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.

The Expendables

Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables kicks ass – 1980s style. It’s not a tribute, not retro, it’s an unironic action film that sits squarely in the tradition of genre classics like the ones that began Stallone’s career. It’s like the last two decades never happened.

There’s almost nothing in The Expendables that couldn’t have been shot in the 80s. The only anachronisms are that someone gets a text message on their (unseen) cell phone, and someone else gets waterboarded (how topical!).

The Expendables are an A-Team-like gang of mercenaries portrayed by some big names from action cinema. Alongside Stallone there’s Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, Gary Daniels, Terry Crews and Mickey Rourke. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis appear in cameos.

After saving some hostages from Somali pirates, the team’s next mission is to take out a South American dictator who lives on the evocatively-named island of Villena. He’s played by David Zayas (Angel Batista from TVs Dexter) and uses his army of old-school henchmen to terrorize the local peasants and produce cocaine for rogue CIA agent Eric Roberts.

Stallone and Statham scout the island posing as bird watchers. Mayhem ensues. They come back later with the whole team. More mayhem as they infiltrate the General’s compound, taking out hapless henchmen and planting explosives everywhere.

All the action heroes get a chance to do their thing in a testosterone-laden orgy of fists, knives, bullets and explosions. I had to feel sorry for the henchmen: they’re the real expendables.

It’s all old-fashioned and completely over the top, and that’s why it’s so much fun.

Coolest vehicle: Stallone’s Grumman HU-16 Albatross sea plane, closely followed by his 1955 F-100 pickup.

Coolest weapon: Terry Crews’s AA-12 (Atchisson Assault Shotgun) which can reduce pirates and henchmen to a red mist (closely followed by Stallone’s plane!).

• The Expendables (Amazon.com)

Lincoln Child Douglas Preston "Fever Dream"

Yesterday, Special Agent Pendergast still mourned the loss of his beloved wife, Helen, who died in a tragic accident in Africa twelve years ago.

Today, he discovers she was murdered.

Tomorrow, he will learn her most guarded secrets, leaving him to wonder: Who was the woman I married? Why was she murdered? And, above all . . . Who murdered her?

FEVER DREAM

Revenge is not sweet: It is essential.

Adrian D'Hage The Maya Codex

DECEMBER 2012 – TIME IS RUNNING OUT …

Deep in the Guatemalan jungle lies the Maya Codex, an ancient document containing a terrible warning for civilisation. Archaeologist Dr Aleta Weizman is desperately searching for the codex, but powerful forces in Washington and Rome will do anything to stop her. When CIA agent Curtis O’Connor joins Aleta in her dangerous quest, he also becomes a target.

Both Weizman and O’Connor know that the earth will align with a massive black hole at the centre of the galaxy on the winter solstice, December 2012 – just as the Mayans predicted. Might a geographic pole shift be on the way? But if discovering the codex can avert this global catastrophe, why are some within the Vatican and the CIA determined it should never be found?

The race is on for Weizman and O’Connor, and the very future of our planet is at stake. From the corridors of power in Nazi Germany to modern-day Washington, from the secret archives of the Vatican to the Temple of the Lost World pyramid in the jungles of Central America, The Maya Codex takes us on a heart-stopping journey to find the codex before it’s too late.

Andy McDermott Sacred Vault

The sixth brilliant book from Andy McDermott – Clive Cussler’s heir apparent. The world is in shock when Michelangelo’s David is stolen from a museum in Florence, Italy. The latest in a series of audacious thefts of historical treasures, it’s only a matter of time before another priceless artefact is targeted. When the Talonor Codex — a great Atlantean explorer’s account of his travels — is stolen, it becomes clear that the thefts form only part of the raiders’ ultimate plan. The codex holds clues to the location of the Vault of Shiva and its fabled contents — the legendary Shiva-Vedas, the chronicles of the ancient Hindu god of destruction. Witnesses to the latest daring robbery, archaeologist Nina Wilde and former SAS soldier Eddie Chase are forced into a treacherous hunt across the world to discover the vault before its secrets fall into dangerous hands. The vault’s prize is a treasure beyond price, but it may also be the catalyst for global annihilation…

Douglas Preston Impact

Wyman Ford is tapped for a secret expedition to Cambodia… to locate the source of strangely beautiful gemstones that do not appear to be of this world.

A brilliant meteor lights up the Maine coast… and two young women borrow a boat and set out for a distant island to find the impact crater.

A scientist at the National Propulsion Facility discovers an inexplicable source of gamma rays in the outer Solar System. He is found decapitated, the data missing.

High resolution NASA images reveal an unnatural feature hidden in the depths of a crater on Mars… and it appears to have been activated.

Sixty hours and counting.

Clive Cussler Jack Du Brul "The Silent Sea"

The thrilling new adventure from the #1 New York Times- bestselling author.

Clive Cussler’s tales of the Oregon and its crew-”the clever, indefatigable Juan Cabrillo and his merry band of tough, tech-savvy fighting men and women” (Publishers Weekly)-have made fans of hundreds of thousands of readers. But the Oregon’s sixth adventure is its most remark able one yet.

On December 7, 1941, five brothers exploring a shaft on a small island off the coast of Washington State make an extraordinary discovery, only to be interrupted by news of Pearl Harbor. In the present, Cabrillo, chasing the remnants of a crashed satellite in the Argentine jungle, stumbles upon a shocking revelation of his own. His search to untangle the mystery leads him, first, to that small island and its secret, and then much farther back, to an ancient Chinese expedition-and a curse that seems to have survived for more than five hundred years. If Cabrillo’s team is successful in its quest, the reward could be incalculable. If not . . . the only reward is death.

“The Silent Sea” by Clive Cussler & Jack Du Brul (Amazon.com)

Michael Crichton Pirate Latitudes

Jamaica in 1665 is a rough outpost of the English crown, a minor colony holding out against the vast supremacy of the Spanish empire. Port Royal, Jamaica′s capital, a cut-throat town of taverns, grog shops, and bawdy houses, is devoid of London′s luxuries; life here can end swiftly with dysentery or a dagger in your back. But for Captain Edward Hunter it is a life that can also lead to riches, if he abides by the island′s code. In the name of His Majesty King Charles II of England, gold in Spanish hands is gold for the taking. And law in the New World is made by those who take it into their hands.

Word in port is that the Spanish treasure galleon El Trinidad, fresh from New Spain, is stalled in nearby Matanceros harbor awaiting repairs. Heavily fortified, the impregnable Spanish outpost is guarded by the blood-swiller Cazalla, a favorite commander of King Philip IV himself. With the governor′s backing, Hunter assembles a roughneck crew to infiltrate the enemy island and commandeer the galleon, along with its fortune in Spanish gold. The raid is as perilous as the bloody legends of Matanceros suggest, and Hunter will lose more than one man before he finds himself on the island′s shores, where dense jungle and the firepower of Spanish infantry are all that stand between him and the treasure.

With the help of his cunning crew, Hunter hijacks El Trinidad and escapes the deadly clutches of Cazalla, leaving plenty of carnage in his wake. But his troubles have just begun. . . .

Andy McDermott The Cult of Osiris

In Andy McDermott’s brilliant new novel, Nina Wilde and Eddie Chase are on the hunt for the lost pyramid of Osiris…The incredible secret of the Great Sphinx of Egypt is about to be revealed. An archaeological dig is preparing to open the Hall of Records, a repository of ancient knowledge hidden beneath the enigmatic statue.

But on the night of the unveiling student Macy Sharif makes a shocking discovery: a religious cult already raiding the Hall of Records to find the location of the mythical Pyramid of Osiris. Framed by corrupt officials, she goes on the run, trying to reach the only people who can save her before she is silenced — permanently. Discredited, jobless and broke, archaeologist Nina Wilde and ex-SAS soldier Eddie Chase have problems of their own — until Macy’s plea for help sends them on a deadly quest across the globe as they try to reach the mysterious pyramid before Khalid Osir, the charismatic leader of the Osirian Temple. But is the cult’s motive purely greed…or something more sinister?

Angels & Demons

In Ron Howard’s thrilling follow-up to The Da Vinci Code, expert symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) follows ancient clues on a heart-racing hunt through Rome to find the four Cardinals kidnapped by the deadly secret society, the Illuminati. With the Cardinals’ lives on the line, and the Camerlengo (Ewan McGregor) desperate for help, Langdon embarks on a nonstop, action-packed race through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, and the most secretive vault on Earth!