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 Now screening [MA15+]
Director: Alexandre Aja
Runtime: 88 mins.
I’m not a big fan of the current 3D novelty that’s sweeping Hollywood productions; as far as I’m concerned, I’ll be impressed when I can watch a 3D film without the tacky glasses. I already wear glasses; why should I balance another pair? The recent preview of Piranha (with the obligatory subtitle, “3D”) had me worried as soon as the glaring credits started rolling – I thought I’d be doomed to a headache, but that never came. Instead, by the end of the film, I had a sore stomach alternately tortured by explicit gore and outrageous laughter.
Director Alexandre Aja gets straight down to business with his first victim, Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss playing the same character from Jaws) falling victim to prehistoric piranhas set free from a subterranean lake by an earthquake. Within hours, Sheriff Julie Foster (Elizabeth Shue) is considering the closure of a beach bustling with brainless spring breakers, because she’s convinced of the real threat posed by the species identified by local piscatorial professional Goodman (Christopher Lloyd in a suitably overplayed role).
Meanwhile, on the busiest day of the Lake Victoria year, Foster’s kids are variously AWOL, with the two littlies marooned on a small island surrounded by hungry fish, and their erstwhile babysitter brother, Jake (Steven R. McQueen) chasing tail on a boat hired by Wild Wild Girls pornographer Derrick James (Jerry Connell), his leering cameraman, two bimbos, and Jake’s high school obsession Kelly (Jessica Szohr). Oh, and Ving Rhames has a minor role as a bullish Deputy who thinks a shotgun is a reliable weapon when taking on piranha, along with Eli Roth as a wet t-shirt contest organiser.
With all the characters introduced, Aja gets down to business in true ‘70s shtick, putting all of them in various dangerous situations that anyone can see from a mile away, and setting up some truly, deliciously hilarious attacks on the aforementioned intellectually deficient and mammarily overendowed, prompting several extended howls of delight from the audience. Some of the funniest scenes involve Connell’s loose cannon, Derrick, and his concerns over a piranha-aided circumcision.
There’s nothing very intellectually challenging here, but who would head along to a film like this expecting anything more than lots of tanned skin, inflated breasts, puffed chests, and screaming, bloodied water? Piranha 3D is one of those guilty pleasures –shameless and gratuitous, with a generous twist of gore and moralising.
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TIM MILFULL
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