Piranha 3D: Movie Review

Piranha 3D: Movie Review

Piranha 3D
Rating: 7/10
Cast: Steven McQueen, Elisabeth Shue,Ving Rhames, Kelly Brook, Jerry O'Connell, Lots of piranha with sharp vicious teeth
Director: Alexandre Aja
Seriously - you want a plot? Most of it's there in the title...
OK - It's spring break in Arizona and with thousands of randy ready to party teens heading to town and on Lake Victoria itself, local sheriff Julie Forester (Elisabeth Shue) has her hands full.
But matters are made worse when an earthquake rips open a prehistoric cavern where thousands of vicious death fish live (See I told you the plot was minimal) and they plough into the Lake ready to feast.
However, Julie's woes are further compounded by the fact her son Jake (McQueen) is on the sea having fallen in with sleazy sex film maker Derrick Jones (O'Connell) who's out to exploit everyone and anything in a bikini to help make a new series of Girls Gone wild style videos during this peak time of nubile nudity.
And as if that wasn't bad enough, Jake's foregone his baby sitting duties and left his brother and sister to their own devices for the promise of some babes - let's just hope that those cutesy kids don't wander off and end up on the lake.
- This just in - That's exactly what the kids have done....
So with the promise of gore, nudity and minimal plot exposition, it looks like Spring Break is going to be one to remember.
Look, it's time to fess up - you can file Piranha under guilty pleasure and bloody good fun - if you like countless deaths, gratuitous nudity and B movie acting. It's a remake of the 1978 film (which was itself a parody of Jaws) and works well in places because you actually care about some of the characters (such as Jake and his sheriff mum).
Sometimes, cinema isn't about anything more than the pure pleasure and putting your brain in a jar outside the door and collecting on the way out - this fish porn gore combination isn't going to win any major awards but it is destined for cult notoriety with its quotable lines and high bloody death quotient.
It's a worthy successor to Jaws for our generation (admittedly without the real tension) - the Facebook short attention span generation who want everything bigger, better and nastier than before - sure some of it is pure exploitation (such as the topless paraglider who goes into the water when the camera suddenly switches to underwater 3D mode) and the carnage unleashed by feeding frenzy when the piranha hit is ferocious - those alone will satiate a certain section of the audience.
Every ingredient is there - the kids who disobey authority, the sleazy guy who's selfishly only after his own gains, the teens who choose to ignore warnings - it's like a check list of cliches but thanks to the tongue in cheek acting, you know exactly what you're getting.
Of the cast, kudos have to go to Richard Dreyfuss' opening cameo which parodies his Jaws role, Christopher Lloyd for his mad marine shop owner (sample line - "This one vanished 2 million years ago") and Elisabeth Shue for keeping a straight face when those around her are being slaughtered and dismembered by fish and idiot teens alike. Admittedly, there's some pretty gross out ways that the spring breakers are dispatched which keeps the audience's blood lust in check.
A sequel's inevitable and has been green lit - so you may as well see the start of the franchise before it's culled and the fun's drained out of it.

Oh and you'll never ever be able to listen to Lakme's The Flower Duet without recalling certain moments of this film again...