Piranha 3DD Review

Rated R (Sequences of Strong Bloody Horror Violence and Gore, Graphic Nudity, Sexual Content, Language and some Drug Use)

Running Time: 1 Hour & 23 Minutes

Cast-

Danielle Panabaker-Maddy

Matt Bush-Barry

Chris Zylka-Kyle

Katrina Bowden-Shelby

Jean-Luc Bilodeau-Josh

David Koechner-Chet

Meagan Tandy-Ashley

Paul James Jordan-Travis

Adrian Martinez-Big Dave

Christopher Lloyd-Carl Goodman

Paul Scheer-Andrew

Ving Rhames -Deputy Fallon

Clu Gulager-Mo

Gary Busey-Clayton

David Hasselhoff-As Himself

Directed by John Gulager

WHY IS THIS FILM SO BAD?!

Note: This film was viewed in 2D through video-on-demand.

'Welcome to Rock Bottom,' sighs David Hasselhoff as he kicks off opening day at 'The Big Wet' Water Park in "Piranha 3DD," the sequel to Alexandre Aja’s "Piranha 3D" from 2010 that is now being dumped with little afterthought by The Weinstein Company's Dimension Films in the middle of summer at a paltry eighty-six theaters. Yep, this is rock bottom indeed. Aja’s "Piranha 3D" was actually a remake of the 1978 original of the same name, produced by 'King of the B-Movies' Roger Corman and directed by Joe Dante as a low budget parody/rip-off of Steven Spielberg's 1975 original blockbuster "Jaws." Although I was initially expecting the worse, "Piranha 3D" ended up being a very enjoyable film that reveled in its inherent cheesiness and absurdity while bombarding the screen with copious amounts of gratuitous gore and even full-frontal female nudity. Aja offered exactly what the audience wanted while gleefully mocking them for wanting it and critics praised the film as it currently scores a solid 73% on Rotten Tomatoes. Despite opening with a mere $10 million, this was apparently enough for Dimension Films to announce a sequel just three days after Aja’s film was released. Delays notwithstanding, "Piranha 3DD" has finally arrived in both theaters and video-on-demand streaming services but the sequel is proof that lightning cannot strike twice. Lacking any of the clever, imaginative wit of the original, "Piranha 3DD" fails on every conceivable level as a film and not only does it scrape the bottom of the barrel, it somehow ends up being worse than the direct-to-DVD flicks that line the back-shelves at your local video rental store. 

A year after Lake Victoria was attacked by a legion of prehistoric piranhas, an eradication campaign began that left the lake uninhabitable by life and the town was subsequently abandoned due to the loss of their main source of revenue—tourism. At a nearby lake in Merkin County, Arizona, two farmers, Clayton (Gary Busey) and Mo (Clu Gulager), attempt to recover the body of a dead cow in the swamp but are killed by a swarm of piranha when the eggs inside the cow hatch. Meanwhile, an aspiring marine biologist named Maddy (Danielle Panabaker) returns home for the summer to find that her step-father Chet (David Koechner) has added an adult-themed section to the water park she co-owns with him and renamed it as 'The Big Wet,' complete with 'water-certified strippers.' During a night party at the water park, Maddy reunites with two of her close friends, Ashley (Meagan Tandy) and Shelby (Katrina Bowden). She also runs into her ex-boyfriend Kyle (Chris Zylka), now a deputy sheriff, and Barry (Matt Bush), a janitor at the water park who is secretly in love with her. A day before 'The Big Wet' officially opens, a swarm of piranha attacks Maddy and Shelby, prompting Maddy to seek the expertise of Carl Goodman (Christopher Lloyd), who explains that the piranha might be moving through sewage pipes and underground rivers that run between lakes. Chet refuses to shut down the water park due to his greed, leaving it up to Maddy and her friends to stop the incoming onslaught of piranha. 

Failing to drum up any amount of suspense or wit, "Piranha 3DD" is a bore of a film that lurches forward through a series of half-hearted and disjointed scenes until the end credits begin to roll at barely seventy minutes, for which you should be very thankful. A film like this does not require a complicated plot but what writers Marcus Dunstan, Patrick Melton, and Joel Soisson have come up with barely qualifies as one because it feels like a rough outline that was scribbled in a hurry on a piece of toilet paper. I'm surprised it took three people to write this piece of junk! There is absolutely no attempt to develop the characters, who are simply introduced and it’s quite apparent that director John Gulager (whose credits include the "Feast" trilogy) is not even trying. "Piranha 3DD" manages to recapture some semblance of the absurdist tone of Aja’s film once David Hasselhoff makes an appearance playing an exaggerated parody of himself as a D-list celebrity but it’s too little too late. Even the gore pales in comparison to the original. At one point a small piranha makes its way inside a woman’s vagina and bites a man’s penis during sex, forcing him to chop it off with a kitchen knife but not only is this scene poorly edited, it reeks of desperation on the filmmakers part, leaving you to wonder, 'This is all they can come up with?' The bloodbath at the end also feels small in scope and while it offers the obligatory blood and guts, nothing stands out as the film is content with regurgitating what came before. As for the nudity, there’s plenty of double-D's (annoyingly so) on display but Gulager just throws it up on the screen with no imagination, vainly hoping that it will placate the male audience but they would've been better off staying at home and using Google search to see surgically-enhanced breasts. Honestly, The Weinstein Company/Dimension Films knew this was a dud so why even bother releasing "Piranha 3DD" into theaters and taking up screen space from actually good films? While the 2010 original was post-converted to 3D, the sequel was shot in native 3D but I actually viewed the film in 2D through an HD video-on-demand streaming service. However, you can see it in 3D through Facebook of all places. Even in 2D, I can tell the 3D was utilized as more of a gimmick given the amount of objects flying toward the camera but for those who want to be informed about its quality, Ben Rawson-Jones at DigitalSpy criticized it as 'a waste of space with no effort made to create any shots that create the requisite immersive effect.' 

As for the acting, please don't expect much given the overall quality of the film. That being said, Danielle Panabaker actually commits to the horrid script and delivers a competent performance while David Koechner is convincing as a greedy sleaze-ball. The rest of the cast tries their best to make the material work but are hamstrung by god-awful dialogue and a total lack of character development. Given his recent line of work ("Anaconda 3: Offspring," anyone?), David Hasselhoff is fully aware of what kind of film he’s in and acts accordingly. He's not given much to do except sit around but his scenes are the only time when the film manages to garner a few chuckles. Paul Scheer and Ving Rhames also show up to reprise their roles from the first film. In a scene reminiscent of Rose McGowan in 2007's "Planet Terror," Rhames straps on a pair of shotguns on his prosthetic legs to blast away legions of piranha. 

After several delays, "Piranha 3DD" was finally given a limited theatrical release on June 1, 2012, in addition to a day-and-date release on various video-on-demand streaming services. The film received overwhelmingly negative reviews with 12% on Rotten Tomatoes as critics wrote it off as 'a dispiriting echo of 2010's horror-comedy.' Honestly, I'm genuinely surprised that it didn't rank lower. Making only $705,625 worldwide, the film isn't even playing in any New York theaters; all I have to say is good riddance. I didn't bother to see "Piranha 3DD" in the theater as paying $11 to $18 seemed like a waste and ended up renting the film through video-on-demand for $7.99 in HD. The amount of crap that Hollywood churns out shouldn't surprise me anymore but it still does when you come across a film like "Piranha 3DD." This is not so bad it’s good; this is just plain bad!

Final Rating: 0.5 out of 5

"Josh cut off his penis because something came out of my vagina!"