The Samuel Jackson flick Snakes on a Plane will hit theaters everywhere tomorrow with perhaps more internet hype and a longer Wikipedia article than any new release in history. It's also most likely the only film to inspire spinoffs before even reaching the viewing public, including--but not limited to--SoaP Sudoku, the prequel Snakes on a Biplane, two TV sitcoms, and the straight-to-video Snakes on a Train. Unable to contain his curiosity, Bwog correspondent John Shekitka picked up the book version, and has this review. Warning: spoilers abound!

Are you afraid of snakes? Afraid of planes? How about Snakes On a Plane? Want to hear the only thing more terrifying than this deadly combination? Its novelization!

Christina Faust, who also committed to paper Final Destination 3, has managed to craft this 400-page one-trick pony into an engaging read. Fortunately, Ms. Faust seems to understand that the plot just serves as one long prologue for the main event: snakes killing people on a plane. Character sketches will serve as the appetizer. Fanged carnage will be the entrée.

The plot is classically B-movie: a surfer dude in Hawaii finds himself sole witness to a cadre of Korean Mafioso types beating the crap out of a District Attorney with a bat. Enter FBI Agent Neville Flynn, Samuel L. Jackson's character in the film version. In a pitfall of the medium, the paperback fails to fully convey Flynn's ass-kicking aspect, leaving me to envision a huge bald-headed black guy with a Jedi cloak and purple lightsaber.