Piranha [Blu-ray] [2010] [US Import]

Welcome to Spring Break at Lake Victoria! This year the college students have alot more to worry about than hangovers or STDs. A massive underwater earthquake opens up a mysterious chasm, releasing an ancient swarm of psychotic little fish. These little buggers are super hungry.

Let me just say that hot naked chicks make great fish food. This movie has a ridiculous amount of nudity and the most immaculate gore you'll likey ever see in 3-D! Seriously, these piranha can chomp through human flesh like a lawnmower through grass. Any appendages dipping into the water get instantly devoured down to the bone. Everywhere you look there are chunks of bloody arms, mangled legs, or human carcasses floating around. This has some gruesome effects that are great sick fun. Really it's an absurd, catastrophic mess.

To top off the awesome gore and plethora of topless women, we have a nice ensemble cast providing a good dose of comedy. Jerry O'Connell is especially hilarious as a sleazy porn director. Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future) also does great. Elizabeth Shue, Ving Rhames, and several others lead the way. Eli Roth has a small role. Richard Dreyfuss even makes an appearance in a bit of a Jaws homage. Way too fun!

Director Alexandre Aja struck gold with this one. Piranha 3-D lives up to the hype and then some. It does have some minor flaws and/or cliched developments, but still it was the funnest time I've had in the theater in quite awhile. Don't miss it!

The Review:

Piranha 3D is a new film by Alexandre Aja, maker of the 2006 remake of the The Hills Have Eyes. Piranha 3D is unbelievably crude, gory and certainly not the best written film, but you know what? It's also a lot of fun. It's probably a better B movie than Quentin Tarantino's and Robert Rodriguez's Grind House (Death Proof and Planet Terror) of a few years ago.

Piranha 3D takes place over spring break in a picturesque lake town (the film was shot entirely on location in Lake Havisu). Inexplicably an underwater earth quake tears open a rift beneath the lake, revealing a deeper underwater lake (yes, that's probably redundant), which is home to prehistoric piranhas that have survived for millions of years. This setup is appropriately preposterous and we the viewers know the type of movie we're in for when the effect of the underwater quake creates a funnel that looks suspiciously like a toilet flushing. It's a super campy opening sequence that sets the tone for the rest of the film. What passes for the plot is hardly worth summarizing. Suffice it to say this unfortunate infestation by prehistoric pygocentrus nattereri is occurring when thousands of kids descend on the town for spring break. What follows is a series of gory dismemberments and naked frolics--in 3D!

Piranha 3D is a self aware send-up of the gore fests of the 70s and 80s like Jaws and the original Piranha. The stars are clearly having a lot fun with it, especially Jerry O'Connell as soft core porn producer, Derrick Jones, a send up of Girls Gone Wild impresario, Robert Francis, which is a nice segue way into the fact that this movie is a hard R. The fact that this wasn't NC-17 demonstrates the utter ridiculousness of the movie ratings system. Free Willy, this is not. There's as much T&A and probably more frontal nudity than one might see in Girls Gone Wild (alas I've never had the pleasure of seeing any of Mr. Francis' direct to DVD masterpieces). There's an underwater naked ballet featuring Kelly Brook and Riley Steele that goes on for damn near 5 minutes. It's awkward, but hilarious because of it, especially when you realize that they've been underwater long enough to have drowned halfway through the sequence.

Then there is the gore. "Over the top" does not even begin to describe it. Unlike movies like Hostel, which have been described as torture porn, Piranha 3D is so gory and self aware that its portrayal of aquatic violence is comedic. When I saw this movie opening night the audience laughed a lot in a good way. The 3D effects merely accentuated the film's crude humor and its ubiquitous gore. One of the members of the cast meets a particularly ignoble end in what is probably a 3D first, which I won't spoil for you here.

All in all, Piranha 3D is a rousing success at recreating a B-movie. The 3D is surprisingly well done and greatly adds to the over the top feel of the film. This is, however, not great cinema, but that's not the point. See this movie with people that appreciate schlocky horror movies and who have a good sense of humor. Don't see it with your parents and for heaven's sake don't take little children to see it. It is offensive, and it is crude and it is a lot of fun when viewed for what it is, which is a campy send up of the genre.

FTC Advisory: I purchased my own tickets.

Piranha 3D is a remake of the 1978 original film Piranha which was itself a parody of the classic film Jaws. The film was made by French producer Alexandre Aja best known for his remake of The Hills Have Eyes. You might be asking yourself: now why would Piranhas come out of seemingly nowhere and kill people? The storyline provides the answer: 1) There is a lake under a lake in which Piranhas have survived by eating their own kind in order to survive in this prehistoric lake and when an earthquake hits the Piranhas break loose 2) This is a "horror" movie (I'd say it's more of a horror-comedy), it doesn't have to actually make sense in order to enjoy. This is a remake of a movie that was really a parody of Jaws, let's put it that way.

I'd say a fun aspect of the film is how it's not that well-written but it makes for a fun B movie. One advantage the movie has is acting, except some characters that were rather goofy the acting in Piranha 3D is pretty good considering how this is a horror movie. The main characters especially were portrayed by good actors in which we actually do see a development to the point that we do care if they survive. The humor of the movie is similar to that of teen aimed movies such as American Pie and Sex Drive, not necessarily a bad thing unless you would consider that sort of humor juvenile. For instance about the humor, watching a penis eaten by piranhas with the 3D effect can only be funny or tasteless, you decide! Now the 3D effect worked very well to a certain degree I'm not sure how well it worked because I have not seen much 3D movies as of yet. Yet there were some pretty good effects and some good thrills resulted out of it. The Piranhas looked amazing and the death scenes (of which there are many) were done in an excellent gory way and looked like an actual death suffered due to Piranhas, it was convincing and not over-exaggerated like you might think it would be. A low point would be the ending as it's a big thrill but ends perhaps too suddenly and surprisingly (maybe a Piranha 3D 3 is in the works? Yes Dimension Films has announced that due to the success earned on the opening weekend by grossing over 10 millions there will be a sequel).

Was I disappointed with Piranha? Not really as I knew what to expect (even though some things were unexpected) and knew what kind of movie I was going into. Should you expect high quality from this movie? The answer is no but you should expect to have some fun watching it, especially with friends. Who would I recommend Piranha 3D to? To those who are looking for a fun mindless movie on a boring night, it's entertaining to say the least. One thing is sure if you think the movie misses the target it achieved (whatever it is) it misses in an amusing way. 3 stars out of 5, flawed but fun in the way that you enjoy a good B movie.