Piranha 3-D(2010)
So I just got back from Piranha 3-D. It was lowbrow, implausible, hammily acted, cliche and pandered only to the lowest common denominator.
I fucking loved it.
For anyone who has even just glanced at this LJ, it's no secret that I hate James Cameron's big budget stinkbomb Avatar with a passion that transcends time, space and virus-infected laptops. A lot of this is because of it's nonsensical and one-sided "politics", but even if it wasn't for that I think I would still hate it. My big beef is how everyone acts like it was the first 3-D movie ever made and acts like it's original by being thus. Nevermind that 3-D movies have been coming out since the dawn of filmmaking and that the 2000's aren't even their first big boom(that'd be the 50's), but it just pisses me off to see every other 3-D movie and it's cousin get bashed for "jumping on the 3-D bandwagon" while Avatar gets unfair immunity. Why? It does nothing different with the technology other than making the film incomprehensible without the glasses, who cares? There's no innovative scenes or effects that use the technology in a way that would have been just as effective in 2-D.
Piranha remedies this. And beats Avatar in every conceivable way.
Like in Avatar, threre's no actual plot and story worth discussing, but as a sheer balls-to-the-wall FX fest, it can't be topped. A bunch of prehistoric piranhas get unleashed from an underground lake during spring break, and eat people and sorely screw up everyone's day, including some nerd played by some nerd who may or may not be one of the cast of High School Musical or some similar crap. In order to prove himself to some girl at school and some bully, he agrees(not entirely willingly)to assist some pornographers(also bullies) in order to look cool, but first he has to ditch his younger siblings and escape from his mom(who's the sheriff). It really doesn't matter, it's the piranha-born mayhem that counts!
From the opening scene with a whirlpool, it's just one awe-inspiring
cataclysm of death(and some considerable TnA as well) after another. There's a scene where one of the bullies tries to escape from the piranhas in an area of the lake filled with people trying to get out, but since he's a bully, and thus has no regard for human life, he *get ready* mows through them all in a thyphoon of gore and dismembered limbs, but then one of the female escapee's long hair gets stuck in the propeller(wrenching her face off and leaving her bare, bloody skull), the boat stops, and all of the escapees, bleeding and disfigured, reach up with their skeletal arms and capsize the boat, only to get eaten by more piranhas ina whole fountain of blood! It's the best raft/boat mass death in horror movies since The Burning. And what's awesome is that it could easily have come from a zombie movie(or EC comics revenge story) as well! And yet, as awesome as the gore is, the ensuing scenes of the bloody, dying victims who have all killed each other trying to escape, still have a sense of tragedy and loss that overpowers all of the scenes in Avatar of the blue kitties or whatever the hell they were "suffering" and is just all around more profoundly human and affecting. This movie indulges your bloodlust, then forces you to pay for it! Oh, and did I mention the tits on display during all of this?
Why settle for the sight of a bunch of substitutes for black people(played by cartoon blue monkeys, or cats, or whatever)fighting robots with spears when you can watch a real black man(professional cult movie badass Ving Rhames) fight off a bunch of prehistoric flesh-eating fish from an underground lake in 3-D with a boat propeller as a chainsaw before heroically sacrificing himself in a whirlpool of blood and dismembered female flesh?? Nothing in Avatar can compare!
The phallic awesomeness of this is truly wow-inducing.
Oh, and it's not just women who become fish-food in this, but men too. The asshole porn director gets his in one of the funniest death sequences in the past 10 years of film. This guy does nothing throughout the film but babble about sex and how big his penis is, so you can guess which part of his anatomy he loses. I nearly died of laughter. Oh, and then we see(not kidding) his floating penis get eaten by a piranha, then fight with another piranha over it! Something for everyone.
Forget just Avatar, that scene actually rivals most of the scenes in my favorite films of all time! But yeah, it still beats Avatar.
This has got to be the best tiny flesh-eating aquatic monster movie since 1964's cult classic The Flesh Eaters, which is still the superior film in my opinion(mainly because of Martin Kosleck's performance, the daringly gory effects for their time and former comics writer Arnold Drake's great dialogue), but it still gives that campy classic a fair run for it's money.
As usual, I should mention that the Internet Hate Machine is pissed off at Piranha 3-D because it's a remake. I've never seen the original, but it must be a masterpiece if this film is crap in comparison.
It's a film you have to set your brain on zero to enjoy, but it's well worth it. And thankfully, I was able to do just that with the aid of my good buddy Mr. Hip Flask. I love that guy, he's seen me through some tough times, like when I bought a nearly mint copy of All-American Comics #16 from some ignorant old woman at a yard sale for $2, but then accidentally spilled beer all over it. So bring your own Mr. Hip Flask, and you'll have yourself a good, immature time.
In short; Piranha is just as shitty as Avatar, but kicks so much ass it doesn't matter.
Goodnight, sweet prince.