Piranha 3D

Piranha 3D (2010)

81% on Rotten Tomatoes (you read that right; it’s out of 54 reviews)

Runtime: 89 minutes

Directed by: Alexandre Aja

Starring: Steven R. McQueen (yes, his grandfather is exactly who you think it is), Elisabeth Shue, Jerry O’Connell, Ving Rhames, Christopher Lloyd, Richard Dreyfuss

From: Dimension Films

In my last review I reviewed the original Piranha; now, here is the remake, which was supposed to come out a few months ago but for whatever stupid reasons was pushed back to August. Given its unfortunate box office performance so far (finishing in 6th place at the box office in its debut; that’s pretty crappy and I wonder where the horror fans were) maybe it should have stayed where it was slated to open at originally.

I saw this at Downtown Disney and their AMC Pleasure Island 24 screen megaplex. That’s because one of their screens is their new ETX system. It’s a huge screen a few stories tall and it’s all pumped up like it’s a legit IMAX screen, but it’s not exactly the same. It looks and especially sounds great (I first experienced it when I saw Toy Story 3 for the second time) so I recommend it if you get the chance to. The movie and its frequent usage of “hip” dance music from the likes of Shwayze and LMFAO and whatnot sounded pretty great there. I was disappointed by the fact that there was hardly anyone there in that huge auditorium. There had to be less than 50 there. I know it was a 5:30 showing on an early Sunday evening when it was rainy outside, but it was opening weekend and on the grounds of THE theme park on planet Earth and I was hoping for many more there than what I got. Then again I can’t say I’m too surprised that the movie isn’t going to do as well as it should. It’s not for everyone’s tastes, it got bumped to this month for no real good reason, and the marketing campaign for it has been rather lousy, to say the least. At least the crowd I saw it with-while not doing much in the way of reacting to the movie-loudly buzzed about it afterwards, so that’s good.

With all of that said, if you like trashy movies where there’s no shortage of either female nudity or graphic gore (and believe me, it’s really gruesome and gross at times, almost as if Peter Jackson directed this right after he did the extremely graphic (yet awesome) Dead Alive), it’s fast paced, and it’s actually done well, then this is perfect for you.

This movie doesn’t have much in common with the original but there are some brief allusions to it that you’ll catch if you’re familiar with the original. Here, it’s set in Lake Havasu, Arizona (by the way, someone I know from the past lives there and works as a teacher. She remarked that more than a few of her students appear in the movie as extras!) and after an earthquake, a crack appears at the bottom of the lake and from there prehistoric piranha (ugly-looking mother…) come through and raise hell. That’s a huge problem as it’s spring break time in the area and thousands are doing their best to engage in as much debauchery as they possibly can. We focus on Jake (McQueen), who happens to have a sheriff as a mom (Shue, who looks great for being in her mid 40’s; one of her fellow cops is Rhames) and he tries to hook up with a galpal (the interesting-looking but still attractive Jessica Szohr) while getting attached to a Joe Francis-type douchebag in Jerry O’Connell.

Meanwhile, Lloyd appears as a pet shop owner who happens to know a lot about prehistoric fish (I know, it’s that kind of film) and Dreyfuss appears in this as Matt Hooper, the character he played in Jaws. OK, he plays fisherman Matthew Boyd, but it’s a parody and pretty much an exact copy of Hooper. Him appearing in that role-really a cameo-is pretty astounding to me, but also pretty awesome. As the original Piranha was a riff on Jaws, and the main poster for this movie being a riff on a famous Jaws poster, it’s a great in-joke.

This is a movie which starts out with some kills but it’s mainly following Jake and his adventures with his pretty lady pal and with a loathsome partyboy like Jerry’s Derrick Jones character. There’s much in the way of loud music, humor, and nudity… oh, plenty of female nudity and girls kissing each other… at times I was thinking that I was back at the wild nightclub in Orlando known as Mako’s! It’s a lot of fun (and no, not for pervert reasons… at least not mainly) at how trashy it is and how the characters get into it.

Then, the real long scene of carnage happens (similar to the long scene of carnage in the original)… here, it gets really graphic and gruesome and I actually looked away a few times. I’m surprised it got an R rating, but I won’t complain as it getting cut would have been a load of bunk. I’m just saying that as a word of warning to anyone who goes in and expects some carnage but based on the advertising would have no idea just how much graphic stuff you get to see. After that, stuff happens and you get a whole lot of drama, but I mean that in a good way. Oh, and there are definitely enough scares here too.

This movie is exactly what you’d expect it to be; totally trashy and goofy, yet really well-done and pretty awesome. It’s nice seeing some old veteran actors on the screen, too. It’s just a lot of fun like the old B/exploitation movies of the past and that and the quality you get is why many critics are actually giving it positive reviews.

Two things before I end this:

1. The guys who wrote this also wrote the Sorority Row remake I reviewed last fall. I know I didn’t say too much about it then, but while I was in the minority with my opinion I thought that was trashy fun too, although definitely not as good or as well-done as this movie was. SR was an inoffensive way to spend 100 minutes and you got some laughs, gore, and attractive leads (oh yes, they were all in all rather easy on the eyes). Piranha 3D, though, ups all of it to a much higher degree… in fact, almost to a preposterous degree, but it works.
2. Even though there was a low turn-out, four of the people there were a family. It wasn’t parents and two teenagers, though. Rather, it was parents and a boy and a girl who looked to be about 8 and 6, respectively. I mention that on my Facebook page and thought it was rather poor parenting. Someone I know on there commented and basically said that I was generalizing and that not all children should be barred from seeing horror movies with their parents or other responsible adults, and I agree with that. I didn’t mean to sound like I was generalizing or stereotyping there… even though I do that rather often. I explained why I thought what I did in this situation (the movie is rather graphic in terms of nudity and gore/violence) and things are fine now, but between seeing that and something like a 1 or 2 year old at Grindhouse or young kids at Punisher: War Zone and that’s not good parenting.

I’ll be back Wednesday night with a new review.