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Review: Snake Outta Compton

“Get these Snakes off my Mutha-Fuxkin’ plane” shouts Sammy L, concluding the unlikely 2006 hit ‘Snakes on a Plane’. Well, seems like one snake did indeed follow Jackson’s command, dropping 35,000 feet straight into the heart of gangland – Compton, California.

Sadly, it didn’t survive the fall, but an egg did. Discovered then by mad-scientist ‘Vurkel’ who, amidst the bass heavy grooves of upcoming rap group blaps the snake with a mutagenic ray; needless to say, this causes the snake grows to gigantic proportion kick starting the mayhem.

The plot of ‘Snake Outta Compton’ follows the rap group, themselves on the brink of signing the record deal which will launch their career, a crooked cop and his rookie partner and a slapstick rivalry storyline with the most outrageous white gangsta to whom said rap group owe money to.

Of course, in reality, there is no real plot. The film essentially takes several highly amusing spoof-style scenarios, more than enough gangsta stand-offs, dis battles, rap battles etc and of course, giant snake related carnage and puts them into one 90-minute pot of monster movie madness – oh and countless quotable lines from other movies and other genre in jokes.

Take ‘Scary Movie’ (original) style humour and blend it with modern, CGI heavy monster movie carnage and you’ve got the formula for ‘Snake Outta Compton’. It’s got the perfect humour for my taste. Not too geeky/cringy, quite sarcastic, quick wit, some seriously laugh out loud writing, coupled with a cast who seem to just get that spoof acting doesn’t mean acting foolish yourself – in particular ‘Joston Theney’ who plays thug-cop, ‘Denz’.  Man, that guy had me in stitches, not only did he have some of the best lines the guy is literally the perfect person to cast in this role. The others do a great job too, although I can acknowledge not every character had equal opportunities to develop or shine.

The films set pieces hit the mark to, with the CGI snake often interrupting the main ‘storyline’ clashes between cops and various rap gangs, rather than being the sole focus. The CGI might be deliberately bad, but the action sequences are in brief but frequent, allowing for plenty of imaginative snake-based carnage escalating to a mortal combat style showdown at the end. Sure, enough there is plenty of gross out moments, not just in the form of gore, but some questionable scenarios involving, amongst others, “titty juice” and a guy who really loves the snake. Its all done in good humour to, either offering parody or just outright entertainment without getting so out-there it just becomes unintentionally daft.

Despite my enthusiasm there are the odd moments where things are more cringy than amusing, there is the case of the character R.E.L, a white girl trying to be ‘black’ gangsta which took the spoof too far, to the point of just being infantile rather than funny and… well, in fact that’s pretty much it, aside I suppose the involvement of US air force which seemed to break the whole ‘Outta Compton’ concept but that was a 10 second scene.

To counter, however, there are some really great moments, which just seem to happen so organically I couldn’t stop laughing out loud, so there you go.

Clearly ‘Snake Outta Compton’ isn’t going to be for everybody, but I really thought it was great! Those familiar with my reviews will know that I really don’t dig the whole ‘Mega-creature vs. other mega creature’ Syfy fodder either, so I’m not trying to push the clichéd ‘so bad its good’ concept either. I really thought the writing was witty, the characters enjoyable and with enough solid set pieces to justify such a silly flick being a feature length. Perhaps check out the trailer first, if it takes your fancy then just go for it.

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