Jason KingPiranha 3D (7.5/10) and Welcome to Jigsaw - Salty's New Writer
August 26th 2010 19:59
:
Snakes on a Wet Plane with 3D Boobies
Category: No Category
Wow - sux I had to work today and miss out on everyone else beating me to the post.
I had the unexpected pleasure of attending Piranha in 3D last night. And I took an old friend of mine, Mitch, who will forever be known as Jigsaw on Salty Popcorn.
Jigsaw is obsessed with horror films and would probably become celluloid lovers of gore with Bryn if they got to meet. I have known for Jigsaw to have a secret microphone at parties so he can do the Jigsaw voice through the sound system of "Do you want to play a game?" Not only this but he has lived in denial of the latest Nightmare on Elm St being rubbish since he started watching its progress since inception. But last night Mitch agreed to me in secrecy that he agrees with me that the film was rubbish. And now he enters the world of Salty Popcorn to assist in wading through the jungle of 35mm and digital pooh to help assist you the reader find a good film to watch.
The latest horror effort from French director Alexandre Aja, director of the 2006 remake of The Hills Have Eyes, combines our love of relentless gore, gratituous nudity and ridiculous absurdities into one 90 minute 3rd dimensional guilty pleasure that is simply titled Piranha 3D. A remake/reimagining/reboot/rew hatevering of the 1978 cult classic.
Set on the tranquil Lake Victoria in Arizona, Sheriff Julie Forester (Elizabeth Shue) has her work cut out for her during the lakes busiest few weeks for Spring Break so she asks her teenage son Jake (Steven R. McQueen) to babysit his younger brother and sister. He, however, is reluctant to sacrifice his spring break fun so he pays off his siblings to look after themselves for a day while he follows his love interest Kelly (Jessica Szohr) onto a party boat commandeered by sleazy camera man Derrick Jones (Jerry O'Connell in a parody of Girls Gone Wild director Joe Francis). A previous earth tremor has opened up a subterranean lake, a lake within a lake, the sole inhabitants of this underworld are prehistoric piranha satan spawn that make their more known cousins look like Nemo. Cue the lake full of drunk, naked, rowdy teens to make friends with the hungry, cannibalistic monster fish and you've got yourself an entertaining movie that encourages cheers and laughter from the crowd.
Jigsaw's Thoughts:
If you expect any other dimension to resonate from the characters or the storyline, here is where you go and rent Shawkshank Redemption. If you expect boobs, blood and badass death orgies caused by binge eating fish then here's where you buy a ticket to Piranha 3D.
Experiencing the movie for what it is, the casting is awesome. With the exception of the hilariously over-the-top Christopher Lloyd, no one really oversteps the line and hams it up or takes it too seriously, they just have fun with it which becomes apparent as the movie progresses. A special mention must go out to the cameo who is just perfect to open this movie. The director (Aja) knew exactly what he had to work with and pulled it off fantastically, severed penis and all. For the first half of the movie, suspense is rife with those gut-churning underwater shots that were more or less made famous by Jaws and unlike some recent horror movies, jump scares are orchestrated and used to great effect. Don't think I didn't notice Mr. Jumpy Popcorn himself sitting next to me having a stroke every 10 minutes.
Ok, so yeah, it was another one of those movies that gets the 3D treatment AFTER it's been filmed in 2D and yeah, admittedly those films don't have the greatest track record *cough*clash of the titans*cough* but this transfer I didn't really find distracting at all. Some shots, mainly underwater, are a little rough and hard to define and the 3D tended to get a little blurry on fast moving objects like boat propellers and water ripples but they are very few and far between. It's not great 3D but it's not appalling.
My only other gripe was the ending. Without giving anything away, it kind of felt like if the script was 100 pages long, they only filmed pages 1 - 80 and then skipped over to page 100 leaving out what could've been a plausible ending in between. I realise the irony of expecting a believable ending in a movie about dinosaur piranhas but still, you just can't shake that miniscule dissapointment that it just kind of... ended... from lingering in the back of your head.
And to save you some time, there's nothing really after the credits - just a floating skull.
This is the C-grade monster horror equivalent of The Expendables and the water-logged equivalent of Snakes on A Plane in that it epitomizes everything about its genre and throws it at your face with no mercy. It's just so ridiculous, you can't help but let go and be taken along for the ride. And it IS fun. I reccommend seeing it during opening week though, when cinemas are full. In my experience, watching this movie as part of a cheering, laughing, applauding crowd is definitely bound to add to the overall enjoyment. I actually had fun watching this. And if you do enjoy it, you'll be glad to know that Piranha 2 just got green lit and will be here in 3D within the next couple of years.
If you want a movie that offers an absurd storyline, great suspense, scares, hilarity and insane violence, Piranha 3D is absolute escapism. It's awesome.
8/10
Salty's Thoughts:
This film is grindhouse wonder, it is tits 'n ass and an over the top slaughterfest. It is so gorey and ridiculous that it is brilliant. It is Snakes on a Wet Plane with more blood and ruined hot teenage lithe bodies than at 9am after a dance festival. It is also a teenage boys wet dream come true. Jigsaw was so keen to see this film for wait for it "3D boobs on the big screen". If I wasn't gay I would have been ecstatic, imagine a 60 ft screen with boobs bouncing out of it in 3D and you get my point. If you are like Orble writer Journeywoman, that was offended with watching The Expendables then steer clear of this one. It does for women what Tiger Woods did for monogamy. Actually the film is pretty much soft porn with a slaughterfest thrown in and for some reason I loved it because it barely takes itself seriously and is a laugh a minute. It is also the most over the top gorefest I have seen on screen since well, umm, forever
It was great seeing Elisabeth Shue onscreen again and I still think she is beautiful and would love to see her in more films. Ving Rhames has a very odd part, it is small and basically he is only there so we can see him rip an outboard from a boat and take on a school of piranhas single handedly. Christopher Lloyd is the mad scientist, go figure, who got laughs aplenty from the audience every time he opened his mouth. He is pretty much channeling his Back to the Future character for this one and fits the role perfectly. There is also the winner for me of having a Scream like introduction scene with Jaws hero Richard Dreyfuss as the victim - it was gold. Richard R McQueen (of Vampire Diairies fame) is great playing Shue's son, Jake, and he has a pretty decent onscreen presence, would like to see more of him. I was also really impressed with Jerry O'Connell - his character is so over the top it makes you laugh. He will never win any awards for this one, or pretty much any of his acting, but he filled the screen with life and his line of "they took my penis" and its following visuals will forever be scarred into my retinas - plus he looks bloody awesome in a pair of red speedos.
This film has some intense music and the film got held back for months for release and I am certain this was because they decided to turn it into 3D, the hideous Clash of the Titans style. It wasn't filmed in 3D - it was adapted after shooting. I think the delays were so they could make some 3D CGI scenes and throw them in the mix, and it works. The scene with two women naked and swimming underwater set to classical music is still a highlight for me - it is ridiculously thrown in but the entire cinema errupted in laughter and the audcacity of the scene, it was perfect. Also, the earlier mentioned penis floating in the middle of the cinema scene works well for shock value. Besides a lot of these underwater scenes the 3D effects are appalling. Water can't even look flat due to the two layers of film created to achieve the effect so during the slaughter of spring break it looks like there are water channels on different levels. But it didn't bother me as the film is about laughs and shock value, I literally jumped out of my seat on a few "jump" scenes.
7/10
The film is out now and our combine totals equal an impressive 7.5/10. You have been warned - now go off and enjoy it if this is your thing.
I had the unexpected pleasure of attending Piranha in 3D last night. And I took an old friend of mine, Mitch, who will forever be known as Jigsaw on Salty Popcorn.
Jigsaw is obsessed with horror films and would probably become celluloid lovers of gore with Bryn if they got to meet. I have known for Jigsaw to have a secret microphone at parties so he can do the Jigsaw voice through the sound system of "Do you want to play a game?" Not only this but he has lived in denial of the latest Nightmare on Elm St being rubbish since he started watching its progress since inception. But last night Mitch agreed to me in secrecy that he agrees with me that the film was rubbish. And now he enters the world of Salty Popcorn to assist in wading through the jungle of 35mm and digital pooh to help assist you the reader find a good film to watch.
The latest horror effort from French director Alexandre Aja, director of the 2006 remake of The Hills Have Eyes, combines our love of relentless gore, gratituous nudity and ridiculous absurdities into one 90 minute 3rd dimensional guilty pleasure that is simply titled Piranha 3D. A remake/reimagining/reboot/rew hatevering of the 1978 cult classic.
Set on the tranquil Lake Victoria in Arizona, Sheriff Julie Forester (Elizabeth Shue) has her work cut out for her during the lakes busiest few weeks for Spring Break so she asks her teenage son Jake (Steven R. McQueen) to babysit his younger brother and sister. He, however, is reluctant to sacrifice his spring break fun so he pays off his siblings to look after themselves for a day while he follows his love interest Kelly (Jessica Szohr) onto a party boat commandeered by sleazy camera man Derrick Jones (Jerry O'Connell in a parody of Girls Gone Wild director Joe Francis). A previous earth tremor has opened up a subterranean lake, a lake within a lake, the sole inhabitants of this underworld are prehistoric piranha satan spawn that make their more known cousins look like Nemo. Cue the lake full of drunk, naked, rowdy teens to make friends with the hungry, cannibalistic monster fish and you've got yourself an entertaining movie that encourages cheers and laughter from the crowd.
Jigsaw's Thoughts:
If you expect any other dimension to resonate from the characters or the storyline, here is where you go and rent Shawkshank Redemption. If you expect boobs, blood and badass death orgies caused by binge eating fish then here's where you buy a ticket to Piranha 3D.
Experiencing the movie for what it is, the casting is awesome. With the exception of the hilariously over-the-top Christopher Lloyd, no one really oversteps the line and hams it up or takes it too seriously, they just have fun with it which becomes apparent as the movie progresses. A special mention must go out to the cameo who is just perfect to open this movie. The director (Aja) knew exactly what he had to work with and pulled it off fantastically, severed penis and all. For the first half of the movie, suspense is rife with those gut-churning underwater shots that were more or less made famous by Jaws and unlike some recent horror movies, jump scares are orchestrated and used to great effect. Don't think I didn't notice Mr. Jumpy Popcorn himself sitting next to me having a stroke every 10 minutes.
Ok, so yeah, it was another one of those movies that gets the 3D treatment AFTER it's been filmed in 2D and yeah, admittedly those films don't have the greatest track record *cough*clash of the titans*cough* but this transfer I didn't really find distracting at all. Some shots, mainly underwater, are a little rough and hard to define and the 3D tended to get a little blurry on fast moving objects like boat propellers and water ripples but they are very few and far between. It's not great 3D but it's not appalling.
My only other gripe was the ending. Without giving anything away, it kind of felt like if the script was 100 pages long, they only filmed pages 1 - 80 and then skipped over to page 100 leaving out what could've been a plausible ending in between. I realise the irony of expecting a believable ending in a movie about dinosaur piranhas but still, you just can't shake that miniscule dissapointment that it just kind of... ended... from lingering in the back of your head.
And to save you some time, there's nothing really after the credits - just a floating skull.
This is the C-grade monster horror equivalent of The Expendables and the water-logged equivalent of Snakes on A Plane in that it epitomizes everything about its genre and throws it at your face with no mercy. It's just so ridiculous, you can't help but let go and be taken along for the ride. And it IS fun. I reccommend seeing it during opening week though, when cinemas are full. In my experience, watching this movie as part of a cheering, laughing, applauding crowd is definitely bound to add to the overall enjoyment. I actually had fun watching this. And if you do enjoy it, you'll be glad to know that Piranha 2 just got green lit and will be here in 3D within the next couple of years.
If you want a movie that offers an absurd storyline, great suspense, scares, hilarity and insane violence, Piranha 3D is absolute escapism. It's awesome.
8/10
Salty's Thoughts:
This film is grindhouse wonder, it is tits 'n ass and an over the top slaughterfest. It is so gorey and ridiculous that it is brilliant. It is Snakes on a Wet Plane with more blood and ruined hot teenage lithe bodies than at 9am after a dance festival. It is also a teenage boys wet dream come true. Jigsaw was so keen to see this film for wait for it "3D boobs on the big screen". If I wasn't gay I would have been ecstatic, imagine a 60 ft screen with boobs bouncing out of it in 3D and you get my point. If you are like Orble writer Journeywoman, that was offended with watching The Expendables then steer clear of this one. It does for women what Tiger Woods did for monogamy. Actually the film is pretty much soft porn with a slaughterfest thrown in and for some reason I loved it because it barely takes itself seriously and is a laugh a minute. It is also the most over the top gorefest I have seen on screen since well, umm, forever
It was great seeing Elisabeth Shue onscreen again and I still think she is beautiful and would love to see her in more films. Ving Rhames has a very odd part, it is small and basically he is only there so we can see him rip an outboard from a boat and take on a school of piranhas single handedly. Christopher Lloyd is the mad scientist, go figure, who got laughs aplenty from the audience every time he opened his mouth. He is pretty much channeling his Back to the Future character for this one and fits the role perfectly. There is also the winner for me of having a Scream like introduction scene with Jaws hero Richard Dreyfuss as the victim - it was gold. Richard R McQueen (of Vampire Diairies fame) is great playing Shue's son, Jake, and he has a pretty decent onscreen presence, would like to see more of him. I was also really impressed with Jerry O'Connell - his character is so over the top it makes you laugh. He will never win any awards for this one, or pretty much any of his acting, but he filled the screen with life and his line of "they took my penis" and its following visuals will forever be scarred into my retinas - plus he looks bloody awesome in a pair of red speedos.
This film has some intense music and the film got held back for months for release and I am certain this was because they decided to turn it into 3D, the hideous Clash of the Titans style. It wasn't filmed in 3D - it was adapted after shooting. I think the delays were so they could make some 3D CGI scenes and throw them in the mix, and it works. The scene with two women naked and swimming underwater set to classical music is still a highlight for me - it is ridiculously thrown in but the entire cinema errupted in laughter and the audcacity of the scene, it was perfect. Also, the earlier mentioned penis floating in the middle of the cinema scene works well for shock value. Besides a lot of these underwater scenes the 3D effects are appalling. Water can't even look flat due to the two layers of film created to achieve the effect so during the slaughter of spring break it looks like there are water channels on different levels. But it didn't bother me as the film is about laughs and shock value, I literally jumped out of my seat on a few "jump" scenes.
7/10
The film is out now and our combine totals equal an impressive 7.5/10. You have been warned - now go off and enjoy it if this is your thing.
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Comment by Mountain Fog
Infognito
Screen Trek
QUOTE ME NO QUOTES!
sooooo looking forward to this!
Have been starved of schlock horror, and in 3D....groovy!
Now, when are they going to make a version set on Mykonos at the height of the gay summer tourist season?
Or, maybe we should win lotto and make it ourselves?
cheers
fog
Comment by Jason King
Sydney Table
Salty Popcorn
Total Randomness
Aja knew exactly what he was making and did it splendidly. I think the world has been starved of this kind of film with everyone taking themselves so sereioulsy and making so much shite.
Piranha 2 is underway - maybe it is in the gay Mykonos summer
And hell yeah - bring on the lotto!!!!