Review of PIRANHA 3D

Dying to get wet

Piranha 3D
Dir– Alexandre Aja
Cast– Elisabeth Shue, Steven R. McQueen, Jerry O’Connell, Kelly Brook, Adam Scott, Jessica Szohr and Ving Rhames
Rating– ** ½

 

Piranha 3D is virtually an unreviewable film. In its brisk running time of 88 minutes, not once does the film try to make any pretense of having any whatsoever cinematic merit. And yet, director Alexandre Aja delivers on the promise of dishing out an orgy of bodies and blood and nothing more. For once, the star rating above does not reflect the recommendation of this critic. If you’re a fan of the cult & cheesy 1978 Roger Corman Piranha, and its low-budget 1981 sequel Piranha II: The Spawning that launched the directing career of one James Cameron… Aja’s remake and franchise-reboot is exactly what you should be watching.

In a movie then that doesn’t have a plot, except in the form of a narrative that is an excuse for wink-wink nods to previous films of the genre and an opportunity for its assortment of bikini-clad women to flash their assets before the titular fish unleash their carnage… Piranha 3D gleefully begins with Richard Dreyfuss gamely reprising his role from the Spielberg classic Jaws. Fishing on a still-water sunny day, singing Show Me The Way To Go Home; an earthquake causes the bottom of the lake that he’s sailing atop to split and release in its whirlpool thousands of prehistoric piranhas that had existed beneath the chasm. Meanwhile, at a nearby lake-town, Spring Break has meant hundreds of oversexed and intoxicated teenagers going hedonistically unruly. Insert- random footage of wet t-shirts and bubble-thongs! Before the local Sheriff Julie (Elisabeth Shue) can declare the lake shut however, the piranhas gatecrash the party and have their own private feast.

Aja, whose previous films The Hills Have Eyes and Mirrors were also remakes, stays true to the spirit of the campy Corman original. So even as you’re terrified watching a school of piranhas collectively gnaw at the private parts of a woman lazing on a float, you guffaw as a piranha spits out the silicone implants of a stripper that it has devoured. There’s also the rather crude variety of poetic justice when a single-mindedly horny pornographer meets his end by way of his organ being chewed off! If any of this is putting you off, Piranha 3D is not for you. But if you’re a fan of torture-films like Hostel– heck, Hostel director Eli Roth pops up in a cameo as well, meeting an end that is grisly even by his standards -Aja’s curious blend of all-out gore and as much soft-core as the envelope can push is mighty fun.

 

Besides, this is perhaps the first film since Cameron’s Avatar where the 3D doesn’t look like a last-minute add-on. Right from the opening credits to the booty-grind at the lake and then the ultimate bloodbath… the film looks to have been shot with the 3D conversion in mind. Apart from obvious 3D gimmicks like having a character vomit on the screen to a whip being lashed in your face, Aja also makes exploitative use of 3D to enhance the contours of female anatomy- best exemplified in an underwater naked lesbian ballet!

 

Curse the Indian Censor Board for chopping the explicit skin-show but retaining the gory dismemberments. Guess the natural sight of breasts are more offensive than the insides of a person hanging out from the torso! Guess that’s the point that Aja’s trying to make by blurring the lines between bodies and blood? Nah… that’s reading too much! It’s fish eating half-naked chicks… and it’s fun!

– Abhishek Bandekar

31/10/10