This poster for Piranha 3D really sums up the entire movie well.  Sea, sex, and blood.  All those things were incredibly prominent in this movie, and in all the right ways.

Let me preface this with saying that I personally have never seen a Piranha film in all my life.  I’ve seen many aquatic creature films.  Orca, Jaws, and am looking forward to Sharktopus as well.  I did step out and do a little research on the movie series, and I’m going to quickly drop some knowledge on you about it.

The original is written my John Sayles, and directed by Joe Dante (of Gremlins fame), and executive produced by Roger Corman.  When it was released Universal wanted to sue the creators, saying that Piranha was a direct ripoff of their hit Jaws.  Speilberg went and saw the movie, and when it was over he thought it was so funny he told them to drop the suit.  Thus we spawned a sequel.  Piranha 2: The Spawning.  James Cameron (Avatar, Aliens, yeah THAT James Cameron) landed this as his directorial debut.  He was fired after a week.  To this day when he is asked about it he has been quoted as saying:

“I believe ‘The Spawning’ was the finest flying piranha movie ever made.”

“This movie gets better halfway through when seen at the drive-in with a six pack of beer.”

This latest movie, following the awesome 80′s trend of having the third installment be in 3D, is a special treat.

Know your enemy…seriously this is the enemy.

When you have a film premise (we can’t really call it a series yet can we) that involves crazed piranha eating people, there is really only a certain amount of seriousness you can shove into this film.  You walk a thin line of art with this picture, too much seriousness and it’ll turn into your very own personal Plan 9. Too little, and you get something like, sigh, I dunno, just pick one of the crappy direct to dvd movies out there.

I’m thinking…more boobs?  Yeah?  Ok, great…more boobs!

That’s why I think Alexandre Aja (Haute Tension, Hills Have Eyes remake) was the perfect choice to direct this film.  He had his cult classic glory with Haute Tension, and mainstream failure with Hills Have Eyes.  So he would be one of the only few that could really bring this movie what it needed.  A hilarious plot with obscene amounts of gore, boobs, blood, and cameos that horrorphiles (like you and I) would really appreciate.

Eli is awesome as a cameo guy.

The terror begins when a drunken fisherman (Richard Dreyfuss) drops a beer bottle into a lake, and opens up an underwater cave filled with prehistoric piranhas.  That’s right, they’re hungry.  This arrival of the piranha has happened at an extremely bad time…spring break!  Sheriff Julie Forester (Elizabeth Shue) has really got her hands full with all these Jersey Shore kids coming and drinking and partying, so much so that she is gone most of the day.  This means that her three kids are left home alone a majority of the week.

Sheriff Julie’s eldest son Jake (Steve R. McQueen) has taken on the job of babysitting these kids for the duration of the week.  That is until he meets buxom beauty Danni (Kelly Brook), and is propositioned by the creator and director of Wild, Wild Girls Derrick Jones (Jerry O’ Connell) to show them to the “sexy” locations around town.  That’s when I started smelling trouble.

Lo and behold there was trouble to be had.  It turns out that a group of seismologists, are out exploring the underwater cave with Sheriff Julie, when our stories collide.  Piranha are everywhere, chaos reigns, and hilarity ensues.

Chaos

“Eat This Mother F@*#ker!”  No, seriously, that’s the line he really says.

This movie is by no means a masterpiece.  I’ve been overhearing people say things like “you mean you think that looks good!”

No, I didn’t think it looked good.  I think it looked hilarious and like a lot of fun, and that’s exactly what this is.

Be warned, if you are looking to go see a horror film that will chill you to your bones, this is not the movie for you.  In fact, this movie should be categorized under comedy more than it should horror.  Piranha 3D is so over the top that I seriously think that this film was made as a spoof on the creature feature genre.

I told you there were boobs.

It had all of the classic characters, the sex crazed druggies, the innocent teens who can’t express their love for each other…until their lives are at stake, the obscene amounts of boobs, and of course the know it all scientist who discovers the most vital information right at the end of the film, leaving everything open for a sequel.

I had so much fun watching Piranha, and I think it is the closest thing we will get to seeing Doc Brown on screen ever again.  Leave your expectations at the door with this film, forget about everything, just go and have a good time, isn’t that what summer movies are for?

Also, there is an underwater 3D swim lesson…ok, not really a lesson, but…oh come on we all know what this film is!