ALL SCI-FI

[Bogmeister]

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Remake of the 1978 film, this new one is directed by 'French visionary' director Alexandre Aja (the thriller killer High Tension) — is this a new vision? A new way of looking at . . . Piranha? To see them as more than just . . . gluttons?

No, not really.

In the plot, a small earthquake creates a new fissure under the waters, leading to an until-now unseen underwater cave. The deadly fish waste no time in roaming their new territory — the 1st victim is a hapless fisherman played by Richard Dreyfuss in cameo, humming a familiar song in a direct homage to Jaws (the original film was also a parody/homage to Jaws).

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Elizabeth Shue stars as the local Sheriff in some tourist town in Arizona — on Victoria Lake — which is just beginning its week of college morons on vacation for Spring Break. She calls to mind that old TV show with Suzanne Somers, She's the Sheriff, though Shue takes her role a mite more seriously. In fact, she may be the only thing in this film which is close to serious.

All the other actors tend to ham it up, especially Jerry O'Connell as an obnoxious-sleazeball filmmaker who is there to simply film boobs.

Shue's son is played by Steven R. McQueen (grandson of THE Steve McQueen). He's a teen and therefore irresponsible. He and his younger siblings end up on O'Connell's boat with a few others, and this boat soon gets tangled in seaweed. Then the fish arrive.

But the big attack happens near shore where a huge celebration was in progress. Soon the waters are red with blood.

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The film has quite a lot of T&A, and the unrated version also has a lot of flat out frontal nudity (the female kind), including one water ballet sequence underwater. It creates a disturbing juxtaposition in that many of these beautiful female bodies are soon shown ripped apart.

However, all the carnage in the key scene near the end (while extensive) also seems very unlikely, given that everyone is literally a few strokes from shore.

One unsympathetic young punk, for example, actually gets in a working speedboat and spends his time driving over numerous others rather than heading a few yards towards a beach. There's also Ving Rhames as another cop, choosing to battle the fish while remaining in waist-high water.

There are small roles for Dina Meyer as a scuba diver and Christopher Lloyd as the local fish expert who pronounces these fish as supposedly extinct as of 2 million years ago. (So, what we have here are prehistoric piranha).

He also supplies the revelation at the end, leading to a surprise ending. The film also has an interesting color scheme — usually the barren yellow/orange land surface contrasting with the stark bright blue waters.

BoG's Score: 6.5 out of 10

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Fishy Trivia: this had its own sequel a couple of years later, Piranha 3DD, emphasizing boobs . . .


BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus

[johnnybear]

You forgot to mention Kelly Brook and her gorgeous red bikini, Bud!
JB

[Bud Brewster]

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Opps, sorry JB! I'll fix that right away!

"Kelly Brook and her gorgeous red bikini."

(Ah, now I've brought the Force back into balance).
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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Watch the trailer and you'll see that this movie has excellent FX, beautiful photography, several familiar stars, and an interesting concept — a newly-formed fissure at the bottom of a lake opens up into to a magnificent underwater cave.

______________________ Piranha 3D (2010)


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And it has a powerful premise: prehistoric piranha, long thought extinct, invade a scenic lake during the peek tourist season.

The sum total of all these positive points is . . . a movie so much more disturbing than Jaws that I don't dare watch it!

And yet I was stunned by the way the critics dove right in and ate it up! (So to speak . . . ) Here are the reviews from Wikipedia.
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Empire gave the film three out of five stars, saying "Remember the film you hoped Snakes on a Plane would be — his is it! By any sane cinematic standards, meretricious trash . . . but thrown at you with such good-humoured glee that it's hard to resist. It's a bumper-sticker of a movie: honk if you love tits and gore! Honk honk honk."

Christy Lemire, film critic for the Associated Press, said "Run, don't walk: Piranha 3D [/b]is hilariously, cleverly gory. Mere words cannot describe how awesomely gnarly Piranha 3D is, how hugely entertaining, and how urgently you must get yourself to the theatre to see it. Like, now."

HollywoodLife.com called the film "a campy masterpiece of a movie", adding "If you have an ounce of fun in your body, you will love this movie about killer piranhas that overtake a town of hotties – in 3D!"

Peter Hall of Cinematical.com said "The gore, the nudity, the language, the gags, the characters — it's all always on the rise. Just when you think things could not possibly get more ridiculous, that the film has peaked, Aja and screenwriters Pete Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg manage to ram another syringe of adrenaline into its heart."

The Hollywood Reporter referred to the film as "a pitch-perfect, guilty-pleasure serving of late-summer schlock that handily nails the tongue-in-cheek spirit of the Roger Corman original . . ."
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Okay . . . so now I don't know WHAT to do!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[ralfy]

I only like 'em because of the honeys, but that's not good enough. In any event, I managed to watch all of the movies in the franchise only because I found the first one nostalgic, but could not watch almost everything from similar franchises, from Sharknado to Sharktopus, mainly because they keep jumping around plotwise.

I imagine that even the most outrageous storyline can be improved upon as long as the plot is kept tight, and anything that looks ridiculous, like bad acting, can be exploited by making them humorous. That should work since the storyline's outrageous, anyway.