Piranha 3D
Some campy comedy and comely nudity gets this horror nonsense a passing grade…but just barely.
Look, you go see a movie called “Piranha 3D,” directed with style and silliness by “Mirrors” and “The Hills Have Eyes’s” Alexandre Aja and produced by “Hostel’s” Eli Roth (who cameos as the judge of a wet t-shirt contest), what the Hell do you expect? This isn’t Shakespeare. Hell it’s not even Joe Eszterhas, the schlock master behind “Basic Instinct” and “Showgirls.” What it is is ridiculous genre pandering, and I’ve gotta say, I liked it for that. Especially when they were able to get Elisabeth Shue, Ving Rhames, Christopher Lloyd and a cameoing Richard Dreyfuss (the first of many nods to “Jaws”) to sign on. It’s that type of movie.
But more than the CG piranhas that do everything from tearing apart divers, Dreyfuss, a co-ed in an inner tube (from the butt up), and- most disturbingly- Jerry O’Connell’s junk, the real stars of this movie are boobs. Lots and lots of boobs. Sue me, ok? But when O’Connell’s internet porn king got two stacked babes (Kelly Brock and Riley Steele) to skinny dip and do a lyrical underwater dance, well, let’s just say this film felt like the reason movies were invented. And then Aja had to go and show O’Connell’s eaten junk up front later and, well, my brain (and other parts of me) came back to reality.
Lesbian-licking tequila shots…mmm…er, sorry, I’m back.
Do you really need a story here? It’s spring break in an Arizona town, Shue plays a mother and the town’s sheriff, her son (supposed to be watching her two youngest, and played by Steven R. McQueen) gets in with O’Connell scouting location, pulling Kelly- the resident “good girl” (and played by Jessica Szohr)- into the action (literally…mmm…sorry). Long-thought-extinct piranhas are brought to the surface after an earthquake (seriously?), and wreak havoc on thousands of co-eds looking for booty-shaking fun on spring break. All in something assimilating 3D, although I have to agree with James Cameron on this one- using 3D was just a way to ramp up the grosses here; there’s no real value to it otherwise. Other than watching big-breasted girls in 3D. Still, at least the seriously less-fun “Final Destination 3D” seemed to go all-out on 3D ridiculousness. This one just seems like chum. Fun chum, but chum nonetheless.
