Piranha 3D: Sloppy, Gory Fun.

posted by Tony Youngblood

A friend of mine accused my last article (Kick Ass & Why I Don’t Like Super Hero Movies) of elitism. As if. Snobbery maybe, but elitism? If I were truly a film elitist, I wouldn’t have enjoyed the skin & blood fest that is Piranha 3D.

But for all its faults, I did.

I’ll synopsize with my artist rendition of the Piranha 3D pitch meeting:

“Summer. The Beach. Girls in Bikinis. Flesh-eating fish! 3 fucking D!”

“Like Avatar?”

“Like Avatar in a threesome with Jaws and Porky’s!”

“What’s it about?”

“What’s it not about? It’s about the fall of mankind. It’s about life. It’s about double-d’s and types A, O, and B! It has romance! Gore! More jiggle than a water balloon!”

“Can we throw in some kids?”

“Great idea! I like the way you think. For a producer, you really get me. Let’s make this bitch!”

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Are we up to speed? Good.

In my last article, I was criticized for taking Kick Ass too seriously. So it may come as a shock when I say that Piranha‘s orgiastic violence was pure, unadulterated fun. It’s not a perfect B movie by any means — the two little kids bring everything to a halt every time they appear onscreen and the anthropomorphic CGI of the Piranhas was hokey even for this film — but Piranha 3D is injected with just enough of the Roger Corman charm to be a grand time.

In roles that could have been played by any work-desperate, mid-profile actors, Elizabeth Shue and Ving Rhames play police officers charged with the task of protecting a summer getaway town from prehistoric piranhas. Jerry O’Connell plays a “Girls Gone Wild” style video producer who comes to town to exploit the young bikini-clad vacationers. We’re obviously meant to think he’s a first class douche, but the problem is that we’re simultaneously being aroused by the skin that he provides. Is the director subversively titillating us with our own cognitive dissonance? Probably not. But I for one caught myself enjoying the flesh on display while mentally slapping my own wrist. This is perhaps the film’s only major flaw. People who objectify women are narcissistic goofballs, but it’s ok for us to reap the benefits of said objectification.

But then again, that’s what exploitation films are all about. We certainly aren’t meant to root for the piranhas (or are we?) but we sure as hell enjoy the carnage they lay in their wake.

Much was made of the casting of porn star Riley Steele, most notable for her. . . erm . . . eh. . . performance in Pirates II, the most expensive adult film of all time. I shamefully admit that I am familiar with Steele and looked forward to seeing her first real acting gig. I’m still waiting. Steele did her share of gyrating, body shots, and girl-on-girl make out sessions, but she’s barely given a line to read. Only the filmmakers know if this is because of an unusable performance or a stylistic choice. Time will tell if Steele will follow the path of Sasha Grey, whose mediocre acting talent is the porn-star equivalent of Sir Ian McKellen.

I would say to see this film without the 3D, but we aren’t given a choice. The 3D version is the only version that’s being released. Perhaps 3D’s premium ticket price is what drove the disappointing box office. The 3D technology did nothing for me except severely reduce the film’s brightness and contrast.

Piranha 3D is by no means memorable, but its fun. And in a lackluster summer movie season, fun is exactly what I needed.

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On Monday, I was invited to be on the Nashville film podcast Cinegeek to discuss my The Film Talk article 7 Reasons You’re Irrationally Clinging to Your DVD Collection. Check it out here.

Tony Youngblood is the current Foursquare Mayor of the Belcourt Theatre, a film and music snob, and producer of the experimental improv music blog and podcast Theatre Intangible. His favorite films include Eric Rohmer’s The Green Ray, Abbass Kiarostami’s The Wind Will Carry Us, Ingmar Bergman’s The Magician, Lee Chang Dong’s Oasis, and Rob Reiner’s This Is Spinal Tap.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 25th, 2010 at 8:06 pm. It is filed under Blog, Reviews, Youngblood on Film and tagged with film review podcast, movie review podcast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.