Piranha 3D

People come up to me all the time and ask "Tony, why do write your blog?" Is it for the money, the women, the overwhelming sense of machismo? And each time, I look them straight in the eye and say the exact same thing – "How dare you talk to me." Then, having sufficiently scolded them, I go on to answer their question. "No, the reason I write this blog is for the same reason anyone writes a blog – to save lives."

And lately it has come time my attention that there is a clear and present danger that threatens our summer fun. This threat can turn an innocent beachside wet T-shirt contest into a bloody, gory massacre in minutes. This threat is of course, prehistoric piranhas which were trapped in a subterranean lake and recently released after seismic activity created a portal to the earth's surface. It's a story as old as time.

But after watching Alendre Aja's Piranha in 3D, I feel like I am now something of a piranha survival expert. And since being attacked by these prehistoric killers is a matter of when and not if, I feel like it is my duty to once again use my writing to save lives. Here is EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SURVIVING A PREHISTORIC PIRANHA ATTACK.

1. Piranhas, like early 80's slasher villains, have a very strict moral code. I can't be sure what denomination they are (Could be Lutherans but I'm thinking Methodists) but piranhas will not stand for consuming alcohol, dancing suggestively to hip hop music, foul language, or premarital relations of any kind. And what they really hate is public nudity. One can only assume that being trapped in a subterranean lake for millions of years has given them time to develop a very strong moral code. In any event, it seems that if you engage in any kind of risqué behaviour, you will be devoured by piranhas. Only the good will survive. So if you're Billy Joel, surviving a piranha attack may seem counter-intuitive.
   

   
    

2. You're going to need a bigger boat. The opening scene of the movie features a character named Matt who looks a lot like the Matt from another monster-in-the-water movie. This Matt is fishing in the middle of the lake when he his flung from his boat and devoured by a pack of piranha's. We learn right away that piranhas hunt in packs. Not unlike those douche bags on Jersey Shore. And because they attack in such great numbers no small watercraft will keep you safe. Many times people tried to flee in small boats and every time they wound up eaten. To be really safe you want to make sure you are on something the size of a cruise ship. Just make sure it's not a celebrity cruise ship or you might encounter the only thing worse than prehistoric piranha – those douche bags from Jersey Shore.
   

   
    

3. Hand-to-hand combat is not recommended when fighting piranhas. This may seem like common sense but too many characters perished by trying to fight off the piranhas with blunt instruments with not much success. You could be like the Ving Rhames character and find yourself grabbing an outboard motor and using the propeller as a weapon. This could have been successful but Ving made the classic mistake of yelling "Choke on this Motherf**kers" as he was fighting them. As we established in survival tip #1, piranhas don't care much for the salty talk. Sadly, there was only one way this was going to end and this is the last we saw of Ving.
   

Look, I could go on but I think you get the point. The truth is that developing a survival strategy against prehistoric piranhas is really the only reason to go see this movie. I was hoping for so much more and found myself underwhelmed when I left the theatre. Not because there was too much cheese and gore but rather because there was not enough cheese and gore.

I thought this was going to be a throwback to the old drive in 3D monster movies. It would be wall to wall, over the top scenes of killer piranhas attacking unsuspecting boaters and swimmers. Instead they took the same approach as Jaws and only gave us a dabbling of piranha attacks in the first half of the movie. Aja must have figured this would be a nice build up to the feeding frenzy that takes place for the last 25 minutes of the film. He could not be more wrong.

I think there may have been two scenes of piranha attacks in the first hour of this movie. So if there weren't piranha attacks, what was in the first hour of the movie? The answer is character and storyline introductions that lead to nowhere. We meet Sherriff Julie (Elizabeth Shue) whose job it is to keep the area safe during Spring Break. She finds the half-eaten body of Matt and wants to shut down the beach but is reminded this is the busiest time of the tourist season. Sound familiar? But instead of developing this as a fully fleshed out storyline, this is the last we hear of it.

We also meet hall of fame sleaze peddler Derrick Jones (Jerry O'Connell) whose 'Wild Wild Girls website is not even thinly veiled as Joe Francis' Girls Gone Wild site. O'Connell does a great job of playing this sleaze-bag whose only function in the movie is to be a reason to have hot topless women on the screen. If you want to do that, fine. But why spend all the time setting up the relationship between Jones and Julie's son Jake (Steven McQueen (yes, grandson)). Jones appears like he's going to be a mentor figure for the shy Jake but again, this storyline goes nowhere.

Even worse is there is no third act. The way they neutralize the threat was accidental more than planned. And it wasn't necessary in the escape scene in which it took place. It's like they had no way of ending it and threw something in that was really nonsensical.

The only reason why I am deconstructing character motivations and storylines in a 3D Piranha movie was because the filmmakers made the mistake of introducing them for the first half of this film. The big scene late in this movie is fun and is the reason why someone would pay money to see it. So my point is why hold it back to the end? It should have been like that all the way through. Because if you try to pass this off as a regular film with characters and storylines, you have to make it make sense.

And when these don't make sense, it makes me so mad I want to curse a blue streak. But I don't. Why?

PIRANHAS DON"T CARE FOR THE SALTY TALK.

People you have to learn the rules. It will save your life one day.