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Piranha 3D

3D is a gimmick, so a self-conscious B-movie is the perfect vehicle for it. Piranha is packed with shocking, hilarious 3D moments that make you jump and/or laugh out loud.

The movie is completely over the top, with graphic gratuitous violence and nudity (if you’re going to make an R-rated film, why not pull out all the stops? Or most of them, anyway).

There’s amazing special effects (the gore, not so much the CGI), 3D vomit and boobs hurling at the screen and an extended nude underwater acrobatics scene that reminded me of the surreal dream sequences in The Big Lebowski.

A guest appearance from Richard Dreyfuss at the beginning is a cute nod to Jaws, which Piranha 3D apes (or at least it apes Jaws and the original Piranha movies, which also aped Jaws). His character is as close as its possible to get to Matt Hooper from Jaws (35 years older) without getting sued by Steven Spielberg.

I enjoyed imagining that after escaping the shark he retired to a place as far as possible from the ocean. Lake Victoria, Arizona.

Dreyfuss plays a fisherman who litters, somehow unwittingly causing an earthquake that opens a chasm leading to a cave full of prehistoric piranhas.

So it’s the Jaws story: something in the water is killing people and the sheriff wants to close spring break. Partying college kids disagree.

Ving Rhames and Elizabeth Shue play the town law enforcement. I felt Shue was a little off in the role, but the overall is cast is quite impressive for a B-movie.

Christopher Lloyd (Doc from Back to the Future) as an eccentric fish store owner reprises his mad scientist persona (it must be great when you write a role and get the very person you had in mind to play it).

Jerry O’Connell steals the movie with his lascivious porn producer character. You know he’s going to die in the end, so it’s no spoiler to say he has the best last words ever.

There’s a genre-movie trope where people who die are usually demonstrably bad, or assholes. In this film the deaths come so fast that often there’s very little opportunity for assholishness to be established before someone is vividly skeletonised. Sometimes this seems a little forced, especially in the mayhem of the piranha pack’s attack on the spring break flotilla.

The movie is a self-conscious rip-off of Jaws, but relies on shock and schlock instead of any genuine suspense.

It could have used a little more polish in the scripting (it sounds like some scenes the actors are extemporising), and editing (they randomly jam in a scene of a cliff diver being eaten, seemingly just because they had the footage – shouldn’t every scene have a purpose?).

It’s a solid creature feature. The director aims low and hits his target squarely. It’s fun and kind of ironic (lots of movie in-jokes), but not as clever as Scream, say. It belongs more with Tremors or Eight Legged Freaks.

Best weapon: Ving Rhames’ outboard motor.

Best vehicle: Jerry O’Connell’s glass-bottom boat.