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I’ve been criticized many times on my questionable taste in comedy. While I admit that very few things beat a well-timed fart joke (okay, fine…even a poorly-timed fart joke), I also do believe that people are most allowed to have differing opinions about comedy. We all went through our terrible Adam Sandler phase (and thankfully I grew up in the era of The Waterboy, not Grown-Ups), and that’s allowed (for a few years, at least). Yet, really, is it that our taste in comedy is improving or that Adam Sandler is just sucking? After all, my parents’ generation can still laugh at the “plastics” line in The Graduate when my generation (including myself) doesn’t even understand it, let alone find it funny.

Anyone who knows me or has been reading these columns for the past few months can tell that my taste in film (and media in general) can be often be considered questionable. I accept that (in 2010, I preferred Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time to Toy Story 3) but usually don’t see how people’s opinions can differ from mine. I’ve been surprised to see how many bottom 10 lists I’m Still Here is on. It’s a fantastic work of art and everyone should agree with me. When it comes to comedy, though, feel free to disagree with me. Not everyone laughs at what I find funny. And unfortunately, precious few have seen the greatness that is Soul Plane.

I don’t know what drew me to buy a ticket for Soul Plane to begin with (well, I bought a ticket to Shrek 2 and then snuck in, to be honest). I don’t recall there being lots of trailers or commercials for it. Maybe I was just in my prime “buy a ticket for a crappy movie and go into a rated R movie” phase. Or maybe it was Snoop Dogg. He does have mysterious ways about him. Regardless, I found Soul Plane to be hilarious then, and after multiple rewatches as the sophisticated cineaste I am today, it’s still really funny.

Kevin Hart, after winning a lawsuit against an airline when they killed his dog, decides to start his own airline. The film follows the Soul Plane’s inaugural flight from LAX to New York (of course) and all of the wacky goings-on. His brother Method Man comes along and wreaks havoc, Academy Award winner Mo’Nique plays a sassy NSA agent (who somehow ends up on board), and Snoop Dogg is the pilot with no training. Tom Arnold and his family are the only white people on board (of course), and cultures clash. In the end, Airplane!-style plot devices happen and the unlikely group must all come together to save the day.

Often, when humor is based on stereotypes, it just comes out being offensive. One way to combat that is by offending all types. That’s something that Crank 2: High Voltage was able to do well, and Soul Plane does too. Granted, some of the jokes are flat-out lame and dated even for 2004 (everyone assumes that a Muslim is a terrorist? Is that, um, a joke? At least he’s redeemed in the epilogue), but the insults at everyone’s cultures are very fair and balanced. It’s pretty surprising to see that no one really gets shortchanged or overly insulted (well, besides the Muslims). Of course, there’s no one more insulting to white people than Tom Arnold, and all of those jokes come easily, but the send-ups of black culture are not shied away from either, and it’s nice to see an equal-opportunity-offender succeed so much.

Soul Plane does have jokes that fall flat, yes. This isn’t the most deftly written comedy ever. No one expects that. What is surprising, though, is that so many of the jokes do work. They’re not particularly clever lots of the time (D.L. Hughley, the bathroom attendant, plays “Push It” to help Tom Arnold in the bathroom. Clever, no. Funny, surprisingly so) but the charisma of the talent elevates the humor from pretty generic and base to, occasionally, wildly funny. I had never respected Tom Arnold before Soul Plane, but he’s got great comic timing. Everyone works well in conjunction with one another, and it really succeeds when it probably shouldn’t.