Or is it for us to had 3D bouncing boobies on the big cinema screen?!
I can already tell that this review is going to make me feel cheap, but I'm really going to embrace it. I'm a (fairly) young lad, so why shouldn't I champion a film when it so unashamedly markets itself to a young male audience?
From the trailer alone, where a pair of Double D's come bouncing towards the screen in super slow-motion, you should know exactly what kind of film Piranha 3DD is...
The plot (if you're really that bothered) revolves around Maddy (Danielle Panabaker) returning to her home town (from College? It's not really made clear.) Her Mother has passed away, so she is left to live with her Step-Father, Chet (David Koechner) who has decided to make the family business, an outdoor water park, into a sleezy "adults only"pool lifeguarded by strippers. Maddy isn't happy, but that's the least of her worries as she soon realises that the prehistoric piranhas from Lake Victoria (the town from the first film that is just down the road in this film) are back! What follows is the inevitable build-up to a piranha take-over in the pool, right on opening day...
Like I said, Piranha 3DD knows exactly what kind of film it is, and the fact that it is directed by John Gulager should give genre fans a pretty big nod towards this. To be fair, Gulager is both a blessing and a curse for the film, because while he does firmly root the film into "brain dead" fun, anyone familiar with the Feast sequels which he directed (Feast II: Sloppy Seconds and Feast III: The Happy Finish) will know that he can be a bit of a cheap hack.
Fortunately, Piranha 3DD doesn't get half as bad as either of the Feast sequels, but the directing is pretty bland throughout. It doesn't help that the story doesn't really get out of second gear - the gore isn't half as bad as the first film and the nudity is also pretty tame, considering the first film had cast a load of porn star extras.
In this regard, the biggest let-down of the film was probably the big finale involving the piranha attack at the swimming pool. It's largely left to people taking aaaages to run out of the pool, thrashing on the surface and then seeing blood in the water. No, I'm not a gorehound, but the Spring Break attack in the first film, Piranha 3D was almost genius. Seeing airhead stuck-up teenagers being ripped to shreds was kind of satisfying. In Piranha 3DD, we mainly have innocent families and only a few strippers to see get attacked. Sure, we having idiot characters that we want to see bite it - namely Chet and Kyle (Chris Zylka) who is leaching after Maddy for most of the film - but neither of them come remotely close to being devoured by the piranhas.
However, where the film shines is in it's comedy (and it's boobs - creepy guy comment I know... forgive me). This is not a serious film at all and it barely attempts to build any tension - except maybe a scene involving Maddy and her friend Shelby (Katrina Bowden) who are attacked by the piranha on a small dock. But once again, cameos by Mr Goodman (Christopher Lloyd) and Deputy Fallon (Ving Rhames) really steal the show. Goodman is once again the crazy scientist who reveals more about the evolution of the piranhas and Fallon is now resigned to a wheelchair, due to having his legs bitten off in the first film. "Bring me mah legs!" is in there (from the trailer) and his fear of the water is also pretty funny.
There is also a scene that involves a baby piranha living inside a female victim before biting the end of a penis off during a sex scene in the biggest safe sex advert I think I have ever seen in a film (but then again, I haven't seen the film Teeth...) It's cringe-worthy but also pretty funny - but then again, maybe it's the male orientated humour of finding anything to do with bodily functions quite funny.
So, overall, if you enjoyed Piranha 3D, it's pretty safe to say that you will have a good time during Piranha 3DD. For the first time, I think I'm going to say that the 3D effects were pretty decent, compared to the crappy post-conversion of the first film. This one only really had one rubbish double blurred 3D moment (the bouncing Double D's surely helped the 3D out though... leachy comment number 2.)
Certain parts of the film are a bit of a let-down - mainly the gore and the nudity, considering this film was rated 18, it didn't really feel like a completely cheap B-Movie like the first one did...
Oh, and keep your eye out for a crappy over-the-top ending scene like in the first film. Let's just say, the fish are evolving (James Cameron, I'm looking at you..!)
**½ / *****
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