B-grade horror set in sleepy Lake Victoria, Arizona. Every year, the population explodes to 50,000 for Spring Break – a riot of drunken fun in the sun for college students. This year, things turn sour. The lake sits on a crater formed by an ancient volcanic eruption, and when earth tremors causes the lake floor to crack open, scores of prehistoric piranhas set forth from the deep. Millions of these razor-toothed flesh eaters, with a primeval impulse to kill, wreck havoc upon the party-goers. A local sheriff (Elisabeth Shue, Leaving Las Vegas) gets herself a group of helpers and risks everything to destroy the aquatic carnivores.
In 3D and from the director of The Hills Have Eyes. Also stars Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future) and Richard Dreyfuss (in a nod to Jaws).
In this post-Avatar, ‘3D is the future’ movie world we live in, it’s easy to forget that 3D technology is the hokiest of gimmicks from back in the day. So it’s refreshing to see a film that embraces that B-grade ethos and uses the red and blue glasses to enhance some mindless fun that wears its exploitative heart on its sleeve.
The target audience is clearly the male youth market and they should appreciate the extra dimension in the extended spring break, as soft porn segments dominate the opening stanzas. If that sounds tacky as hell, well, it is, but it’s done in a tongue-in-cheek way that allows for some fantastically over-the-top, if puerile, humour. There are also some great little cameos, most notably by Christopher Lloyd as a mad scientist. All of this is really just a preamble for when the piranhas attack, and how, catapulting the film into so-bad-it’s-good territory.
The carnage is incredible, with each death more imaginative and bad-taste funny than the last. It makes one want to bust out play-by-play commentary but I won’t spoil it for you. I know that more sophisticated moviegoers will drop their monocles in disgust at how such admittedly cheesy schlock can earn four stars. Turn off the critical part of your brain, though, and you’ll find Piranha 3D stupidly entertaining.
By Andreas Heinemann, Flicks.co.nz
Due to constraints with 3D camera rigs, Aja shot Piranha in 2D and converted to 3D in post production using the reali-D conversion process developed by the company, Inner-D from wikipedia on Piranha_3D you dont see the cut out lines that the conversion process creates if a film is filmed in 3d. Although not as bad as clash of the titans... still not great, just annoying.
Love love love this movie.It was my first 3d movie and was probably the most goriest and bloodiest horror movie I have ever seen.Way more gorier than saw.Very good movie
I loved this.....These fish were hungry wee things...and watching them chew there way through the sexy cast...was great fun! Im loving this 3D affect. Its a great new way to get closer to the Action....This is fresh..fun....campy.And very entertaining....Cant wait for the Sequel! Loved it!
Hey "nzmisclegeek", this was filmed in 3D, not converted. I. Loved this; seen it 3 times
Deliberately like on of those movies you might watch at 2am Sunday morning. Delivered plenty of gore and tits. Great to see Christopher Lloyd again. Climax of the movie not as good as the massacre scene. Was alright.
Piranha embraces the extra-dimension, with French director Alexandre Aja hurling drinks, hoses, spew, outboard motors and eyeballs at the audience.
Remember the film you hoped Snakes On A Plane would be – this is it! By any sane cinematic standards, meretricious trash … but thrown at you with such good-humoured glee that it’s hard to resist. It’s a bumper-sticker of a movie: honk if you love tits and gore! Honk honk honk.
A pitch-perfect, guilty-pleasure serving of late-summer schlock that handily nails the tongue-in-cheek spirit of the Roger Corman original.
Piranha 3D is trying so hard for the laughs and the allusions amid all the gore, and endless bloodbath of bare naked ladies, that it completely forgets to frighten anyone.
The entertainment formula behind this short and nasty movie - devised according to someone's idea of what teenage boys with the guile, the facial hair or the "guardian" to gain admission to an R-rated movie are likely to enjoy - is sloppy and simple.
We've been told the NZ release date for this flick is Thursday, 26th Aug 2010.
Release date: August 26th 2010.
We haven't received times for this movie in this location yet. However these are updated as cinemas announce them, so check back soon. Hopefully the lovely cinemas in your location will choose to play it shortly. ~Ed.
