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Movie Review - Soul Plane
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(What this rating means)
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| Director: |
Jesse Terrero |
| Starring: |
Kevin Hart, Tom Arnold, Snoop Dogg, and Method Man |
| Rated: |
R (for sexual content and adult language) |
| Length: |
95 minutes |
| Genre: |
Comedy |
| Website: |
Soul Plane |
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PLOT
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Disgruntled passenger Nashawn Wade (Hart) wins a lawsuit against an airline and decides to open his own
airline tailored for African-Americans. The maiden flight does not go as expected. Lame jokes and negative
stereotypes ensue.
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MR. SHADE'S TAKE
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I really thought the trailer for this movie looked funny, but I was concerned that all the good stuff was in the
trailer. For the most part, I was right. There were 3-4 funny parts outside of the trailer that were funny, but
there was definitely not enough material to make a full motion picture. The "black Airplane" this movie is not.
The cast looks good on paper: Tom Arnold and Snoop Dogg. Tom Arnold does a decent job of playing the fish out of
water (he's the only white guy on the plane). He has a pretty funny scene with Karl Malone - apparently they played
on the same high school basketball team and Karl Malone was the "Paper Boy."
Johnny's note: For all my non-sports-savvy readers, Karl Malone's NBA
nickname is "The Mailman." That bit of information is free of charge, by the way.
He was in a couple of other scenes that were humorous, but most of the time Arnold appears to be
trying to do too much with too little. Snoop Dogg, on the other hand, is not used well at all. He basically plays
his gangsta rap character - he throws out a lot of cursing and racial slurs. I thought he was much funnier in
"Starsky and Hutch" and even "Malibu's Most Wanted."
Kevin Hart is terrible. I've never seen his TV show "The Big House," but I can imagine how awful it must be. I
have no idea why anyone would pick him to headline a movie. If they couldn't get anyone better they should have
just used Snoop Dogg or Method Man as the main character - it's not like this is a serious film. The rest of the
cast won't be winning any Oscars anytime soon, but at least they had a little bit of charisma.
The main problem with the movie is that the plot and jokes are lame. They basically throw in things like
strippers for stewardesses and a nightclub in the plane. These situations just aren't funny by themselves. They
also throw in the obligatory gay character that overplays all the stereotypes to get cheap laughs. John
Witherspoon plays some blind guy who tries to grab the stewardesses when they get near. There's just not enough
of a plot to carry the movie during the unfunny parts.
The other major problem is that towards the end they try to get serious - Nashawn is trying to get his long lost
love, and Tom Arnold is trying to reconcile with his daughter. By this time we've seen too many ridiculous scenes
to take anything in the movie seriously. Has Tom Arnold ever played a serious character (even for a minute) in his
life? Why would you have him try it now?
Johnny's note: Well, he's been in some seriously bad movies. Does
that count?
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MAMA'S APPROVAL
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No way. Way too much sexual content - there's no nudity but it's still really strong. Tons of cursing and racial
slurs don't help much.
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TRAILER COMPARISON
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The trailer shows most of the funny parts of the movie and implies that the movie is a non-stop laugh riot.
It's mostly a snooze-fest.
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THE GIST
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Many people will be offended by the negative stereotypes and racial slurs in "Soul Plane." I was much more
offended by the lack of humor. Teenagers will probably think this movie is hilarious, but most of them
shouldn't be seeing it. My suggestion is that you wait until the movie comes out on TV and find
someone who has already seen the movie so that they can tell you where to fast forward to. This movie would
have been hilarious as a 15-minute skit on the Dave Chappelle show.
Johnny's note: There's one problem in your suggestion, Shade-o:
judging by the box office numbers, it'll probably be hard to find somebody who actually saw the movie. So
everybody just contact Mr. Shade and he'll tell you which scenes to look for.
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