Piranha 3DD

It’s The Hoff’s world; we’re just living in it.

(2012) Horror (Dimension) Danielle Panabaker, Matt Bush, Chris Zylka, David Koechner, Meagan Tandy, David Hasselhoff, Ving Rhames, Christopher Lloyd, Clu Gallagher, Gary Busey, Adrian Martinez, Jean-Luc Bilodeau, Paul James Jordan, Katrina Bowden, Hector Jimenez, Paul Scheer. Directed by John Gulager

 

A proven formula for box office success has been blood, boobs and 3D. It worked well for Piranha 3D. Would it work as well for the sequel?

It is a year after the events of the first film and Lake Victoria is a ghost town, abandoned and largely a cautionary tale, a subject for solemn-sounding news features (although I have to admit that the documentary images of Lake Victoria make the town look abandoned for thirty years rather than the one year referenced in the narration). The prehistoric piranha with a taste for human flesh are still out there but where? I think we can guess.

A nearby water park has come under new management. Marine biology student Maddy (Panabaker) is a 49% owner in the park after the death of her mom, but the 51% is owned by Chet (Koechner), a sleazy promoter who’s out to turn the family waterpark into a kind of permanent Girls Gone Wild attraction called The Big Wet appealing strictly to the hormonal and the perverted and making sure everybody knows it with a series of tawdry adds with plenty of nudge-wink double entendres. Maddy is understandably perturbed about this turn of events but can do nothing to stop it.

She’s too busy canoodling with Deputy Kyle (Zylka), an arrogant preppy sort who seems to be way off from the type of guys you’d think a down-to-earth scientific type like Maddy would be into but I suppose the message here is never underestimate what a pair of dreamy eyes, a handsome face and a banging bod will do to make a woman’s knees weak and her heart melt. In the meantime nebbish Barry (Bush) pines for Maddy (he has since high school) and works as a mascot for the water park although he can’t swim and is terrified of the water – as it turns out for good reason.

I was pleasantly surprised by this one. There is a kind of underlying lightheartedness that makes me think that the filmmakers didn’t take themselves too seriously with this one – in a good way. Gulager has some underground horror film cred with the Feast trilogy and he proves himself worthy of a larger budget and a major studio release.

I liked that the movie had kind of an 80s vibe to it, although not overtly set in that era. There’s a certain amount of playfulness that was very endemic to the era, not to mention a lack of inhibitions when it came to actresses taking off their tops. There was also a lack of inhibition when it came to gore back then and Gulager doesn’t flinch when it comes to that either.

The movie doesn’t look as murky as the first one did; the producers saw to it that the movie was filmed in 3D rather than converting in post-production which usually yields a much clearer and cleaner image. However, it remains largely a gimmicky effect and to my eye didn’t really enhance the movie much, although admittedly I didn’t see it in a theater (more on that in a minute).

There are a handful of veteran actors with varying degrees of name value in the cast to go along with the largely unknown but plucky young cast. Of the latter, Panabaker has got a few good credits to her name, including a turn in John Carpenters The Ward in which she was one of the film’s acting highlights. Here she’s solid but unspectacular in the smart girl heroine role. For the cameos, Hasselhoff makes the best use, playing himself and referencing his public intoxication arrest from a few years ago to skewer his “Baywatch” image and prove that he might not be a bad sport after all. Rhames and Lloyd reprise their roles from the first film and gleefully overact, while Busey shows up to be fish food in the first reel in what might be a signature of the movie; killing off a well-known actor in the first reel (Richard Dreyfus did the honors in the first film).

The fish, a mixture of CGI and practical effects, are never really convincing. The CGI looks like CGI and the practical effects look like rubber fish being bludgeoned with rocks and filled with air bladders and blood bags. Still, the cheesy factor of the effects may also be a deliberate nod to the era, so you can take it in the spirit given.

Dimension (the genre division of Weinstein) took the interesting step of releasing this on Video On-Demand on the same day the movie got a limited release in theaters, a strategy that has worked well for major indies Magnolia and IFC. I don’t know how the movie is faring in VOD rentals but the box office numbers are weak. Whether this is the wave of the future for releases that aren’t expected to be box office bonanzas remains to be seen.

I’ve read reviewers who have said that this works much better on the big screen than on the home screen and I can see where that might be the case. This is definite exploitation fun that probably appeals most to the young male crowd and those who want to hang out with them. It’s not everybody’s cup of tea but in all honesty for what it is, it really isn’t that bad at all.

REASONS TO GO: Retains a sense of fun. Hoff, Rhames and Lloyd are good sports.

REASONS TO STAY: The dumb factor is pretty high. Gore and CGI are unconvincing and 3D more gimmicky than anything else

FAMILY VALUES: Where to begin? Lots of swearing, a pretty fair amount of gore, plenty of bare breasts, some sexuality and some male nudity. And drug use. And teen drinking. And…

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The movie was originally set to be filmed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana during January and February 2011 but this proved to be impractical due to the cold weather and clothing restrictions for the actors; production was moved to Wilmington, North Carolina but resulted in a delay from the original November 2011release date to June of this year.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 7/14/12: Rotten Tomatoes: 14% positive reviews. Metacritic: 24/100. The reviews are nearly universally bad.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Shark Night

TOPLESS WOMEN LOVERS: The water park has an adult pool where women may swim topless. Yes, there are a whole lot of boobs. No, none of the main actresses show theirs.

FINAL RATING: 5/10

NEXT: Speed Racer

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You Don’t Mess With the Zohan

Adam Sandler: Deadly but cute!

(2008) Comedy (Columbia) Adam Sandler, John Turturro, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Nick Swardson, Rob Schneider, Kevin Nealon, Lainie Kazan, Ido Mosseri, Dave Matthews, Michael Buffer, Charlotte Rae, Chris Rock, Shelley Berman, George Takei, Bruce Villanch, Mariah Carey. Directed by Dennis Dugan

 

There are those who are of the persuasion that silliness is next to godliness, and Adam Sandler is I do believe one of those sorts. If it’s funny, it’s money and Sandler is a very rich man. When he releases a new movie, people take notice and so it was when this was released in theaters. Was it worth the notice though?

Zohan (Sandler) is the finest counter-terrorist agent in Israel. He is handsome, brave, an amazing fighter and completely impervious to pain (he drops piranhas down his bathing trunks to prove this point). He is beloved in his home country, particularly by the ladies. He is respected by his leaders. He is feared by the enemies of his country. He has it all.

Except what he really wants – to be a hairdresser. Tired of the fights with his nemesis the Phantom (Turturro), he stages his own death and arranges to ship himself to New York City in a container of dogs. He finds a place to stay and gets himself a job as a stylist in the salon of Dalia (Chriqui) which he brings much success to due to his practice of having sex with the older clients who tell their friends and so on and so on.

However a greedy developer (Buffer) wants to mow down the shops on the street – both Arab and Jewish – to put up a mall. Holy Hummus Batman – can the traditional enemies work together to stop this nefarious plot and return to hating each other in harmony?

This was Sandler’s 2008 summer comedy and as you can see by the box office numbers below that it did pretty well, but still this movie isn’t considered one of his classics. For one thing, it’s pretty scattered in terms of plot – the movie kinda meanders along and some of the plot points seem forced to me.

The physical comedy works pretty nicely, although there are some CGI bits (like the piranha in the pants gag) that are appalling. When the Zohan and the Phantom fight, they are almost super-powered which as action movie spoof might work well (think the Scary Movie films) but in a non-spoof comedy look kind of dumb. To be fair, some of those fight scenes are clever.

Sandler is one of the most likable comedy stars in Hollywood, right up there with Tim Allen and Kevin James. He has to be at his most charming in order to hold the movie together, particularly since he is purported to be catnip to women of every age and gender. Sandler has always been easy on the eyes (or so I’m told by those who have a better appreciation of male beauty than I do) and so that at least isn’t much of a stretch.

Turturro was terrific with Sandler in Deeds and so he is again here. The Phantom is a somewhat distorted but ultimately recognizable reflection of Zohan if you don’t mind crazy funhouse mirrors. Turturro is an able comic who sometimes doesn’t get his due in the business; I thought he was one of the bright spots in a movie that needed them.

There are those who will grouse that the Arab-Israeli conflict is nothing to make jokes about; for my money, the more that we joke about something, the more human it becomes and the more human something becomes, the better equipped we are to deal with it. I liked the concept of the film enough, although the execution left something to be desired. Had Sandler and co-writers Judd Apatow and Robert Smigel elected to make something that relied less on being outrageous and more on being funny, they really would have been on to something.

WHY RENT THIS: Sandler is as charming as ever and Turturro makes a fine foil.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: The plot is a bit unfocused and too many bits don’t work. May go a little bit over-the-top for some in terms of crudity.

FAMILY VALUES:  The humor can be crude and a lot of it is sexually-oriented. There’s also quite a bit of foul language involved and yes, nudity in an Adam Sandler film.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The movie had actually been written back in 2000 but pre-production was halted after 9-11due to the terrorist in New York theme for seven years.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: Surprisingly, the Blu-Ray is feature-packed. There are featurettes on Sandler’s stunt doubles, on the Arab-Israeli conflict , on singer Dave Matthews (who has a small part in the film) and on the celebrity cameo appearances. There’s a pop-up translator that takes some of Zohan’s dialogue and translates it as well as a montage of girls in bikinis who appeared in the film for those inclined to perve on such things.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $199.9M on an $90M production budget; the movie made money during its theatrical run.

FINAL RATING: 5/10

TOMORROW: The Devil Inside

Piranha 3D

Jerry O'Connell gets a little skinnier during his dip.

(2010) Horror (Dimension) Jerry O’Connell, Elizabeth Shue, Christopher Lloyd, Steven R. McQueen. Richard Dreyfuss, Ving Rhames, Jessica Szohr, Kelly Brook, Riley Steele, Adam Scott, Ricardo Chavira, Dina Meyer, Paul Scheer. Directed by Alexandre Aja

Some movies get remade so that their story can be reinterpreted. Others, as a means of homage to the original filmmakers. Still others are plain and simple a cash grab.

This one is one of the latter. French director Alexandre Aja directed the impressive High Tension in 2003, but has been exiled to remake land since coming to Hollywood. He already has remakes of The Hills Have Eyes and Mirrors to his credit and now he takes on Joe Dante’s 1978 schlock exploitation classic of the same name, only throwing in some after-the-fact 3D conversion to pull in the crowds.

The movie is only loosely based on the 1978 original, maintaining only the broad concept of prehistoric carnivorous fish attacking a beach resort. In a kind of tribute to the era (although not necessarily the original film which I admit I haven’t seen in about 20 years and remember very little of) Aja has amped up the blood and boob quotient, throwing in lots of bare-breasted and bikini clad babes to get their bare flesh consumed in a kind of orgy of adolescent boy fantasy frenzy.

Yes, there’s a plot but does it really matter? Jerry O’Connell is a sleazebag who shoots light porn vignettes a la “Girls Gone Wild” (whose Joe Francis has taken legal action against O’Connell and the producers for what he considers slanderous depictions of him as a drug-using, exploitative meathead for which I can only say if the shoe fits). He is visiting the spring break resort at Lake Victoria just as Spring Break festivities are getting underway.

There is a plucky sheriff (Shue), a crazed marine biologist (Lloyd) and of course the heroic sheriff’s son who disobeys not only her instructions but simple common sense as well. Dreyfuss is stunt cast as a fisherman who is the first victim (he gets about three minutes of screen time) whose name alludes to his character in Jaws. Most of the target audience however not only won’t get the reference, they won’t care much.

The camp factor is off the scale; definitely you have to watch this understanding that there is a tongue planted firmly in cheek, although you’re not necessarily sure whose tongue and whose cheek. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love naked breasts and gory fish food as much as the next guy (which is a lot) but I need more. Maybe not every adolescent boy who dreams of beautiful girls in bikinis needs a plot or characters who aren’t caricatures but while I can enjoy this on a visceral level (and I do), I simply can’t recommend it for discerning audiences.

WHY RENT THIS: Revels in its B movie-ness. Plenty of gore and boobs in a throwback to films of the era when the original was made.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: A little too over-the-top with the camp. The acting varies from atrocious to forgettable.

FAMILY VALUES: A surfeit of fish violence, blood and gore as well as lots of bare breasts and sexuality. The language is a bit rough too and there’s a scene of drug use.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Although set on Texas’ Lake Victoria, the movie was actually filmed at Arizona’s Lake Havasu. The tequila brand used on the boat is Havasu as a kind of sly tribute to the filming location.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $83.2M on a $24M production budget; the movie was a hit.

FINAL RATING: 4/10

TOMORROW: Immortals