While I was watching The Expendables last week, it occurred to me that as predictable and cliche-ridden as the script was, with a slightly smaller budget and just a few cast changes (ditch the Willis and Schwarzenegger cameos, and replace Stallone, Statham and Li with, say, Chuck Norris, Michael Dudikoff and Mark Dacascos) but everything else the same, the film would be indistinguishable from one of those direct-to-video action films that were popular in the early 90s.
Similarly, if it had been done on the cheap, Piranha 3D could have just as easily aired on SyFy at 9pm on a Saturday night, just like classics such as Raptor Island, Mega Snake and Shark Swarm. Like those films, Piranha 3D is completely mindless and derivative as hell, and is almost certainly not a film that its star really wants to be in. (Although, Elisabeth Shue can be comforted by the fact that she's probably the world's hottest 47 year-old.)
But because it does feature people like Shue and Adam Scott, and because the special effects and gore are so unbelievably great, and because director Alexandre Aja isn't embarrassed to shove lots of 3D boobs in your face, Piranha 3D is one of the more fun movies I've seen this summer.
Spoilers follow...
We all knew going in that Richard Dryfuss--sorta, kinda reprising his Jaws character--wasn't going to have a big role. But they couldn't have expanded it just a bit? They had to kill him off in the first five minutes? Don't get me wrong, it was cute and all, but having rewatched Jaws recently, Matt Hooper deserved a better death.
Other than that, if you can get past the overwhelming familiarity of it all, Piranha 3D is a pretty good film. It may not be big on things like "plot" or "characterization", but it's a veritable orgy of gore and violence, and that goes a long way with me. The best part about it was how the film constantly attempted to top itself. Someone gets eaten alive by piranha? Big fucking deal, ten minutes later, a paraglider gets the entire bottom half of her body torn off. Ten minutes after that, you see people stumbling out of the water, missing...I'm not even sure what the medical term is. They're not missing limbs, exactly. They still (sort of) have their arms and legs. But all the skin has been eaten away from them, leaving just a partial skeleton. Is there a medical term for that? If not, there should be.
Arguably, the film's finest moment is where a woman gets her hair tangled up in the engine of a motorboat. As the guy in the boat tried unsuccessfully to start the engine, I thought of a couple of ways that the scene could go. I wasn't even close. Once the engine did start, it violently yanks the girl's hair, peeling off the her entire face like a rubber mask. I can only assume the MPAA people who were in charge of giving his film a rating took a bathroom break during that moment.
Everything else, though...meh. I mean, it's all competently done, and it's a pretty good cast, with people like Shue and Scott, who you don't expect to see in a cheesy horror film, and people like Ving Rhames and Jerry O'Connell, who you do expect to see in a cheesy horror film, and some chick from Gossip Girl, who can't act, but sure looks good trying. But it's strictly by the numbers stuff. With so many straight-to-cable movies featuring killer animals, it would have been nice to see something a little different other than just better gore. Is it possible to take the killer animal subgenre in new direction? Eh, maybe not. But someone should probably try at some point.
Oh, I do have one more complaint, although this isn't aimed at the movie so much as it is the studio's marketing department. If you're responsible for creating commercials for a movie, do you really have to be told not to put the last shot of the movie in them? Isn't that basic fucking common sense? In the commercials, we see Adam Scott's character get knocked out of the boat by a large piranha jumping out of the water. So if you've seen the commercial, the whole time, you're thinking, "When is Adam Scott going to get attacked by the giant piranha?" When Christopher Lloyd tells the other characters that the piranha they've been fighting are just the babies, you know what's coming. And a second later, when Adam Scott sets up the gag, you already know what the punchline is.
Something similar happened a couple of years ago with Quarantine, where the last shot of the film--the main character being dragged off into the darkness--also managed to find its way into the commercial.
I think we can all agree that movie trailers and commercials generally give way too much away. The studios constantly the best parts of a film (the coolest shots, the funniest lines, etc.) in the trailer, because they figure that's the best way to get you to go see the film. And it's annoying, but I get it. If it's your job to get people to show up for a film, and it's a choice between giving too much away in the trailer or getting fired when the movie bombs, you're going to opt for the former. But for Christ's sake, can we please make the last shot--or really, the last five minutes or so--off-limits? Is that really too much to ask? And if we're being honest, here, that shot of Adam Scott being attacked by the large piranha? Not really even that great. Total waste of what would have been a decent surprise ending.
Script: C-
Acting: B+
Gore: A+
Overall: B-
Similarly, if it had been done on the cheap, Piranha 3D could have just as easily aired on SyFy at 9pm on a Saturday night, just like classics such as Raptor Island, Mega Snake and Shark Swarm. Like those films, Piranha 3D is completely mindless and derivative as hell, and is almost certainly not a film that its star really wants to be in. (Although, Elisabeth Shue can be comforted by the fact that she's probably the world's hottest 47 year-old.)
But because it does feature people like Shue and Adam Scott, and because the special effects and gore are so unbelievably great, and because director Alexandre Aja isn't embarrassed to shove lots of 3D boobs in your face, Piranha 3D is one of the more fun movies I've seen this summer.
Spoilers follow...
We all knew going in that Richard Dryfuss--sorta, kinda reprising his Jaws character--wasn't going to have a big role. But they couldn't have expanded it just a bit? They had to kill him off in the first five minutes? Don't get me wrong, it was cute and all, but having rewatched Jaws recently, Matt Hooper deserved a better death.
Other than that, if you can get past the overwhelming familiarity of it all, Piranha 3D is a pretty good film. It may not be big on things like "plot" or "characterization", but it's a veritable orgy of gore and violence, and that goes a long way with me. The best part about it was how the film constantly attempted to top itself. Someone gets eaten alive by piranha? Big fucking deal, ten minutes later, a paraglider gets the entire bottom half of her body torn off. Ten minutes after that, you see people stumbling out of the water, missing...I'm not even sure what the medical term is. They're not missing limbs, exactly. They still (sort of) have their arms and legs. But all the skin has been eaten away from them, leaving just a partial skeleton. Is there a medical term for that? If not, there should be.
Arguably, the film's finest moment is where a woman gets her hair tangled up in the engine of a motorboat. As the guy in the boat tried unsuccessfully to start the engine, I thought of a couple of ways that the scene could go. I wasn't even close. Once the engine did start, it violently yanks the girl's hair, peeling off the her entire face like a rubber mask. I can only assume the MPAA people who were in charge of giving his film a rating took a bathroom break during that moment.
Everything else, though...meh. I mean, it's all competently done, and it's a pretty good cast, with people like Shue and Scott, who you don't expect to see in a cheesy horror film, and people like Ving Rhames and Jerry O'Connell, who you do expect to see in a cheesy horror film, and some chick from Gossip Girl, who can't act, but sure looks good trying. But it's strictly by the numbers stuff. With so many straight-to-cable movies featuring killer animals, it would have been nice to see something a little different other than just better gore. Is it possible to take the killer animal subgenre in new direction? Eh, maybe not. But someone should probably try at some point.
Oh, I do have one more complaint, although this isn't aimed at the movie so much as it is the studio's marketing department. If you're responsible for creating commercials for a movie, do you really have to be told not to put the last shot of the movie in them? Isn't that basic fucking common sense? In the commercials, we see Adam Scott's character get knocked out of the boat by a large piranha jumping out of the water. So if you've seen the commercial, the whole time, you're thinking, "When is Adam Scott going to get attacked by the giant piranha?" When Christopher Lloyd tells the other characters that the piranha they've been fighting are just the babies, you know what's coming. And a second later, when Adam Scott sets up the gag, you already know what the punchline is.
Something similar happened a couple of years ago with Quarantine, where the last shot of the film--the main character being dragged off into the darkness--also managed to find its way into the commercial.
I think we can all agree that movie trailers and commercials generally give way too much away. The studios constantly the best parts of a film (the coolest shots, the funniest lines, etc.) in the trailer, because they figure that's the best way to get you to go see the film. And it's annoying, but I get it. If it's your job to get people to show up for a film, and it's a choice between giving too much away in the trailer or getting fired when the movie bombs, you're going to opt for the former. But for Christ's sake, can we please make the last shot--or really, the last five minutes or so--off-limits? Is that really too much to ask? And if we're being honest, here, that shot of Adam Scott being attacked by the large piranha? Not really even that great. Total waste of what would have been a decent surprise ending.
Script: C-
Acting: B+
Gore: A+
Overall: B-
3 comments:
The term that you are looking for is "Denuded"...
I loved Piranha. It was a perfect campy movie. The nudity and attacks were sooo over the top, so insane, so ridiculous. I just loved it.
I agree with you on the trailers showing the final scenes of a movie. The last 15 minutes should be off limits.
How do you feel about when they put scenes in the trailer that aren't in the movie? They did that in Piranha and Predators.
Elizabeth Shue?! Count me in!
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