What kind of movie is Piranha 3D (besides awesome)? It's the kind where the lead characters -- in this case Elisabeth Shue as a town sheriff and Adam Scott (yes!) as some kind of scientist with a predilection towards flannel -- are barely even glimpsed in the full-length trailer. Because there's no time for them when you've got Doc Brown, Matt Hooper and a bunch of badly animated CGI piranhas...
So as the trailer states: Blah blah blah, underground earthquake, prehistoric piranhas, Spring Break weekend, blah blah. The plot is basically Jaws -- and just to drum that point home, there's Richard Dreyfuss getting sucked down into what will probably be his inevitable death -- but with a bit of Lake Placid and Deep Blue Sea thrown in for good measure. And it all looks exactly like a movie called Piranha 3D should look: Perfectly campy and hilariously tongue-in-cheek. Ving Rhames killing a bunch of piranhas with a circular saw? Check. Christopher Lloyd doing Doc Brown minus the flux capacitor? Check. Many bikini-clad co-eds? Check.
The only blemish: That it comes from director Alexandre Aja, the sadist behind The Hills Have Eyes, Haute Tension and Mirrors. Does he seem like the best choice for this kind of material? Considering the trailer ends with a helpless Vanessa from Gossip Girl weeping and about to be brutally murdered, probably.
VERDICT: Sold.