The
original Piranha is a great flick with innovative special effects work and some
stars that I always enjoy seeing on screen! Dick Miller, Barbara Steele, Kevin
McCarthy, and Keenan Wynn all show up and are directed by the great Joe Dante.
This sequel had a lot to live up to. Well it does have Lance Henriksen and was
directed by James Cameron, so it probably has to be good. Right?
Things
kick off with a couple having “relations” underwater in a wrecked ship while
wearing scuba gear and not much else! Be prepared female nudity is going to be
a common theme in this one. Sadly, for them they happen to be in the home of a
bunch of bioengineered saltwater Piranha who quickly make them supper. The
action then moves to the local nearby island resort where our main characters,
dive instructor Anne and her ex-husband police chief Steve have a difficult
relationship. Or I think that is what we are supposed to think. They also have
a son named Chris that crews on a yacht and fishes on the beach. So yeah… back
to the fish.
Anne takes
a dive class to the wreck we saw in the opening and sure enough one of her
students ends up on the menu. This leads to a mysterious guy showing up to
comfort her since she feels bad about it. Of course, he turns out to be a
science guy that may or may not be a decent dude. There are also a couple of
ladies who hustle people out of money, food, and other stuff while they sail
around. They also seem to be allergic to wearing their tops which refers back
to that common theme I mentioned earlier. In classic “Jaws” fashion the jerk
boss refuses to close the beach and the piranha eventually show up to eat a
bunch of helpless victims. This time staying out of the water doesn’t help
because they can fly! Yes, the piranha come flying out of the water to eat
people.
This isn’t
a good movie. It has terrible pacing issues with long stretches of the movie
lacking any action. The subplot of the ladies hustling people is complete
filler and does nothing to move the plot along. There is also another couple
characters of a dentist and his new lady friend that has no payoff at all.
Unlike the ladies they don’t even end up piranha chow. Again, it seems to exist
only to eat up some time. The dialogue is awkward and silly. There are times
that it seems the cast is struggling to spit it all out. This isn’t helped by
the bad acting that most of the cast brings to the screen. Of course, the
highlight is Henriksen who as always is great.
 |
| Good creatures could have saved this one... |
I also
have to mention that the special effects work is subpar. Both the original and
the sequel had very low budgets so there isn’t any excuse for this one to fail
while the first outing was great. Here the fish look like rubber puppets on
strings. You can see the strings constantly which gets annoying. The attacks
boil down to rubber fish bumping into their victims with some red dye dumped
into the water for “blood”. The attacks on the land are even sillier with the
actors clearly holding the fish to their necks, because that is pretty much the
only place they attack.
The only
highlight for me is how goofy the whole idea and execution of Piranha II: The
Spawning is. I will admit that there is a certain charm to the ineptitude of
the proceedings. If you like awful movies that you can rip on, then this might
amuse you. That is about all that it has going for it. But hey that is better
than nothing I suppose.
© Copyright 2018 John Shatzer
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