Story? Here’s the story: MGM grossed $140 million domestic from its sleeper hits Barbershop and its sequel and now they apparently think black audiences will flock in droves to whatever pile of drivel the studio chooses to make for them. The fact that this particular pile was written by a white man with a Jewish producer and a Latino director only makes that notion more convincing. Oh wait you mean the other story? Two words: Urban Airplane!. Kevin Hart plays Nashawn Wade whose dreams of owning an airline come true when he gets stuck in an airline toilet and sues the airline. On the maiden flight the pilot (Snoop Dogg) passes out in a haze of marijuana smoke and Nashawn with the help of his longtime ex-girlfriend (K.D. Aubert who somehow doesn’t know that he’s the owner) must land the plane.
The character is named Nashawn Wade see so they can call the airline he owns “N.W.A.” This is
illustrative of every other joke in the movie: hopelessly contrived taking forever to pay off and not really worth it when it does. The co-pilot’s name is Gaeman. When you need to set up your comedy by giving the characters funny names you’re in serious trouble. And if Chris Tucker is Eddie Murphy Lite then Kevin Hart is Chris Tucker Lite. The laughs get farther and farther apart as the annoying voice becomes increasingly high-pitched and nasal. What this movie needed was a straight man a la Robert Hays in Airplane! some deadpan some Leslie Nielsen some wit. No actor in Soul Plane is close to supplying it. In fact no one here can even perform a simple double-take. In keeping with the movie’s offend all comers mentality: Soul Plane is the Special Olympics
of comedy. Snoop Dogg is wasted literally and figuratively. So is Method Man who mostly stands around looking bored. Even Tom Arnold as the token cracker seems to be distancing himself with every line reading. Now John Gielgud and Peter O’Toole have slummed in comedies before and let us know they knew. But when Arnold is saying “I’m too good for this” well you might as well go straight to video.
Director Jessy Terrero has remade Airplane! without absorbing any of its lessons. Without question the original was amateurish puerile and lame for stretches. But it worked memorably for two reasons: With about four jokes per minute hitting the screen there was always something funny even when the batting average was low. Soul Plane has closer to one joke every four minutes. The movie feels long at 86 minutes. But most of all the dialogue in Airplane! was genius. Lines like “Looked like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue” and “I am serious and don’t call me Shirley” are still repeated today. Soul Plane‘s lines will also be repeated in the future by anyone who thinks “F— you N—–” is an acceptable conversation-starter. If the movie has one strong point the production design is consistently amusing. The plane itself is a vision of pimped-out purple velour glory. Coin-operated bus station lockers serve as storage in the “Low Class” seats. There is one laugh-out-loud sight gag involving Catholic priests. But even as you’re laughing you’re shaking your head thinking: They got their one laugh out of a Catholic priest joke. Ouch.
