After a sudden underwater tremor sets free scores of the prehistoric man-eating fish, an unlikely group of strangers must band together to stop themselves from becoming fish food for the area’s new razor-toothed residents.
Lake Victoria is celebrating the annual spring break, where thousands of teens come to party every year. Sheriff Julie Forester (a still looking great, Elisabeth Shue) attempts to maintain some order until amongst the revellers, until she discovers that the piranhas are loose and hungry for victims, now I am sure some of you would have allowed the little nippers to tuck in, however she tries her best to close the lake with her deputies, of course, a la Jaws, to no avail. Meanwhile, her son Jake (Steven R. McQueen) is asked by the Derrick (Jerry O’Connell) and his pornstar escorts, Danni and Crystal (a stand out performance from Kelly Brook and Riley Steele) to show them the best places in town for them to film their next porno film, what a dream job, even though he had clear instructions to stay home to babysit his younger brother and sister.
Ok, let’s clarify early, you can 100%, expect loads of nudity and gore as the trailer promised and to be fair, what else do you really expect? I am sure this will become a cult classic B-movie, as it pretty much delivers what you want, expect and what is should deliver and that is pretty much down to Alexandre Aja knowing exactly how this should play out. Piranha is a film that won’t please to everyone of course, but in all honestly, how anyone would go and see this and actually be surprised what they see on screen is beyond me, as I say it is pretty clear how it will play out from the get go.
All in all, this was an excellent watch, some scenes were hilarious, others shocked the hell out of me. The acting was surprisingly good, ok it was never going to be great based on the material, but everybody, from Elisabeth Shue to Jerry O’Connell did a great job, the latter hilarious in parts, while Kelly Brook in all honesty was perfectly watchable and did a decent job plus was very easy on the eye, which I’m sure wasn’t the only reason she got the role (ahem), then you have Ving Rhames and Christopher Lloyd playing kind of maritime Doc Brown, adding some extra gravitas to the massacre.
The effects weren’t as bas as expected unless you’re really picky and most surpsingly, the dialogue wasn’t at all bad, I’d have happily tolerated some corny lines due to the the plot, I half expected them to be honest, but it didn’t happen. Blood and Gore is served up in copious amounts, but you really should be prepared for that and there’s a lot of nudity as well, again a given at one of these Spring parties.
If you watch this, just remember that it won’t require the use of any brain cells and that it’s pretty much a gore-fest, that keeps winking at its audience throughout, just wait for O’Connell’s demise and you’ll know what I mean.