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A cargo plane ploughs through a storm, carrying a top secret cargo, the pilot (played by Ed Lauter, fact fans!) orders his co-pilot to go check the cargo, and of course something in the cargo hold attacks him and soon the plane has gone down in a forest. A forest a lot like those which surround the small town where John Cooper (Frayne Rosanoff) lives. He’s a fun-loving tearaway, with a good heart mind you, who recently got back into town and reclaimed his ex-girlfriend Kristie and stopped her from marrying someone else. Unfortunately for him the ‘someone else’ was Greg (William Zabka from The Karate Kid and Shootfighter!) who happens to be a local sheriff. John also has his best buddy Tommy (Wil Wheaton!), a surfer dude without the surf who wants to become a successful real estate agent so he can marry his girlfriend, though he’d better consider losing the purple hair first. John works for his brother Brian over at a chemical plant, and though John really doesn’t do anything wrong his brother is always on his back about being a loser and a disgrace to their family. Save the drama for your mama though, as it seems that someone was reported as missing, and its not long before she’s found – just skeleton and icky blood n’ guts, like she’d been melted away. Say, that John Cooper has been working over at his brother’s chemical plant! They got those them there acids and stuff down at that there chemical plant! Greg already hates John’s guts, and now there’s an unexplainable death which happens to involve what looks like acid. Sucks to be John, especially when he’s the main suspect and nobody believes him when he sees the snake shortly after mauling an estate agent and decapitating Jenny McCarthy. Sucks to be John, but that snake RULES.
Meanwhile in some unspecified office somewhere, Marshall Bart Parker (Casper Van Dien!!) is grilling Dr. Anton Rudolph (Robert Englund!!!!) about whatever was in that plane. Seems it was, shockingly, a giant mutant python which can spit acid, is 129 metres long, is very intelligent and has a voracious hunger for human flesh. Doh! Parker and a reluctant Rudolph head off to the secluded town where the gooey melted corpses are popping up. Parker clears things up a little with the Sheriff as he and his squad role into town, the sheriff knows Parker and his men mean business because he has a totally unidentifiable accent and uses words like “expedient”. John is cleared and he and his friend go up into the mountains (Tommy says they’ll see if there’s any room up at Crystal Lake, arf arf) while at the same time, Parker and his men set up camp in a large underground fallout shelter where they’re sure they’re safe from the snake. I’m sure they’ll catch it easily and everybody will live happily ever after.
So the first question that must be asked, is the snake cool? Well yes and no. Yes, as in its HUGE, it has some imagination and finds a few different ways to kill people, and its reasonably convincing for a big b-movie CGI reptile, plus it just looks SO COOL smashing through things and looking huge. No as in, well, it just doesn’t get enough screen time. When you buy a movie called Python, and the cover is just a big picture of a snake, you’re expecting, nay demanding lots of big snake action! However, they spend just a little too much time on the characters, you know the one time when you don’t give a crap about characterisation and just want everyone to hurry up and die is the one time you get it. All I wanted was a giant snake killing people, but you get to see parts of some crappy teen drama too. There’s the relationship between John and his big brother Brian who thinks he’s a deadbeat that disgraced their dead father’s legacy; John and Greg trying to deal with their differences; some guy trying to sell Jenny McCarthy a house; we want the damn snake! I guess this is why it took 4 people to write the screenplay right?
Unfortunately, though the two names mentioned on the cover are Casper Van Dien and Robert Englund, don’t get your hopes up. Sure, you’re not going to get your hopes too high for Casper anyway, but he and his ridiculous accent play a pretty small role in the movie. How sad is it that Casper, only a few short years ago starring in the high-profile Starship Troopers now finds himself a bit player in a cheesy killer snake movie, where some guy from The Karate Kid has a bigger role? If he wasn’t such a horrible actor I’d feel really sorry for him. Robert fares somewhat better, but he’s a mere Mr. Belding to Frayne Rosanoff’s Zach, who gets all the pointless subplots to set him up as the underdog hero. Its not often that I’d say this but this movie really could have done with less of these extra characters and *gulp* more Casper Van Dien. His character with the bizarre half deep south, half upper class gay Englishman accent was responsible for much of the non-snake entertainment, though Robert Englund has his moments as the creepy snake cuddling scientist. Despite the attempts at ‘depth’ to the plot, the cast really isn’t up the task. Rosanoff has only two facial expressions to work with, and, dude, Wil Wheaton is just goddamn awful, dude, as the, dude, surfer dude, dude.
So we needed more giant killer snake, and more Casper Van Dien. Doesn’t sound too good does it?
What with the churning out of killer snake movies the last few years, my fear is that the movie makers are fast running out of names for these movies. The good ones like Anaconda, King Cobra, Python and even Boa have all gone. I thought I would try and help, by coming up with some more less likely snake titles for our hard working b-movie hacks. Its the least I can do:
- somehow this hasn't been picked up yet
Got any ideas? Mail them to me and I'll add them to the list!