Piranha 3D (Blu-ray / DVD)
Steve Barton
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Reviewed by Uncle Creepy
Starring Ving Rhames, Elisabeth Shue, Christopher Lloyd, Jerry O’Connell, Steven R. McQueen, Jessica Szohr
Directed by Alexandre Aja
Distributed by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Oh, Piranha 3D. How much do we love thee? Let me count the ways …
We love you for your gratuitous nudity with breasts bouncing to and fro. We love you for your over-the-top violence and still marvel that you received an R rating. We love you for letting Christopher Lloyd go all “Doc Brown” again. We love you for embracing your trashiness like no other film this year. We love you for your poetic underwater nymph scene. We love you for having the audacity to spit Jerry O’Connell’s ragged penis into the screen and at the audience. We love you for showing a very familiar character from Jaws that the way to go home was through a swirling abyss filled with creatures with razor-sharp teeth. We love you for …
Okay. I gotta stop. I could go on forever. Here’s the deal: Piranha 3D is probably the most fun we’ve had with a movie in forever, and Sony Entertainment has given the devil its due by delivering one hell of a home video package. We’ll get to all that in a minute, but first here’s a quick plot crunch.
It’s simple. It’s nothing more than it needs to be. An underwater tremor unleashes legions of man-eating prehistoric fish during spring break in an otherwise sleepy Arizona town. Along the way the local police, headed up by a still very hot Elisabeth Shue and “The Obama of Piranhas”, Ving Rhames, attempt to stop the carnage with a little help from various bits of walking piranha bait until an orgy of violence ensues, the likes of which you’re not likely to forget. Ever. Throw in a couple of subplots involving Shue’s kids in danger while a porn producer keeps his cameras rolling and — boom — instant family classic!
Piranha 3D takes no prisoners, pulls no punches, and doesn’t give the slightest shit about anything resembling good taste. Its no-holds-barred approach to the material is both refreshing and absolutely unrelenting. You’re going to be grinning from ear-to-ear the entire time breasts are bared and bodies are shredded with reckless abandon. If you’re not, you had better check your pulse.
On Blu-ray the film is absolutely gorgeous. The colors pop like you wouldn’t believe without becoming over-saturated, the black levels are spot on (for the most part), and the only time the image suffers at all is during the inherently dark underwater sequences when things become slightly muddy. Other than that every chomping set of jaws and every masticated upon limb are present and accounted for in startling detail. The DTS 5.1 HD sound mix, which brings every instance of flesh tearing to the forefront, will have your home theatre system absolutely rocking. It’s the perfect complement to the stellar 1080p transfer.
In terms of Blu-ray you can buy it one of two ways – either as a 3D Blu-ray (requires a 3DTV and a 3D enabled Blu-ray player to watch in 3D) with a commentary and ten featurettes or as a 2D package that’s home to a boatload of additional special features. The ten featurettes (included on both Blu-ray packages) play as a film in and of themselves, clocking in at a whopping two hours and ten minutes so even if you buy the 3D package, you’ll hardly be missing out on the supplemental goodies. Unique to the regular Blu-ray are a gaggle of deleted scenes with optional commentary, a storyboard gallery, and a host of theatrical and television spots.
DVD owners are kind of sunk. All you get are five of the ten featurettes and the commentary track. Sign of the times, dudes. Time to upgrade.
Simply put, Piranha 3D is nothing short of a must-have package if only for the gloriously outrageous film alone. In the theatre I watched the film in back-to-back screenings and loved every second of it. I can only imagine how much play this is going to be getting around these parts. If you missed it in the multiplex (and shame on you if you did), here’s your chance to atone for your cinematic sins. Order yourself a copy like yesterday, break out the brews, call your friends, light ’em if you’ve got ’em, and let the good times splat!
Blu-ray 3D Special Features
Blu-ray Special Features
DVD Special Features
4 1/2 out of 5
Special Features:
5 out of 5
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