Following in the footsteps of Alexandre Aja's surprise splash Piranha 3D, John Gulager's Piranha 3DD promised us double the action, double the terror and double D's. But unlike its 2010 predecessor, The Weinsteins' fishy follow-up decides to swap out the sharp satire for blatant self-parody (to near SNL levels of zaniness). While in some instances this can be wildly entertaining, more often than not it turns out to be eye-rollingly stupid.
Refusing to break from its previous formula, the movie opens with a fisherman (this time portrayed by the ever-insane Gary Busey) getting devoured by a school of prehistoric piranha. Picking up two years after the original film, we're introduced to Maddy (Danielle Panabaker) and her stepfather Chet (David Koechner), who co-own a water park together in Merkin, Arizona. While Chet spends most of the movie neglecting essential safeties like hiring certified lifeguards or paying for filtered water, Maddy begins to discover signs of another piranha invasion, one that could put the park and everyone else in serious danger.
This eventually culminates in another appearance from Christopher Lloyd as Mr. Goodman, who's spent his time studying the sample specimen he was given during the attack on Lake Victoria. Once again, Lloyd does an admirable job bringing out the eccentricity that his character demands. Likewise, David Hasselhoff provides an extra bit of fun to the romp. Unfortunately, the fun mostly stops at the celebrity cameos. While, yes, it is indeed hilarious watching Ving Rhames strap on a pair of titanium gun-legs and go to town, these moments are brief and inevitably too few to make the entire movie worthwhile.
The biggest problem with Piranha 3DD isn't necessarily its ham-fisted presentation -- after all, that's part of what made the first film so fun to watch -- but where the original gave us genuine horror in addition to the slapstick, the sequel infuses so much meta that it's damn near intolerable. Every character is so shallow and so stupid that it's hard to feel anything for them other than irritation. It's almost like you're not even watching a sequel but a Wayans Brothers parody (only less funny).
As for the 3D, it's actually better than last time. As opposed to the first film, this one was actually shot using 3D rigs instead of being converted in post-production. Nevertheless, the image is still quite dark, and the barely passable visual effects don't really help matters.
However, if you can put all that aside and watch the film for what it is, it's not all that terrible. The movie still delivers a ridiculous bloodbath, and it does admittedly feature some pretty gnarly kills. The problem is that most of the real action doesn't come until the very end, so you'll have to remain patient while you wade through the idiotic puzzle leading up to the climax. Luckily, the aforementioned Hoff, Lloyd and Rhames definitely spice things up, so it's not a total loss. It's just disappointing that a promising sequel such as this wasn't able to live up to its exhilarating forerunner.
Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/06/01/piranha-3dd-review
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