Piranha 3DD
Year: 2012
Director: John Gulager
Stars: Danielle Panabaker, Matt Bush, David Koechner
Studio: Anchor Bay Entertainment/Dimension Films
MPAA Rating: R
Running Time: 83 Mins
“Piranha DD” film is the latest film from John Gulager, the director of the cult film “Feast”. He’s now tackling the sequel to Alexandre Aja “Piranha”. The Piranhas are back and they’re head upstream from Lake Victoria to a swimming park known as “The Big Wet”. The staff and the patrons have no idea what coming their way. Can they survive the onslaught of piranhas or end up as there next meal.
Sometimes when I’m watching a film, there are some things that I like to rip apart to and there are some things where you actually enjoyed watching all the badness. “Piranha 3DD” is one of those films, where you think that this should be a negative review, but could help that you had fun with it.
John Gulager does a good job for what he had with the screenplay. I liked how he sets out to makes the watching experience a fun time. From the way that he set up his scenes to the major bloodbath in the third act, he does a very good job making the scenes feel fun to the viewer and tries to make you forget the rushed sequences. The other like thing that I thought was passable was the acting. The acting wasn’t surprisingly annoying. Gulager does a very good job making the acting not feel too over the top that it turns you off. It especially helped in Hasselhoff’s performance, as I actually enjoy him a lot here in a comedic way. He was the best part of film.
This is a prime example of a lazy screenplay. The screenplay written by Marcus Dunstan, Patrick Melton was flat out awful for the first two acts before having it somewhat saved in the third act. One of the things that I didn’t like about it was the fact that the scenes were rushed. It felt like there wasn’t any character development and no setup to the death scenes. It could have made the film even more fun. There is no excuse to have scenes rushed, when the film has 71 minutes of material and 12 minutes of padding. It aggravates me, when that happens. It tells me that the screenwriting process was either rushed or the writers didn’t care about it.
The only thing that saves this and turns it into a guilty pleasure was the third act. I liked how they handles Hasselhoff’s role here. He’s given material that makes his presence comedic instead of just waiting to see if a piranha would bite him to death. That and the third act bloodbath are the only good things about this screenplay.
If you want to see mindless film, then this is your film. If you’re expecting a good follow up to “Piranha”, you’ll be very disappointed. “Piranha DD” is one of those films, where you clearly classify as guilty pleasure because of a good third act.
Review Rating: Two and a Half Stars
