After the death of his girlfriend, a government agent looks into the disappearance by observing an employee on a ship to get answers, but when the ship is overrun with snakes from the experiment must get survivors off the ship to a deserted island where they find more creatures awaiting them.
This was a spectacular effort that has quite a lot to like about it. One of the biggest factors going for it is a standout story that manages to keep this one interesting as it goes along with some fun reveals as it goes. The cold open providing hints as to the military experiment that results in the genetically modified snakes needing to be destroyed and their eventual escape by fighting back features the kind of strong start to get this going early on introducing the corporation's desire to keep everything secret so their team gets taken out trying to accomplish that. The resulting investigation by her boyfriend who discovers the secret operative on the cruise and decides to look into everything which causes him to discover the results of their experiments looking to secure greater qualities of snake skin for designer material from larger snakes gives everything full context and allows for a generally great time here. The other rather impressive feature of the film is a stellar series of attacks and action scenes that are exceptionally fun. The opening attempt by the corporation to kill their snakes in the facility and surrounding fields only for the snakes to fight back results in spectacular sequences featuring the creatures swarming the execution crew taking them out with bites or crashing an escaping vehicle into something to causing it to explode in extended sequences while the massive monster-sized version takes out stragglers is the kind of gloriously cheesy starting point to the fun found here. The later sequences, with the snakes shown taking over the cruise ship in equally extended scenes squirming victims on the main deck, down in the gallery, or dropping out of the vents to grab passengers fleeing through the hallways as they try to escape are just as good producing intriguing attacks. The escape attempt here, where the survivors battle the massive swarms of snakes and the giant creature also on the ship, gives this plenty of cheesy action as well which all comes together with the action in the finale and its cheesy effects for a lot to like. There are some issues to be had with this one. The main detriment present here in the film is a shockingly bizarre turn away from the ship to landing on the deserted island at the halfway point as it feels like two different films stitched together into one finished film. The scenes on the ship are goofy and cheesy in the best way with the creatures swarming the screaming passengers and feeling like a confined creature feature epic, while the low-rent scale of the scenes of the tropical island is somewhat obvious taking the action out of the ship to the jungle which includes mysterious flesh-eating plants or tree-sized spiders for single sequences without much explanation. This does work nicely from an action standpoint talking about what it takes to stop the creature and the tactics used to do that, but it's just how different this feels compared to the first half, and with the goofy effects featured here are the drawbacks on display.
Rated Unrated/R: Violence and Language.
