Apparently dropping the "3D" for the home video release, Alexandre Aja's "Piranha" is a movie that sorta does what it's setting out to, but coulda, woulda, shoulda been better.
Seismic activity frees a horde of prehistoric man-eating fish, which promptly savage a coastal town smack dab in the middle of spring break. A sheriff (Elisabeth Shue) battles the fish as her son (Steven R. McQueen) encounters them as well.
"Piranha" is one of those films that certainly doesn't take itself seriously, with loads of tongue-in-cheek nudity and gore. But it's the execution that just doesn't have that something extra. It just feels a little too cutesy, as if Aja is winking just a bit too hard at us, reminding us that this is comedy-horror, not horror-comedy, and still comes off a bit too commercial.
The best analogy I can come up with is that it feels like the cool kids in high school doing a videotaped skit as a group project. They've seen a few of the movies they're taking off of, but, since they don't know them as well as the true geeks do, they can't do a proper homage, and the end result, while a novel attempt, doesn't quite get there.
Don't get me wrong: There's plenty to love, such as Jerry O'Connell, as the head of a "Girls Gone Wild"-type outfit that has come to this resort town hoping to cash in, or Ving Rhames as the deputy not to be trifled with, especially not by no trout on steroids. He gets a couple of vintage Ving scenes before bowing out.
The action and gore effects range from average CGI carnage to fun and inventive, but nothing mind-blowing. There's one especially that will perhaps give some less-hardcore horror hounds the willies, but experienced ones will have seen superior efforts in other films.
The film belongs to McQueen, though, as the film's real protagonist. He leaves his little brother and sister at home alone to take a once-in-a-lifetime "internship" on O'Connell's boat, where he hopes to get a glimpse of his crush (Jessica Szohr) in a bikini or less, not to mention the busty lasses (Kelly Brook and Riley Steele) who are already flirting with him.
"Piranha" thinks it's really outrageous but really doesn't do a whole lot more than in your average horror film. Sure, there are a couple of cutesy cameos (by Richard Dreyfus as the fisherman who first stumbles upon the fish, and later director Eli Roth as a beach party DJ) and a few shock-value sequences, but there's not enough unrelenting craziness that really proves memorable.
The Blu-ray extras are similarly passable but not especially boisterous, including deleted scenes, filmmaker commentary (from Aja and a couple of producers), 10 behind-the-scenes featurettes, and deleted storyboard sequences.
Film: 3 Yaps
Extras: 3.5 Yaps