Real-Time Review: Boa Vs. Python

0 minutes – John flips the TV to the TV Guide channel, and within the first few seconds a promising movie title scrolls by: BOA VS. PYTHON. How can this not be the worst movie ever?

We must watch it.

1 minute – The movie opens with highly-special-effectized credits and a rousing pseudoepic DUM-DUM, DUM-DUM, DUM-DUM theme. As they close, some text in Copperplate Gothic scrolls past us, identifying that we are in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

An announcer is starting a boxing match. Could this be the epic fight that the movie title promised us? Two snakes in a boxing ring in Atlantic City? If so, it’s probably gonna be a short movie. Which might be good, because I don’t think I want to spend much time on this.

Sadly, the announcer says, “In this corner, hailing from New Jersey at 6 feet and 240 pounds, [some guy’s name].” Not, “In this corner, hailing from New Jersey at 6 feet and 240 pounds, a ginormous f@#$ing python!” I die a little inside, and realize we may be in for a long and boring movie that tries to develop a plot. Which is pointless. I want to see a snake fight, not a story.

6 minutes – Shots of the fight are interspersed with shots of people with accents and guns. Russian accents. In movie speak, that means they’re the bad guys.

I look up from writing this review to note that the boxers aren’t actually boxers, they’re Luchadors, with the masks and such. Not like the guy in the mask in WWE who has “Mexican” tattooed on his stomach, thus proving that he’s not white but actually Mexican.

The guy who’s apparently the main character and his girlfriend kiss. Ewww. I look away from the screen. I’m too young for this.

The woman starts taking a bath, as all horror movie heroines do. John notes that she has fuzzy stuff all over her, which is his way of expressing disappointment at the censorship of nudity.

The woman finds a snake in the bath, and carries it out to gripe at her boyfriend fo playing such a cruel joke.

I think they’re on a plane, too. Haw haw.

Somewhere, I imagine Samuel L. Motherf@#$ing Jackson is channel surfing. He sees this movie and swears swift and unrelenting vengeance. Because that’s the only way to combat copyright infringement.

And by Gavin, he shall have his vengeance.

15 minutes – An arrogant TV reporter announces that a truck which has wrecked or blown up or something–I can’t tell because I’m writing this and not paying 100% attention–is very likely a terrorist attack in middle America.

Wait… what? Apparently, it’s not news, it’s Action News 15.

Also, it’s funny ’cause the reporter keeps saying “ahl kwaiaida” instead of “ahl kayda” for “Al-Qaeda.” I’m not sure if this is a jab at stupid arrogant Americans with their stupidity and ignorance or stupid foreigners with their funny talk. Maybe it’s both.

Anyway, we learn that there’s a large empty animal crate on the truck, and it contains a very large scale. And what has scales? Snakes.

18 minutes – A commercial break. Sweet relief. I catch up on writing/proofreading the real-time review, and prepare myself for the horrors ahead.

20 minutes – John walks back in the room and says, “Why are we watching a bad movie like this when we could be watching a bad movie like Dead or Alive?” I concede he has a point. Jen, however, wants to see the big snake, so we keep watching.

The movie’s back on. A stupid local deputy (we can tell this not because of character development, but because he has a vaguely countrified accent) falls over and talks to the US government agents investigating the truck breakdown.

The government agents are some horrible combination of Mulder and Scully the cast of Law and Order. Except without the quality that either of those shows provide.

The guy asks tells orders the women to pull some files on a CIA mission gone wrong where two snakes wrecked havoc in Russia. Misogyny for the win. Also, he tells her to get Monica someone-or-other on the phone, at which point we cut to a half-naked woman climbing out of a pool. Because that’s such a logical transition.

The young woman, who identifies herself as a former Navy diver who works with dolphins, challenges a blustering tough guy to see who can hold their breath the longest. As John predicts, she begins using her feminine wiles to win.

This woman is apparently the Monica that Wannabe Mulder needs to talk to, who’s going to hand over four years of research on snakes. She’s apparently the token hot young heroine whose main purpose is to hold the interest of men who’d otherwise be horribly bored by this movie. It’s not working, because the movie is just that bad.

28 minutes – Monica is talking to Wannabe Mulder about some scientist who can help them. She says he’s eccentric, like a combination of Christopher Lloyd and Jeff Goldblum… coincidentally, two of the finest actors ever to portray a mad scientist ever. Either of those actors could out-act the entire cast of this movie combined.

I’m not kidding about that either. Are you listening to me Hollywood? I demand more A-list movies starring Christopher Lloyd. The man can convincingly play a spaced-out taxi driver, a crazy inventor, and an evil wizard… what more do you want?

John says, “Great scott, Marty!”

John and Jen argue whether Monica just referred to the guy as a “reptatologist” or a “herpetologist.”

Dr. Lloyd Goldblum has apparently grown a giant snake on the premesis, and Wannabe Mulder and Monica want to see it. There is an untoward joke that could be made at this point, but I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader.

30 minutes – And we still haven’t seen a giant snake yet. What the bloody hell is this?

A commercial break! Sweet merciful relief again!

34 minute – Oh crap, it’s back. I’m getting tired of trying to keep up with the movie and write.

The snake is apparently kept in some sort of giant cell. But it’s not an ordinary cell, is it? It’s an anti-Mulian cell with a voice recognition lock. (Tears up.) And it’ll kill him if he tries to escape, won’t it?! *Cries*

Sorry, I drifted off and started imagining I was watching something good. What were we watching again?

Oh crap. It’s this movie. Dead or Alive is sounding really appealing right now.

Scientist guy reveals that they feed their snake other snakes. OM NOM NOM HISS NOM NOM HISS.

Blah blah blah toxins and antibodies. I’m pretty sure this is crossing the line into technobabble at this point, because I think antibodies and antivenom are two entirely different things. Not that the writers care.

The snake is ginormous and also bad CGI. Wannabe Mulder, master of the understatement, says “This is big, and big is nice.” Someone get this guy a thesaurus.

We cut to the first guy we saw in the movie. How do you catch a snake? Why, you hire a tough bald Vin Diesel wannabe carrying a crossbow. Then, First Guy gathers a couple of guys in orange vests and Vin Diesel Wannabe into a dark room to have a meeting on The Hunt. Apparently there’s a snake on the loose.

First Guy offers them a beer and a smoke. One of the hunters in orange vests asks for a Sprite. Everyone laughs. If you like to drink Sprite, apparently you’re gay.

44 minutes – Commercial break. I am not willing to spend any more time on this review.