“Soul Plane” stars Kevin Hart as Nashawn Wade, who has the unpleasant experience of eating bad stroganoff while taking a flight on Worldwide Airlines. This causes him to have quite an… explosive… incident in the old #2 department. Adding to his nightmare is a rather unfortunate puppy accident (which I will leave to your imagination) making this an altogether memorable flight. On the bright side of his trauma is the $100,000,000 dollar payoff he receives, thanks to our wonderfully sue happy society. Ever the failed entrepreneur, Nashawn decides to invest in his own airline, imaginatively named NWA (Nashawn Wade Airlines). I’ll admit to not being a huge fan of a lot of the African American comedies, both in movies and on TV. This isn’t a racist thing (so please, no flames…), but more of a cultural misunderstanding. Most of the time I get the jokes and understand why they should be funny, but they just aren’t necessarily funny to me.

I was afraid the same thing would happen with “Soul Plane”, so I wasn’t sure I was the right guy to review it. I opted to give it a try anyway. Unfortunately, I may have been right about not being the right guy.

To the film’s credit, it was actually a lot funnier than I expected it to be. However, if I were to break it down, I’d have to give it a 75-25 score. 25% of the film was inspired. The jokes were funny, clear cut and didn’t run on too long. Even the design of the plane offers lot to laugh about. On the other end, 75% of the movie was filled with rather lame humor. Either the jokes were horribly racial in nature, or they just ran on past the point of being funny anymore. I see this latter problem in a lot of films, where e particular scene is quite funny, but then the director decides to keep going until the joke wears thin. If anything, “Soul Plane” was in need of a better editor and maybe that score could have been more 50-50.

As for the DVD being released this week from MGM, I will say the extra features somewhat outweigh the film itself. There are two different versions being released, the rated and the unrated. I have the unrated in front of me and here’s what you get. First up is a commentary which features director Jessy Terrero and actors Hart, Gary Anthony Williams and Godfrey (yes… that’s his whole name). For the most part they sit around and cut up during the length of the movie, only occasionally giving out real info on the production. There’s some funny stuff in here, depending on your own personal comedic tastes.

From there you can find a short ‘Making of…’ featurette, complete with interviews from a good number of the cast and crew. The two features that are definitely worth a look are the ‘safety video’ and the outtakes. Both of these as a whole are funnier than the film itself. There are also some deleted scenes, most of which you can tell why they were cut. On a side note about these deleted scenes, I understand that they are different on the two releases. I have only seen the ones on the unrated version so I cannot tell you if the ones on the rated version are worth a look. I think this is rather strange, as I feel you should be able to get everything on the unrated version that is on the rated one, with the unrated version having even more. They do this in the case of the featurette entitled “The Upgrade” which is only available on the unrated version.

“Soul Plane” was funnier than I thought it would be, but I saw a lot of undeveloped potential. It really could have been better. It will undoubtedly appeal to a select audience, but certainly not to everyone.

Directed by: Jessy Terrero
Starring: Tom Arnold, Kevin Hart, Method Man, Snoop Dog
Extras: “Boarding Pass - The Making of Soul Plane”, The Upgrade - Featurette on the Director, Deleted Scenes, Outtakes, Audio Commentary with Kevin Hart, Tom Arnold, Gary Anthoy Williams, Godfrey and Director Jessy Terrero, Easter Egg - Frequent Flyers, Survivor Safety Video, Theatrical Trailer, Behind the Scenes Photo Gallery, Def Jam Video Game Trailer
Specifications:
Studio: MGM
Release Date: 9/7/2004
Region 1
MPAA Rating: NR
Website

We'll give Soul Plane a D.