The first screening was Thursday night at 10, and I was there. I think I was the only critic in the joint, and here's my one-word review: AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH! The parts I saw was a much better movie than I thought I was going to see. Jackson plays an FBI agent escorting a key witness in a murder trial from Hawaii to Los Angeles. How does the bad guy keep the witness from testifying? Four little words: snakes on a plane.

Much less a gorefest than most contemporary horror films, the film plays like a suspense thriller gone wacko — a thrill ride that's a whole lot of silliness and even more fun. I won't tell you what the snakes do, the places they come out of, or the places they bite people, but more than one of those bites ensured the film would be R-rated. Think "Airplane" meets that scene in the pit from "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Virtually all the articles I read about "Snakes on a Plane," written by people who hadn't seen it, used the adjective, "cheesy." Not true.

This is a good-looking film, and Jackson is just so much fun to watch. The other horror films that are out there? This one's a slither above them all. Grade: B