Review by Nick Cowen
Stars Elisabeth Shue, Steven McQueen, Jerry O'Connell, Jessica Szohr, Ving Rhames, Kelly Brook,
Riley Steele, Brooklynn Proulx, Christopher Lloyd, Eli Roth | Written by Pete Goldfinger & Josh Stolberg
UK certification 18 | UK RRP £24.99 | BD Region B | Runtime 90 minutes | Directed by Alexandre Aja
Picture the scene. An underwater shot showing a vast expanse of tranquil blue liquid, illuminated by dreamy shafts of sunlight. A giant, severed male member wafts breezily into the shot, floating lazily downward like a dying seasnake. Suddenly a pair of vicious-looking CGI piranha fish dart in from one side and begin fighting over it. They tear and nash at both it and each other, until one rips it away and victoriously swallows it down in one gulp. It then regurgitates it back up and swims away leaving the bleeding item to continue its descent with a giant chunk torn out of it.
If you're still reading you will know whether or not Piranha 3D is your kind of film. Make no mistake, Aja's remake of Joe Dante's 1978 schlock-horror flick isn't going to win over any viewers in search of high art. It's also not going to win any awards for originality for its plot and it certainly doesn't set any new standards for special effect-fuelled entertainment. And yes, checking your brain at the door isn't so much a recommendation as it is a requirement. But give it a chance, and you might just find yourself having a bit of fun – especially if B-grade horror/comedy is the bag you're into.
The film's plot doesn't so much borrow elements from Jaws as it does smash the back window, enter the premises illegally and make off with all the silverware and china. It's spring break in Lake Victoria, a small, scenic holiday town which seems to do most of its business by attracting vast hordes of college students each year. They consume vast amounts of alcohol, set up floating discotheques and generally cause a large headache for the local sheriff (Shue) and her deputy (Rhames). The sherrif's son, Jake (McQueen) is trying to juggle babysitting his younger siblings (Proulx and Sage Ryan) and acting as a guide for a sleazy “Girls Gone Wild”-style web-producer (O’Connell), while trying to win the affections of his high school crush (Jessica Szohr). Unbeknowst to all of them, a seismic underwater rupture has released a huge school of incredibly hungry prehistoric piranha, who are looking to hit the buffet quicksmart. Hilarity inevitably ensues.
Piranha 3D may make use of some flashy 3D technology to create an effective spectacle, but this is a B-movie through and through. If you want to be pedantic, it's a double B-movie and the two B's in this case are for boobs and blood. The nasty aquatic lifeforms are the moneymakers here, and everything about the film's plot is geared towards sending them towards ever-increasing numbers of victims so they can rip them to pieces for our amusement. When the gore hits, it's absolutely stomach churning, not least because it all happens in 3D. In between feeding times, Aja's camera furnishes us with how the scantily clad young revelers have succeeded in turning Lake Victoria into a Bacchanalian funfair. There's about as much flesh on display here as there is in “The Real Cancun”. However, it's not as thin as all that; the plot which underpins the action is actually not half bad and the actors lend it quite a bit of punch by hitting all the right notes with their performances. O' Connell is particularly good as the leering web-celeb and even Lloyd and Richard Dreyfuss pitch up to riff on some of their best work.
EXTRAS ★★★ The Blu-ray disc offers up a couple of extra bits and pieces; there's some lengthy EPK documentaries, some deleted scenes and even a couple of storyboard-driven clips with sound-effects to round everything out. It's not exactly a treasure trove of delights, but then it doesn't need to be. No one buys a DVD like this to learn the inner workings of film. They buy it to see Kelly Brook get naked. And then get eaten. To its credit, Piranha 3D is a film that knows what its audience wants, and is all too happy to give it to them. Your job now is to figure out whether it's worth paying up to 25 quid for it.