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#41 - Piranha 3D
Alexandre Aja, 2010
A school of prehistoric piranhas breaks free from the bottom of a lake during spring break.
For some reason, this was playing first in a TV double-bill with Joe Dante's original 1978 B-movie Piranha - maybe to make the latter more palatable in comparison. I know better than to expect high art from a 21st-century remake of a movie about killer fish (in 3D, no less, though this obviously didn't translate to a televised broadcast), but even with that in mind...what's to like? After starting off with a flaccid Jaws homage involving a denim-clad Richard Dreyfuss singing "Show Me the Way to Go Home" in a dinghy on a lake, it's not long before the eponymous creatures are unleashed from a sealed underwater cavern into the local bodies of water...at the same time that loads of spring breakers descend upon a nearby small town for the usual hedonistic festivities. Thus begins a plot that involves a lot of familiar clichés - most of which revolve around a gawky teenage protagonist and his quest to duck out on his various responsibilites (such as taking care of his younger siblings or hanging out with his nice but ordinary-looking girlfriend) in order to hang out with hot bikini babes and the director of a Girls Gone Wild!-style series of videos. Oh, and his mother is the sheriff who's investigating the piranhas' presence.
Of course, people who have made the decision to actually sit down and watch Piranha 3D know that they're not supposed to get much in the way in a layered plot or compelling characters - they just need to not be too annoying as the film speeds through its mercifully brief 90-minute running time. It helps that there are a few decent actors slumming it in the mix who at least infuse some one-note characters with some energy that overcomes both the characters' limits and the makers' affinity for simplistic homage - look no further than Christopher Lloyd's brief appearance as an expert whose breathless delivery of exposition is obviously meant to evoke Doc Brown. The incredibly straightforward nature of such references is liable to grate at times, especially when it extends to certain visual cues within the action itself. Piranha 3D is pretty unapologetic about its B-movie status as it fills out much of its screen-time with many depictions of graphic violence and nudity. The effects work used to carry it out varies quite wildly in quality; the 3D nature of the film means that there's an extremely artificial gloss to many proceedings, while there are semi-tolerable combinations of practical effects and CGI that are used to provide wall-to-wall viscera (the effects used to render the actual fish, not so much). Unfortunately, the on-screen carnage aims to be excessive instead of inventive and the grossly juvenile sense of humour only adds to Piranha 3D being a very difficult prospect even if you are just after some mindless monster mayhem.
Alexandre Aja, 2010
A school of prehistoric piranhas breaks free from the bottom of a lake during spring break.
For some reason, this was playing first in a TV double-bill with Joe Dante's original 1978 B-movie Piranha - maybe to make the latter more palatable in comparison. I know better than to expect high art from a 21st-century remake of a movie about killer fish (in 3D, no less, though this obviously didn't translate to a televised broadcast), but even with that in mind...what's to like? After starting off with a flaccid Jaws homage involving a denim-clad Richard Dreyfuss singing "Show Me the Way to Go Home" in a dinghy on a lake, it's not long before the eponymous creatures are unleashed from a sealed underwater cavern into the local bodies of water...at the same time that loads of spring breakers descend upon a nearby small town for the usual hedonistic festivities. Thus begins a plot that involves a lot of familiar clichés - most of which revolve around a gawky teenage protagonist and his quest to duck out on his various responsibilites (such as taking care of his younger siblings or hanging out with his nice but ordinary-looking girlfriend) in order to hang out with hot bikini babes and the director of a Girls Gone Wild!-style series of videos. Oh, and his mother is the sheriff who's investigating the piranhas' presence.
Of course, people who have made the decision to actually sit down and watch Piranha 3D know that they're not supposed to get much in the way in a layered plot or compelling characters - they just need to not be too annoying as the film speeds through its mercifully brief 90-minute running time. It helps that there are a few decent actors slumming it in the mix who at least infuse some one-note characters with some energy that overcomes both the characters' limits and the makers' affinity for simplistic homage - look no further than Christopher Lloyd's brief appearance as an expert whose breathless delivery of exposition is obviously meant to evoke Doc Brown. The incredibly straightforward nature of such references is liable to grate at times, especially when it extends to certain visual cues within the action itself. Piranha 3D is pretty unapologetic about its B-movie status as it fills out much of its screen-time with many depictions of graphic violence and nudity. The effects work used to carry it out varies quite wildly in quality; the 3D nature of the film means that there's an extremely artificial gloss to many proceedings, while there are semi-tolerable combinations of practical effects and CGI that are used to provide wall-to-wall viscera (the effects used to render the actual fish, not so much). Unfortunately, the on-screen carnage aims to be excessive instead of inventive and the grossly juvenile sense of humour only adds to Piranha 3D being a very difficult prospect even if you are just after some mindless monster mayhem.