Piranha 3D lacks bite and falls short of its lowly predecessor

Growing up in the 80s, creature features were one of my favorite films. The films were entertaining with cool special effects monsters and didn't require a whole lot of thought to understand. Plus, I could always count on at least two pairs of breasts showing up somewhere in the film. 2010's “Piranha 3D” only delivers on the breasts and nothing else.

With a cast including Elisabeth Shue, Jerry O'Connell and Richard Dreyfuss the first assumption is “Piranha 3D” can't be that bad. You know what they say about assumptions. The “Piranha 3D” starts with Richard Dreyfuss mercifully meeting his demise after an underwater tremor releases hundreds of prehistoric man-eating piranhas onto Lake Victoria. Of course, this happens just time for Lake Victoria to explode from a sleepy population of 5,000 to 50,000 for spring break. From there “Piranha 3D” only attempts to find new and exciting ways for piranhas to eat the adolescent spring breakers. I'm not a viewer who expects movies like “Piranha 3D” to make sense or explain everything. That is the beauty of film, stories do not have to make sense. But I like films that have some sort of plot, of point. “Piranha 3D” makes no effort to do this. The film just jumps from naked bodies to dead ones with no discernible pattern or point.

The special effects were okay but with everything that can be done with computers, it seems that everybody just wants to go over the top with their creations. The piranhas are menacing and scary but look and act more like an alien than a fish. The death scenes are bloody and gory but rather bland and lacking ingenuity. The only positive I saw in “Piranha 3D” were the 3D effects. The effects looked good and fit with the film and scenes. I rate “Piranha 3D” a poor 1 out of 5 stars and would recommend its 1978 predecessor instead but it seems I am in the minority because “Piranha 3DD” is planned for release in September 2011.