Review: Piranha 3D (6/10) - 2010: A Mouthful Of Laughs

I never would have thought that when my brother Jon called me up to go to the cinema, I would even begin to contemplate the thought of spending the little cash I've got, on going to watch Piranha 3D. This is a film I have publicly ridiculed and laughed at in disgust whenever the trailer came onto the television.

Directed by Alexandre Aje (Director of The Hills Have Eyes), this 88 minute bloody babe-fest is set in the sleepy town of Lake Victoria, which is coincidentally also the annual setting for Spring Break. After a sudden underwater tremor, scores of prehistoric man(and woman)-eating piranhas are set free into the bikini-laden waters. An unlikely group of strangers (and pornstars) must band together to stop themselves from becoming fish food for the area's new razor-toothed residents.



The film stars Jessica Szohr (Gossip Girl), Steven R. McQueen (The Vampire Diaries), Elisabeth Shue (Hollow Man), Jerry O’Connell (Obsessed), Ving Rhames (Pulp Fiction), Adam Scott (Step Brothers), Richard Dreyfuss (Close Encounters Of The Third Kind), Christopher Lloyd (Back To The Future), and men's favourites, Kelly Brook (model) and Riley Steele (pornstar).

The following video is the film's official Trailer:



As you have just witnessed, I believe that the CGI (computer-generated imagery) throughout the film is potentially the worst I've seen since A Sound of Thunder's (2005) attempt in making a futuristic city, and worst yet on the big screen. The piranha movement looks incredibly fake (especially when "Doc Brown" drops one into the fish-tank). When I witnessed the above trailer on the television, the thought of people even wanting to download it illegally seemed like an unlikely waste of time.

The fact that this film was marketed as a 3D fright-fest is simply laughable, as I'd like to mention that I was not the only person who went completely cross-eyed at the opening credits to the point I had to take them off. Furthermore, the actual 3D bits of the film didn't really work like that on Avatar, or any other 3D film for that matter.

In an interview, Kelly Brook quoted that the film was "The ultimate horror, action exploitation movie" and that it is "everything you want a movie to be, and the fact that it's in 3D, gives it that extra edge." With this in mind, it makes me think that she has in fact recognised this film as an actual, serious piece of acting work on her part. I hate to be an a****le, but her performance is anything but a serious piece of eye-candy (however nice).

Eli Roth cameo's as a wet-tshirt contest host, which virtually sums up what you may expect from a film he may partake in (see Hostel, 2005). There were times in this film where I believe that Peter Jackson's Brain Dead (1990) influenced it with...erm...gore.

So why 6/10 you ask? You know what...I haven't laughed so much in the cinema in a long time. This wasn't necessarily down to scripted funny parts (of which there were quite a few), but due to the sheer unrealistic, over-the-top cliché aspects of the storyline that the audience (well me and my brother at least) found hilarious and downright ridiculously funny (Remember - Boat + everyone in the water; and a piranha's burp). It is evident that to direct that amount of extras is a challenge, but some of them were so poor, it made me cry with laughter. Some of the movie was genuine horror however, and evoked a shocked, manly "eww" when it occurred (Remember - Hair + Motor for when you see it), but more often than not, the graphics let it down.

One thing I can commend in this film is the make-up department. The actual gore displayed post-attack was phenomenal. The prosthetics were realistic, the blood was the right shade of colouring and consistency, and the main cast acting was in fact, quite decent in this instance. This isn't really the type of film that you can particularly label anyone as a stand-out performance (apart from Elizabeth Shue and Jerry O'Connell I'd say). Furthermore, I am still to this day unsure as to whether or not the director intended this film to be tongue-in-cheek/Shaun of the dead horror, or a genuine Hostel" horror with accidental comedy. All I can say is...if you would like to go to the cinema to see a soft-core porno with glimpses of horror and lots and lots of laughs, go and watch it.