Many of you know that I’m a fan of cheesy C grade movies that know what they are and don’t strive for greatness. One of the reasons the first Piranha 3D film works is they deliver the 3D Carnage and the Piranha action in all the ways you would expect it to. The sequel is about the same but it seems to skimp a bit on the Piranhas and spends too much time on build up. How is the recently released Blu-ray 3D?
Movie
Cheese is what comes to mind when you think Piranha 3DD. The name says it all and this movie delivers exactly what it is expected to. It is funny, over the top and just ridiculous. What is surprising is all the cameos of classic C level actors in this. Any movie that has Gary Busey, Christopher Lloyd, Ving Rhames and David Hasselhoff can’t go wrong.
The 3D depth of field is quite stunning. It’s very deep and almost makes it seem like it’s another world. It looked as though you could reach your hand into the picture. I didn’t know my Vizio was capable of producing 3D that deep. The problem is the picture is filled with the jaggies, all the actors look smaller against this super “depth,” and the picture looks slightly grainy in spots.
This is yet another movie that has a lot of night scenes and underwater scenes that are shot dark, adding 3D does not make these scenes look better. Where did the idea of shooting 3D in the dark become popular? 3D works better when the scene/film is well lit and the audience can really see what’s going on in the background. It is one of the reasons Animated films almost always work well in 3D when most live action ones do not. About 30 minutes into the Blu-ray 3D version, I switched to the regular Blu-ray and the experience was much better.
Unlike the last movie where everyone was already in the lake, it seems like the first 30 or 40 minutes of this is spent trying to invent ways for people to “accidentally” go in or Pirhanas to end up on land. This is where the movie really fails and you have to decide either go with it or don’t. Hasselhoff has one of the best lines in the movie “Once these idiots get out of the water, it isn’t like the fish will follow them home.”
I will not question anything in this movie, other than why would a Marine Biologist go into the water when they know there are Piranhas? Just saying. Then there’s an absolutely retarded sex scene that ends very badly. Director John Gulager does a really nice job with this material. He gets the humor and never lets the movie get too serious.
Extras
- Feature Commentary by Director John Gulager, Producer Joel Scisson, & Co-Writer Marcus Dunstan.
- Deleted Scenes – 3 Deleted Scenes
- The Story Behind the DC – 7 Minute Featurette about te Movie
- The Hofftastic World of David Hasselhoff – 2 Minute look at David Hasselhoff
- Busey’s Bloopers
- Wet and Wild with David Koechner – 1 minute
- A Lesson with John McEnroe – 3 Minutes Short movie featuring John McEnroe giving Tennis lessons to a spoiled 20-something kid. McEnroe has nothing to do with this film, so having this as an extra seems weird and completely out of context.
Conclusion
The 3D Quality on this Blu-ray suffers from grain and a lack of sharpness. The extras on this disk are about what you would expect from a low budget affair and not worth even including. This movie does not set the world on fire or expand the genre at all, but it’s not trying to. It just wants to be a fun little Jaws like horror movie and it largely succeeds. If you liked the first Pirahna 3D film this offers more of the same. Worth a rental.
Grades
- Movie – B-
- Audio/Video/Presentation – B
- 3D Quality – C
Final Overall Grade – C