venomous within seconds and have the ability burrow into human skin on their way to the heart. It's cool though, because Brujo can take out a heart faster than that dude on Temple of Doom.

Actually, I take it back. There really isn't anything cool at all about this movie. The snakes are lame and smaller than advertised, the worst gunfight ever caught on film is thrown in for no reason, and the bad actors portraying irritating characters (read: all of them) didn't die quickly or gruesomely enough. The rules for these movies are simple: boobs and deaths. Both should be ample.

Ultimately, movies like this are never to be taken seriously, and I only laughed out loud once (when the little girl died). That's not enough to rise above the magic tornado (hint hint) of suck this movie exudes.

ok, lets start by saying that THE ASYLUM films can swing in 2 directions: they can either be rediculously entertaining (eg MEGA SHARK VS GIANT OCTOPUS)or boring and dull (the terminators) and, i can tell you that SNAKES ON A TRAIN is the later for the following reasons (POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD):
-the plot is made so that the snakes on a train element in the film really doesent occur untill the last 5 minutes of the film.
-the tag-line should really sound like this: 12 boring passengers, 15 baby pythons and rubbery snakes!....because, well, thats what they are.
-these snakes, even when they are on screen, dont do much at all. all they do is slither around, making passengers run around foolishly. some of the snakes even make sounds like rattle snakes, but do we ever see one? no.
-the glass of the train is obviously fogged up so you couldnt see that the train wasent acctually moving. all we see is flashing lights, which makes it look like a subway train...
-istead of getting '1000 venomouse vipers" killing people, we get 2 guys fighting over...nothing. i guess the director saw that the film was completly devoid of any violence or bad language, so he went back and shot a pointless fight scene between 2 idiots, and made the characters say silly swar words for no particular reason.

despite all of these bad pints, there are a couple of good elements and one very funny scene(you will se what i mean when you watch the movie.apparently it wasnt origonally in the film, but it was added in after the asylum liked the cover art. frankly, if it werent for that one scene, it would have been 1.5 stars)that balance its rating out to 2.5 stars. some of these are:
-there is quite a bit of gore in this one. and some of it is quite grissly (eg. snakes burrowing into peoples flesh, people vomiting up snakes)but it is also quite well done, especially for an asylum movie.
-the acting is above what it is normally like in films of this nature.
-the ending scene is quite hileriouse (THE ASYLUM must like giant creaters eating things they shouldnt. eg. supercroc eats helicopter (SUPERCROC)and lets not forget that unforgetable scene in msvgo when the shark eats a jumbo jet...)

well, thats about it. im not going to tell you to watch it or not, but be warned: its quite boring and pointless until the last 5 minutes. may i advise skipping to the end?

Snakes on a Train (Peter Mervis, 2006)

I originally assumed this was yet another Snakes on a Plane ripoff until I started reading trivia about the movie on various websites. Now, I can't verify this, but it has been said that this was actually going to be the official sequel to one of the strangest movies to get a theatrical release in America in the past decade. Having now watched it, I can understand why the studio ended up disowning it (note I'm making an assumption there); of all the Snakes on a Plane knockoffs I've seen, this is easily the worst. I can think of half a dozen films that would have actually made great sequels to the movie, or were at least good enough to merit a theatrical release. And then there is this.

Plot: Alma (Julia Ruiz, whose only previous experience is playing "Office Hottie" in a TV-movie) has a small problem. She's had a curse placed on her by a brujo (The DaVinci Treasure's A. J. Castro) on her way out of town. She's one of a handful of folks being smuggled on a train, you see. She and the others are in the hold of a rather luxurious passenger train, with a mix of people that looks oddly familiar. And I'm sure I don't need to tell you what the curse is, given the name of the movie.

I'm not going to tell you that this movie is bad because it travels the same basic path as its predecessor. I mean, let's face it, where can you really go when your premise is Snakes on a ___? I expected that. What I didn't expect was that when the budget was (presumably) slashed, every last dollar of the money that was lost seems to have been slated to go to the special effects. One of the things that makes the original movie (and such higher-quality knockoffs as Flight of the Living Dead) so much fun is that the effects are so stupidly over-the-top that you can't help but laugh, and you know the guys who made the movie are laughing with you. But oh, my, we're not laughing with the filmmakers when we're watching these effects. It doesn't help that the acting sets the bar even lower than the original movie did (let's face it, the original was Samuel L. and a bunch of people who couldn't act their collective way out of a paper bag), the pace gives us no tension whatsoever during the setup, and the movie sounds as if the microphones were in the next room.

I'm not going to try and revise my judgment of the film because of my disappointment that this is the sequel to Snakes on a Plane. I'd probably give it a higher rating were it just another bad knockoff. But it's not, and the disappointment is that much greater. * ½

I am going to have to agree with G. Kent below for the most part. However the only difference is that im pretty sure i hate this movie more and would give it negative stars if i could. Where to begin. First of all the story line is absolutly ludacris. I watched it for 20 minutes and kept asking myself is this really what this movie is about. Halfway through u only know the name of maybe one character.
This movie is honestly from the bottom of my heart, without the slightest imaginable bit of exhageration, the worst movie ive ever seen. I think i could make a better movie with my cell phone and 14 year old brother. Dont do to yourself what i did to myself...dont watch this movie unless your being paid a very large amount of money to do it. its a total flop...gag!!

Incase the title hasn't already tipped you off, this is a spin off of Snakes on a Plane. And incase that didn't tip you off, this movie isn't very good... Funny, but not very good...
I like to watch cheesy horror movie because they make me laugh, and this one did it for me rather nicely.
The plot is rather simple, cursed Mexican chicka gets on on a train with her boyfriend in an attempt to reach a shaman in LA who can cure her, but she keeps barfing up posionous snakes (which are somehow part of her) while she keeps getting weaker & weaker and the other passengers get deader & deader.
Wrought with plenty of gore, cheesey lines, and a "WAKE UP AUDIENCE!!!" nude scene, this movie is a hilarious way to spend an hour or two of free time!

This movie gets 2 stars for the epic horror movie that it was supposed to be, but for a funny cheese fest, it gets 3.5!

Also Recommended:
Spiders
Spiders 2
Supergator

It has got to be the worst movie I have ever paid money to see! The story line of the people on the train is so bad, the acting is bad, I would expect this kind of movie to be Debbie does Dallas only with out being a skin flick. Don't buy it!! It is absalutly nothing like Snakes on a Plane.

"Snakes on a Train" was worse than I expected, and I had my expectations set fairly low. Few sympathetic characters, fewer snakes, and a train-wreck of a climax make this a one-star movie.

I didn't really care if any of the characters (except the small child) lived or died. All of the characters were two-legged snakes; let them die. So many characters, so few snakes to kill them. Yawn. Real snakes, albeit tiny ones were present. Some larger snakes appeared later in the movie. And the climax was so ridiculous that it almost made the movie worth another star.

The DVD has a Commentary track that explains why certain cinematic choices were made. The directors, editors, and actors all deserve credit for doing a fair to good job, but the movie really doesn't work for me. The script is awful, and "Snakes in a Train" does not entertain me as a mockbuster should.