How in Godzilla’s name did this movie avoid an NC-17 rating? At least half the movie toes the line of softcore porn. The sex I could have managed to live with, but the rest of the movie is incredibly gory. The gore really turned me off, and I don’t have a weak stomach to begin with.
Don’t get me wrong, I fully expected this movie to have sex and gore—after all, it was marketed as a schlocky summer monster flick with lots of sex and gore. But there is way too much gore and none of the other elements (acting, characters, plot) are entertaining enough to make this movie worth anybody’s time or money.
Plot Summary
Prehistoric piranha escape from a subterranean lake beneath Lake Havasu (“Lake Victoria” in the movie) and start feasting on spring breakers. Meanwhile, Jake, a police officer’s son, ditches his babysitting duties to go boating with a porn director and some obviously doomed lovelies. The police must try to save the spring breakers from the piranha, and Jake and his love interest must try to survive. In the meantime, the audience must decide if they want to laugh, throw up, or stare at the screen in pained horror.
Vitamin B-Acting: 40%
The movie contains a number of decent actors (Elisabeth Shue and cameos by Christopher Lloyd and Richard Dreyfuss), so the bad acting is not as strong as it would be in, say, the average Syfy Original Movie. Most of the over-the-top acting comes from the porno crew, especially Jerry O’Connell, who plays the director.
(Of course the members of the porn crew die horrible deaths. There’s no way the laws of the B-movie universe would permit porn characters to live.)
That gets the essentials out of the way—now I’m going to take a moment to rant about Christopher Lloyd’s role. He appears as the fish expert version of Dr. Brown from Back to the Future. Any Syfy Original Movie worth its salt would not have hesitated to play up an actor like Lloyd. Christopher Lloyd in that role would have been pure Syfy gold. But he appears for all of THREE MINUTES in Piranha 3D. Three minutes in an 89-minute movie. What a waste.
Oy, did I just make a comparison that makes Syfy movies look GOOD? That just goes to illustrate how bad Piranha 3D is.
Vitamin B-SFX: 50%
Since this is a Hollywood production and not a cheap made-for-TV flick, the special effects are of a better grade. Well, a better grade than a Syfy Original Movie, anyway. Though I hated the movie overall, I liked the design of the piranha. They’ve got the works—evil red eyes, spiky fins, and gills that fan out like the dilophosaurs’ skin flaps in Jurassic Park. My favorite piranha moment was when a captive piranha stared down Christopher Lloyd.
Then…(sigh) I guess I should discuss the use of 3D. This movie does not so much use 3D as it abuses 3D. The 3D exists only for token shots, when the camera will focus on one particular object that is usually disgusting and/or “debris” from a piranha attack. Let me give a few examples of 3D images I really did not need stuck in my head:
1) Jake’s love interest drinks too much alcohol. She runs to the side of the boat, leans over…and we are privileged to see a stream of vomit come out of her mouth in slo-mo.
2) Various body parts from the porno people floating around after piranha attacks. I shall leave it to your imaginations to figure out what those parts were.
Vitamin Fun: 20%
The gore really brought down the fun level for me, especially in the big spring breaker massacre scene.
Sugar: 0%
This movie had absolutely no concern for character development, so no weepy or inspirational moments.
Plot Fiber: 60%
The plot was more “logical” in this movie than, say, Mega Piranha. It does make sense that ravenous prehistoric piranha would head for the largest food source (masses of drunk spring breakers). And subterranean lakes do exist, though not in the way the movie described, and the whole “prehistoric piranha surviving for millennia” thing is implausible.
The real reason this movie gets a higher plot fiber rating is because the plot is so threadbare that it simply doesn’t have much opportunity to veer off into the land of Screwy Logic.
Certain scenes did provoke some burning questions in my mind, though. For instance, I’d really like to know how Richard Dreyfuss’ mangled corpse managed to swim back to the pier…
SUPPLEMENTS
Prehistoric piranha escape from a subterranean lake beneath Lake Havasu (“Lake Victoria” in the movie) and start feasting on spring breakers. Meanwhile, Jake, a police officer’s son, ditches his babysitting duties to go boating with a porn director and some obviously doomed lovelies. The police must try to save the spring breakers from the piranha, and Jake and his love interest must try to survive. In the meantime, the audience must decide if they want to laugh, throw up, or stare at the screen in pained horror.
Vitamin B-Acting: 40%
The movie contains a number of decent actors (Elisabeth Shue and cameos by Christopher Lloyd and Richard Dreyfuss), so the bad acting is not as strong as it would be in, say, the average Syfy Original Movie. Most of the over-the-top acting comes from the porno crew, especially Jerry O’Connell, who plays the director.
(Of course the members of the porn crew die horrible deaths. There’s no way the laws of the B-movie universe would permit porn characters to live.)
That gets the essentials out of the way—now I’m going to take a moment to rant about Christopher Lloyd’s role. He appears as the fish expert version of Dr. Brown from Back to the Future. Any Syfy Original Movie worth its salt would not have hesitated to play up an actor like Lloyd. Christopher Lloyd in that role would have been pure Syfy gold. But he appears for all of THREE MINUTES in Piranha 3D. Three minutes in an 89-minute movie. What a waste.
Oy, did I just make a comparison that makes Syfy movies look GOOD? That just goes to illustrate how bad Piranha 3D is.
Vitamin B-SFX: 50%
Since this is a Hollywood production and not a cheap made-for-TV flick, the special effects are of a better grade. Well, a better grade than a Syfy Original Movie, anyway. Though I hated the movie overall, I liked the design of the piranha. They’ve got the works—evil red eyes, spiky fins, and gills that fan out like the dilophosaurs’ skin flaps in Jurassic Park. My favorite piranha moment was when a captive piranha stared down Christopher Lloyd.
Then…(sigh) I guess I should discuss the use of 3D. This movie does not so much use 3D as it abuses 3D. The 3D exists only for token shots, when the camera will focus on one particular object that is usually disgusting and/or “debris” from a piranha attack. Let me give a few examples of 3D images I really did not need stuck in my head:
1) Jake’s love interest drinks too much alcohol. She runs to the side of the boat, leans over…and we are privileged to see a stream of vomit come out of her mouth in slo-mo.
2) Various body parts from the porno people floating around after piranha attacks. I shall leave it to your imaginations to figure out what those parts were.
Vitamin Fun: 20%
The gore really brought down the fun level for me, especially in the big spring breaker massacre scene.
Sugar: 0%
This movie had absolutely no concern for character development, so no weepy or inspirational moments.
Plot Fiber: 60%
The plot was more “logical” in this movie than, say, Mega Piranha. It does make sense that ravenous prehistoric piranha would head for the largest food source (masses of drunk spring breakers). And subterranean lakes do exist, though not in the way the movie described, and the whole “prehistoric piranha surviving for millennia” thing is implausible.
The real reason this movie gets a higher plot fiber rating is because the plot is so threadbare that it simply doesn’t have much opportunity to veer off into the land of Screwy Logic.
Certain scenes did provoke some burning questions in my mind, though. For instance, I’d really like to know how Richard Dreyfuss’ mangled corpse managed to swim back to the pier…
SUPPLEMENTS
Pseudoscience Pill
Of course, the piranha waited until that one spring break to emerge from their subterranean lake, and what triggers it? One beer bottle landing on the lake floor. Yeah, right.
Also, in real life, evolution would have still occurred while the piranha were trapped in the “subterranean lake.” They probably would have turned into something more like blind cave fish. But nobody would be interested in blind fish.
That’s about as far as the movie ventures into pseudoscience, so I’m not going to waste any more time analyzing it.
Likelihood of choking: 10%
Political Pill: N/A
Of course, the piranha waited until that one spring break to emerge from their subterranean lake, and what triggers it? One beer bottle landing on the lake floor. Yeah, right.
Also, in real life, evolution would have still occurred while the piranha were trapped in the “subterranean lake.” They probably would have turned into something more like blind cave fish. But nobody would be interested in blind fish.
That’s about as far as the movie ventures into pseudoscience, so I’m not going to waste any more time analyzing it.
Likelihood of choking: 10%
Political Pill: N/A
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