`SNAKES ON A PLANE' GOOD OPPORTUNITY FOR A HISSY FIT.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

`Snakes on a Plane'' cements its legend somewhere between the time one angry snake interrupts a hot-and-heavy couple's induction bid for the Mile High Club and the moment that a viper pops out of a toilet and clamps down on a man's privates. (You don't want to use the lavatory on this aircraft.)

Unlike this summer's lineup of bloated, would-be blockbusters, ``Snakes on a Plane,'' which opened Friday, delivers exactly what you want and expect of snakes on a motherlovin' plane. It doesn't have the wink-wink irony that so much of its Internet fan base desperately wants, but it doesn't need it. Director David R. Ellis has crafted a solid B-movie that takes delight in recognizing its humble ambitions and fulfilling them in every way possible.

How many ways? You've got a worldwide coalition of poisonous snakes, chomping at the bit to sink their fangs into women, children and Chihuahuas; snakes unleashed by a Hawaiian mobster looking to take down a planeload of passengers to keep a surfer dude (Nathan Phillips) from testifying against him in court. The only thing standing between the plane and the Pacific is Samuel L. Jackson, his black leather jacket and his justifiable anger at those &#(at)*$# snakes.

The movie takes 20 minutes to get the plane in the air. There's a fair amount of clumsy, old-school cop-show-

style set-up, and it's another couple of minutes until you see the snakes. After that, time flies as the hundreds of adders, pythons, boas and rattlers make their way from the cargo hold to the passengers' eye sockets and what not. (There's hardly a body part left unexplored by the serpents in this movie.)

Jackson and his cast mates play everything straight, going against some fanboy expectations that the film would aim for intentional awfulness. This approach translates into a viewing experience that is something of a pop-culture hall of mirrors, where death scenes prompt ripples of laughter as hipsters strain to find irony in absolute earnestness.

Ellis is certainly in on the joke, understanding that ``Snakes'' is a goof, playing on two of our biggest fears and adding a new phobia -- going to the bathroom on an airplane -- in the process. For a movie like this to work, all it needs is a great leading man (Jackson) and a handful of scenes that make you groan and laugh at the same time. There are at least three of those here, which makes ``Snakes'' a cheesy pleasure that you have no reason to feel guilty about seeing.

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

SNAKES ON A PLANE - Three stars

(R: language, sex, drug use, intense sequences of terror and violence)

Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Julianna Margulies.

Director: David R. Ellis.

Running time: 1 hr. 4i min.

Playing: In wide release.

In a nutshell: Snakes. Lots of them. On a plane.

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Photo:

Samuel L. Jackson is one very angry passenger aboard an airliner infested with vipers in the new film ``Snakes on a Plane.''