Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

After watching The Asylum’s ‘Mega Piranha’ I was pretty sure that that movie had slammed the door shut on the Piranha movie. I knew this movie ‘Piranha 3D’ was coming down the pike but I was of the mindset that there was no way that this movie could top ‘Mega Piranha’ which was a glorious Straight to DVD compendium of pure piranha mayhem and filmmaking incompetence. It was wonderful. Then comes this movie which has the nerve to keep the all piranha madness while tossing out the majority of the incompetence. Surprisingly this approach worked out better. Who knew?

I knew that Richard Dreyfuss was going to be in this movie so I figured he was on board to do some ‘Jaws’ type stuff on the hapless piranha menace. Oh well. Anyway it’s Spring Break at Camp Crystal Lake or whatever they called this coastal community and as such at this place, the girls and guys are going wild. Yes there was a little minor earthquake a little earlier which opened up a cavern filled with prehistoric murderous piranha, but they aren’t a concern at the moment. Right now we are going to concern ourselves with young wimpy Jake Forester (Steven R. McQueen) who has just had the good fortune to meet this realities version of the Girls Gone Wild dude Derrick Jones (Jerry O’Connel) and his number one Wild Girl Danni as played by Kelly Brook. Please God… don’t let them kill Kelly Brook in this movie. Please…

Derrick has just enlisted Jake’s help to guide him and his crew around Camp Crystal Lake but the problem is Jake has promised his mom and local Sheriff Julie (Elizabeth Shue) that he’d watch his little brother and sister. Please God… don’t let them kill Elizabeth Shue in this movie… I mean if you have to kill one or the other, let it be Elizabeth Shue, but please… we’d like to see them both survive for sequels sake. Jake happens to be like the worst big brother ever and allows his little brother and sister to watch each other. I think they are six year old twins or something. He bribes these brats to stay in the house but doesn’t actually take them home and instead leaves them on the pier where they jump in a boat and get stranded on an island. Worst big brother ever.

It’s not long before the piranha mayhem kicks off into high gear with swarms of piranha eating any and everything that they can get their nasty little teeth on. A diver from the big city (Adam Scott) who came down with his team to investigate the earthquake, while hanging out with the pretty sheriff, saw first hand what these things can do. He doesn’t have a team anymore by the way. What this Sheriff has to do, along with her new diver friend and her top deputy Joe Fallon (Ving Rhames) is get these drunk partying kids out of the water before the piranha make it to shore. Oh well. Failing to accomplish that, now she has to make her way to this island to save her idiot son and his siblings, and maybe at the same time find a way to kill all these prehistoric piranha. You know what would be cool in this movie? If the Ving Rhames character doesn’t sacrifice himself so that a bunch of white people can go on living. That would awesome. Oh well.

I don’t think it would be an insult to this film to call ‘Piranha 3D’ completely worthless and devoid of any kind of artistic value or social merit or anything that could lead us to say one single thing positive about our society. It is socially and morally bankrupt. But it is the fact that this movie is so devoid of any kind of relevant social value that makes so every effective at what it sets out to do, which is to entertain without restrictions. Director Alexandre Aja and the geniuses behind this movie made the wise decision early on to concentrate on the simple things. These simple things of course having very little to do with the script or having your movie make any kind of real world sense. It’s in 3D so lets do some original type 3D stuff like vomit 3D or severed dick 3D. There’s lots of young women in bathing suits so it would be plum foolish not to have big tit in camera 3D now wouldn’t it? And considering that the bulk of this movie is filled with drunken obnoxious twenty somethings, a demographic that nobody likes including themselves, let’s have this demographic get ripped to shreds in the most horrific 3D ways possible. Outstanding.

Sure the movie might not make a heckuva lot a sense. Like if you hear somebody let out blood curdling scream, even if they are one of your best friends, do you head towards the scream or run away from the scream. I know what I’d do. Sorry best friend. Or if you are in the middle of a rescue op that involves your speed boat, I’m thinking at no time should you ever shut your speed boat off. Of course if you did leave it running you wouldn’t have that always original ‘Shit, the engine won’t start’ moment while a hoard of piranha are bearing down and an explosion is eminent, but come on.

‘Piranha 3D’ isn’t art. It is neither relevant nor important. But I’m thinking if you are going to watch a movie about crazy fish eating people, then this is probably the movie to see. We still love us some Mega Piranha but it does have to take a back seat to this one. The Kelly Brook factor in full effect.