Piranha 3D

Published Aug 20 2010, 00:00 BST  |  By Mayer Nissim

The cast of Piranha 3D have done their best in recent weeks to make damn sure that people know what they're getting when they walk into their multiplex this weekend for the silliest film of the summer. As well as talking up the boobs, bums and blood in countless interviews, they've recorded a Funny Or Die sketch suggesting plenty of witty reasons why they should be considered at next year's Academy Awards. Predictably, the most admirable thing about Alexandre Aja's movie is its shameless desire to be as openly trashy as possible.

A wonderful pre-credits sequence features a 'Show Me the Way To Go Home'-singing Richard Dreyfuss reprising his role from Jaws, the movie the original Piranha ripped off back in 1978. It's a nice touch, and is one of several nods and winks to the genre sprinkled across the (thankfully) swift 89 minute runtime. In fact, the movie is bookended with plenty of material that could have been spliced from any similar film from the late '70s on, with various characters in peril from the deadly freshwater creatures. There's the dorky-but-hip Pixies/Lou Reed/Ramones/Radiohead-loving Jake (Steven R. McQueen), out on a boat with (girl)friend Kelly (Jessica Szohr), porn director Derrick (Jerry O'Connell) and his babes Crystal (Rachel Riley) and Danni (Kelly Brook). There's Jake's two younger siblings, stranded on an island after sneaking off in a boat when left alone. There's Jake's sheriff mum Julie (Elisabeth Shue), her friend (Adam Scott) and her Deputy (Ving Rhames).

Where the movie lurches from the tension/release template is a half-hour sequence at the centre which justifies the film's 18 certificate - and then some. While our characters are off in the middle distance, a few hundred horrible teens suffer a full-on attack from the flesh-eating fiends. The movie's press notes name Aja as one of the lamentable/self-indulgent/cynical "splat pack", and the segment is all your Saws and Hostels come at once. Death-after-death-after-death-after-death. You don't know the characters, so the only way to elicit a reaction is by distinguishing each scene with a more innovative and icky, squelchy end. The computer-generated piranha are about as scary as goldfish, so there's a necessary focus on the chomped flesh and straggling bones. That soon wears thin, so we get other nasty methods of being stripped, sliced and diced - from swinging cables bisecting a naked woman, to a motorboat propeller ripping someone's face off, to fellow splat-packer Eli Roth making hair-raising cameo. It's a franchise worth's of Final Destination death scenes condensed into half an hour, in close-up.

Without wanting to channel one's inner Mary Whitehouse, there comes a point where you can't decide whether you're bored or nauseous, or a little bit of both. The thrill of a well-timed bit of yuck is just lost after the first half dozen. Worse still, the onslaught douses any suspense there might be in the prospect of the lead characters getting snaffled. Lovely as they are, it's hard to worry about Kelly Brook's bits getting chomped because you've just been completely desensitised by tens of teens being ripped to bits in so very many horrible ways. Out-and-out gore fans will absolutely love it, of course. It's a popcorn flick, and the bonus is that once you've finished snacking, those tubs can double up as a handy sickbag.

The 3D is a disappointment. Despite the attendant gloom actually complementing the film's B-movie leanings and underwater setting, there isn't nearly enough sticking-out pokey bits to warrant the specs. The much-discussed, naked underwater snog scene between a flippered Crystal and Dannii somehow manages to be completely unsexy, set as it is to a classical aria and perhaps sensibly being played for laughs. On the plus side, there's Christopher Lloyd's movie-stealing scenes as an excitable fish expert called on to explain the prehistoric piranha. He throws himself into the role of a crazed professor with undisguised glee, and he chews up his lines with every bit as much vigour as the on-screen nasties. "Piranha hunt in packs," he rasps. "The first bite draws blood... the blood draws... the PACK!" But, whether or not you enjoy Piranha 3D will pretty much come down to how you feel about a sight gag consisting of two CGI piranha fighting over a recently-dismembered CGI penis. Like the fish, I just couldn't swallow it.


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