Associated Press Loves the Crap Out of Piranha 3-D

  • Share
  • Read Later

Stuffed DLILLC/Corbis

Wait a second — could Piranha 3-D actually be good?

NewsFeed is no stranger to schlock, but we actually prefer our bad movies to, you know, be bad. None of this smug, winking-at-the-audience, ironically-bad stuff for us, thank you. However, one of our critical brethren has sent out a clarion call in the darkness, shining a light on a work of art we’d previously considered beneath contempt and causing us to doubt all of our prejudices.

In her Associated Press review of the upcoming film Piranha 3-D, Christy Lemire sounds positively glowing as she describes the film’s charms:

Piranha 3D is, how hugely entertaining, and how urgently you must get yourself to the theater to see it. […] Piranha 3D knows exactly what it is and does exactly what it should do. It’s about piranhas … in 3-D. Do you really need to know anything else?”

OK, so we’ve got a so-good-that-it’s-bad-that-it’s-good-again situation. But does the film excite on a visual level?

“Visually, though, [the film] was shot in 2-D and then converted to add a third dimension, but it looks better than other films that have followed the same path, including M. Night Shyamalan’s muddled The Last Airbender. […] [Director Alexandre] Aja mostly employs the 3-D precisely as he should with this genre: in totally gimmicky, gratuitous ways. A guy sprays beer from a keg and it shoots right at you. A girl has too many tequila shots and yacks off the side of the boat and into your lap. And of course there are the fish, zooming right at you to take a bite.”

And how are the actors?

“[The film] makes great use of its extremely random cast, including Elisabeth Shue in an unusually bad-ass role as a sheriff, Ving Rhames as her deputy and Jerry O’Connell as a Joe Francis type. Christopher Lloyd has one great scene in full-on, crazed Christopher Lloyd mode as the resident fish expert. […] And then there’s Richard Dreyfuss, who makes a very cute cameo off the top.”

Sounds good! We’re almost sold. But wait — is this review a joke?

This is not a joke, by the way.

Excellent!