“Piranha†is a prime contender for the Golden Raspberry Award, a dubious honor that goes to the year’s worst films. In fact, there’s a category that seems ideal for it: Worst Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel, which no other film this year fits into quite like this.
After all, not only is it a remake of that old Joe Dante movie, but the material itself is a retread of “Jaws,†a film with more imitators than you might realize. If you log onto the Internet Movie Database and look up “Alien,†you’ll come across a tidbit about how one bigwig who read the script described it: “It’s like ‘Jaws,’ but in space.â€
Of course, “Alien†has several advantages over the new “Piranha,†not the least of which is that it’s got likable characters. It’s no accident, though, that “Piranha†is full of soulless people – that makes it OK to enjoy watching the title carnivores eat them, and even devour a few bones once the flesh is gone. Only the nice (but equally shallow) characters stand a chance of surviving, like a sheltered teenager named Jake (Steven R. McQueen), whose worst offense is breaking a promise to his mom, Sheriff Julie Forester (Elisabeth Sue), to watch over Zane (Sage Ryan) and Laura (Brooklynn Proulx), his little brother and sister. Even Jake’s love interest Kelly (Jessica Szohr) shows some class, though she does fall in with the wrong crowd.
That’d be the crowd of pornographers that includes Derrick (Jerry O’Connell), a Joe Francis type who’s a pro at making girls go wild. Part of his expertise is knowing how to be in the right place at the right time – that’s why he’s come to Jake’s neck of the woods during spring break, along with college students whose penchant for alcohol gets them out of their swimsuits. That’s more than enough to coax a school of prehistoric piranhas from an underwater cave, one nature kept hidden for centuries until Richard Dreyfuss came along and accidentally shook it up. (Needless to say, Dreyfuss’ screen time doesn’t last long.)
Everyone talks about how expensive it is to go to the movies, but with so many screens showing “Piranha†in 3-D, audiences will have to spend even more money for the glasses. They don’t make the movie any scarier, though it’s worth noting that the people behind “Piranha†threw in lots of laughs to balance out those feeding-frenzy scenes.
Since we’re the ones who paid, maybe the joke’s on us.
This article originally appeared on AllMediaNY.com
I saw this movie and it was overly perverted, sadistic and incredibly stupid. Okay, with imdb’s rating, this movie got about 6.9/10 when I checked which even though it is based on users, I usually find them decent ratings. The movie was really sick and bloody gorey as expected, however, this movie was rated pretty high for something that was so badly put together, with no exact story whatsoever, and there was more nudity than pirahnas.
I will bluntly say only perverts and people who are in a mood for porn would watch this and rate it high and call it an excellent film. You can basically skip every 8-9 minutes of the movie and won’t miss a thing. The entire movie was about stupid teenagers who do not listen and a bunch of perverts waltzing around. The pirahnas looked incredibly fake and paying extra for 3D?? Yeah right.. I do not recommend this movie to anyone! I really thought “Vampires Suck” was a lot better than this, and that movie wasn’t great either.
I will prop them for the gruesome killing scenes and graphic gore, but no.. everything else was a mess!