Post by StevePulaski on Sept 9, 2011 22:24:35 GMT -5
The piranhas get in your face, literally, in Piranha 3D.
Rating: ★★½
It's clear that Elisabeth Shue, Ving Rhames, Christopher Lloyd, and Jerry O'Connell all have a sense of humor because, while they all have been in great films, they still go back to do something they would if they were just starting out. I think this time they went back for the love of the genre, and felt they could bring something to the table with Piranha 3D, which you can tell by the poster art, is an all out satire and comical parody of Spielberg's timeless classic Jaws.
Piranha 3D does almost everything right, except that it has the gimmicky, overused, and unnecessary stamp at the end of its title to most likely leach onto more money and so people don't get confused since this was already remade before. Yep, a remake of a remake of an original. The original film, titled simply Piranha, was released in 1978 cashing in, once again on the big Spielberg film. Then the remake from Roger Corman and Joe Dante was released in 1995 which failed to do much but rustle up a cult following.
The plot: Jake (McQueen) lives off the coast of a beach with his sheriff mother (Shue) and his two younger siblings. Forced to watch them while she works, Jake decides to ditch them for "spring break boobies," and to photograph naked women with his best friend Derrick (O'Connell). It isn't long before the sheriffs discover the lake is swarming with schools of angry, razor-sharp teeth piranhas ready to devour anything with the scent of blood. They try to warn everybody, but they just continue their beer and sex antics. Looks like the piranhas will get a fulfilling lunch.
This doesn't necessarily fail as an attempt at a satire, as much as the CGI kills most of the death scenes. The film is very bloody, like one would expect - but the fact that most of the death scenes are dominated by unbelievably fake flesh and poorly crafted CGI is pitiful. It's worse than The Final Destination, released the same weekend. The only reason the CGI is there is to make the 3D look more realistic. But once it's on Dvd, and on Television, people will see that the special effects are virtually inexcusable and they only worked if you saw the film in its 3D form at the theater.
Some scenes go beyond plausibility and could never happen in the first place. There is one scene where a character falls in the water and is pulled out only to have both legs showing muscle tissue, blood, and no skin in sight. The character is still speaking, and winds up lasting another five minutes before finally dying. It's an anomaly of the horror genre.
I have to admit that some scenes were nothing but creative. The opening scene has a cameo from an actor I'll never get tired of, and the end scene caught me off guard. I applaud seeing some bigger names to the cast as well because, like I said, when you get big you still need to occupy some sense of humor. I loved Elisabeth Shue from The Trigger Effect, a rather unsung film, and whenever I think of Christopher Lloyd I don't think of Back to the Future. I grew up with Cyberchase, and the villain on that show was voiced by Christopher Lloyd and named "Hacker." Lloyd didn't strain his voice, that was genuinely how he sounded. Now whenever I hear him I can't help but picture Hacker. This isn't a bad thing, since I love picking out the similarity in people's voices. Piranha 3D is honestly a bit nostalgic for me, and that's one thing I didn't expect.
Still, the tiny bit of nostalgia it packs doesn't excuse the goofy death scenes and the abundance of CGI. It's a splatter flick, but not a great one. While this one knows what it wants, it still has trouble getting there in one piece. Same goes with the characters in the film.
Starring: Steven R. McQueen. Elisabeth Shue, Ving Rhames, Christopher Lloyd, and Jerry O'Connell. Directed by: Alexandre Aja.