Piranha 3D **

Written by Andrew Hudak |

Piranha 3D

Is it worth $10? No

A busy holiday week. Thousands of tourists. A body found in the water. The head of local law enforcement thinks it might be a boat propeller accident and wants to close down the beach. Little does anyone know that a menace is lurking in the water, ready to feed.

That’s right, it’s the plot of “Jaws.” Only in “Piranha 3D,” instead of a great white shark we have schools of piranhas. Instead of Fourth of July tourists on an island off the coast of New England, we have spring break college students at a lake in Arizona. And instead of a well-crafted, suspenseful film with sympathetic characters, we get a gore fest with characters we never get to know or care about. Everyone on screen is there to be fish food.

“Piranha 3D” completes its connection to “Jaws” with an opening scene featuring Richard Dreyfuss. His character is still named Matt, only in “Piranha 3D” the last name is Boyd rather than Hooper. Why the filmmakers even bothered with a last name is anyone’s guess. He’s fishing on Lake Victoria, singing “Show Me the Way to Go Home” by Irving King, which he also sang in “Jaws.” Matt carelessly drops his beer into the lake. We see the bottle traveling down to the bottom of the lake, landing on the floor. The bottle must hit the bottom harder than it looks, because soon after a huge crevice opens. It creates a whirlpool that Matt tries vainly to get out of. It also releases hundreds of piranhas, who get their first human meal in two million years.

The law enforcement officer in “Piranha 3D” is Sheriff Julie Forester, played by Elizabeth Shue. She has three children: Jake (Steven R.McQueen), the oldest at 17, and Laura (Brooklynn Proulx) and Zane (Sage Ryan), who are about half that age. It’s Julie’s job, with the help of Deputy Fallon (Ving Rhames), to keep the spring breakers in line and investigate the chewed up body of Matt Boyd. It’s Jakes’s job to babysit.

Jake doesn’t want to do it though, so instead he pays his siblings off to stay home and take care of themselves. This way he can join Internet porn producer Derrick Jones (Jerry O’Connell) and his two hot young stars Danni (Kelly Brook) and Crystal (Riley Steele) on a boat to shoot some footage. Jake’s tepid love interest, Kelly (Jessica Szohr), also joins the party, which quickly turns into the cruise from hell once the piranhas show up.

The attack scenes in “Piranha 3D” will undoubtedly deliver for the gore and splatter crowd. We’re treated to such sights as: A parasailer getting her legs chewed off, a girl pulled in half as she’s carried to shore, a guy getting his head smashed by a boat, and a girl getting the skin on her entire head ripped off after her hair is caught in a motorboat propeller. This is nothing compared to the fate of others in the film.

The problem is that once the blood and mayhem starts it never stops. We’re never given the quieter, character moments like in “Jaws,” a film that the makers of “Piranha 3D” obviously hold in high regard. It’s one gory scene after another in a race to the end to save Julie’s children and deal with the piranhas. It’s similar to a zombie film--the creativity in the death scenes and the make up artistry is to be admired, and can be a cheap thrill to watch, but in the end it doesn’t add up to much.

Aiding them in their quest to deal with the piranhas is Mr. Goodman, played with over the top zaniness by Christopher Lloyd. He makes a startling discovery at the end of the film that will no doubt lead to a sequel. Let’s hope that the sequel is more original and less derivative. Or, in the very least, that it picks another film to copy and aims a little lower. “Piranha 3D” wants to be “Jaws”, but “Jaws” it isn’t. Not by a long shot.