Piranha 3D

Boobs, gore, boobs, more gore, more boobs. And more gore. Lots more gore.

They say that 3D is the future of cin­ema. 3D will take us right into the pic­ture, daz­zle us in ways we never thought pos­si­ble. When that Aus­tralian dude — who seems to be in every­thing these days — first stepped amongst the ver­dant val­leys and float­ing peaks of Pan­dora, who amongst us did not hold their breath in child­like wonder?

Stag­gered by the enor­mity of Cameron’s vision, who amongst us did not stroke their chin in quiet con­tem­pla­tion of 3D’s poten­tially lim­it­less appli­ca­tions, and think, “I won­der what a big pair of wob­bly boobs would look like in 3D?”

Luck­ily, French direc­tor Alexan­dre Aja thought this too. He seems big on remakes, with The Hills Have Eyes, and now this to his cred­its. I think that one with the mir­rors, and Kiefer Suther­land was a remake as well. But nobody saw that, so I’ll put that aside.

“The pira­nhas really go to town, fill­ing their bel­lies fit to bust on an ‘All You Can Eat Hot Babe Buffet’”

This gory boobathon (booby gorathon?) opens with a rather cool wink to Jaws. Glanc­ing at the cast list before watch­ing the film should give you a pretty good idea of what the wink entails. After that, it’s busi­ness as usual, the pace slow­ing as we’re intro­duced to the prin­ci­pal stars, set against the back­drop of what Amer­i­cans call “Spring Break”. This seems to be pretty much hot babes danc­ing around on top of boats to rub­bish music, whilst chug­ging on booze, and being sprayed with water jets by Eli Roth for wet t-shirt competitions.

Of course, they’re all hav­ing a good time. And of course, as we all know, unchecked enthu­si­asm for sex, danc­ing, beer, and other naughty things is a big no-no in a hor­ror movie. It leads to only one thing. A hor­ri­fy­ing, and bru­tal death. You’d think these wan­ton teenagers would learn, pos­si­bly by some form of fast track evo­lu­tion, and body swerve things like Spring Break, Hal­loween, Prom Night etc. Just stay at home. Get wrapped up in a big blan­ket with a mug of hot choco­late. Don’t even think of answer­ing that phone, or doing any babysitting.

But no. Hot babes never learn. And sure enough, the pira­nhas attack in what is one of the most sus­tained, gore drenched set pieces in recent mem­ory. The pira­nhas really go to town, fill­ing their bel­lies fit to bust on an “All You Can Eat Hot Babe Buf­fet”. In the ensu­ing panic, heads are cracked open, and bod­ies chopped up in speed­boat pro­pellers. Amongst other things. If you can imag­ine the hor­ror, chances are Alexan­dre Aja is ahead of you, tak­ing it one step fur­ther than you thought possible.

Where’s David Has­sel­hoff when you need him?

Out­side of the car­nage, the movie fares less well. Kelly Brook, and porn star Riley Steele, have an exten­sive nude skinny dip, pirou­et­ting deep down in the crys­tal clear waters, which gets no com­plaints from me. But they weren’t picked for their act­ing skills, that’s for sure. They give hardly any lines to Riley, who’s oddly mute through­out most of the movie.

The real actors — Shue, Rhames etc. — do the best they can with what lit­tle they’re given. They’re there to scratch their puz­zled heads at the first fleet­ing signs of some­thing being not quite right, before shift­ing into action gear, scoot­ing around in boats, or unload­ing shot­guns into the water at their fishy foes. Jerry O’ Con­nell has the best time of it, and more or less steals the film as the obnox­ious (but funny) pro­ducer of a show called Girls Gone Wild.

But in an effort to pack the film with as many babes and as much blood as pos­si­ble, the story is left want­ing. Rather than wrap­ping things up prop­erly, the end­ing appears sud­denly, obvi­ously with an eye on the sequel which could quite com­fort­ably pick up straight where the first movie leaves off.

The 3D is gim­micky, but because of the eight­ies hor­rors it draws most of its inspi­ra­tion from, it’s a per­fect fit. One par­tic­u­lar use of 3D towards the end bor­ders on genius, it’s so unex­pected. How­ever, gim­micky or not, to want to make a film with big, wob­bly 3D boobs. Is there any­thing more noble?

Prob­a­bly. Can’t think of it at the moment though.