Take the plot of Jaws, add in the campy nature of a Roger Corman film and mix it in with the gory intensity of Final Destination and you pretty much have Piranha 3D. Joe Dante’s original Piranha is a prime example of a guilty pleasure film. You can’t really defend it in any way, shape, or form. And yet, somehow you find it entertaining.
Piranha 3D doesn’t really inherit much from the original, other than the film’s major set piece: a colossal massacre, for which the new version has about twenty times the blood and gore of the original film. This time, the deadly fish aren’t science experiments, but pre-historic fish that managed to survive for billions of years under a lake in Arizona thanks to evolution and cannibalism. When an earthquake opens up their caved-in home, the piranha invade the lake like an Old Country Buffet on Sunday. In this situation, the solution would be rather simple: stay out of the water! There’s just one problem. It’s spring break and the lake is loaded with drunk college students!
While the content of Piranha 3D is clearly of midnight movie quality, it is actually a pretty solid experience from time to time, particularly the scenes involving the characters Elizabeth Shue, Ving Rhames, and Adam Scott. I’d imagine that if the film spent more time with them and wasted less with Jerry O’Connell’s sleezy pornographer, Derrik Jones, it would have been a far more interesting, straight-forward film. Christopher Llyod’s cameo in the film is particularly fun and nostalgic, but Richard Dreyfuss’ appearance, I’m sorry to say, is rather short-lived. There are also a couple of great moments involving acts of heroism. There is also quite an artistic “underwater ballet” (as it has been eloquently called by fans), which looks like it could belong in the main titles of a James Bond film. If 007 ever hit R rated territory, that is!
This is the kind of film that is tough to review. Typically, a reviewer must weigh in the technical side along with its entertaining quality. On paper, this film sounds like nothing more than an exploitation film that got lost on its way to the drive in. If the reviewer actually enjoys it, then the review itself will often read as if its author was trying to make excuses for liking it. I admit that I enjoyed Piranha 3D, but only on a superficial level. It doesn’t make for a compelling horror film, but the film does have minor success as a horror-comedy. It’s not my usual cup of tea, but it managed to fun. Once again, I’m making excuses!
As with most horror films, the biggest flaw of Piranha 3D is that you simply don’t care about the characters. For most of the film, we are stuck with chauvinist dirtbags, who treat women like objects and shamelessly insult them when they don’t pull them out of the water fast enough. Because it’s so hard to connect with the characters, it’s virtually impossible for their deaths to have any emotional impact other than “ouch!” What also hurts the film is the lack of suspense. There isn’t much build up. What made Jaws so great was that it gave its audience time to worry. Because the death scenes in Piranha 3D happen so quickly, we know that if somebody isn’t ambushed within a few seconds of falling into the water, they are most likely going to survive for a little while longer. And even if they didn’t, would we really care?
Like The Expendables before it, Piranha 3D is a film that will only resonate to those not looking for anything more than cheap thrills. Here, only gorehounds and fans of exploitation, the horror genre, and Roger Corman films will find a deep appreciation for it. The rest will either just laugh or groan throughout the film
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