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| They're coming to et you... |
2) Aja also studied the rules of early 70's nature gone amok pictures, as so much of this film--from the plain yellow arial type that make up the earliest titles to the way the cameos echo back to previous roles the cameo-ing actors had to the formula where asshole get punished for their assholery and the non-asshole victims die acting heroically--speaks of a respect for the genre and the original film.
3) And to make things even more satisfying--Aja knows that this is a 3-D picture and revels in the carnival sideshow-ishness of it all. There are loads of 'coming at ya!' moments and deep focus shots, although I could have done without the direct-to-the-camera shot of Jessica Szohr's Kelly puking....
4) Look up Milf in my personal dictionary and there you'll find a picture of Elizabeth Shue...
5) You know....even though this is obviously a movie aimed at the younger crowd, it's refreshing to see that the heroes are mainly middle-aged.
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| Laugh while you can, Jerry O'Connell...something dear to you is about to get et.... |
6) And similarly--by introducing the 'Girls Gone Wild' manque of O'Donnell and his pair of nymphs into the mix, it allows him to focus on the very realistically cute-without-being-Caucasin-Wankery-Network-sexy Szohr as the female lead
7) Eli Roth utilizing a garden hose as if it is his spurting cock and talking about wet t-shirts and breasts....some things can not be unseen....sigh
8) If there is any doubt about how lowbrow this film's intentions are, the seemingly endless 3-D sequence of Steele and Kelly Brook's Dani playing nude Esther Williams before they get chopped into little pirahna-shaped pieces puts it clearly on the metaphorical glass...
9) Pretty much the bulk of the carnage comes at the beginning of the third act, when the monster pirahnas come a'snacking on all the dumb teenagers. it's maybe a ten minute or so sequence...but damn if Greg Nicotero and company make the most of their time to shine....
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| You may have been a shark hunter, pal...but you're gon' get et... |
10) A lot has been made about Richard Dreyfuss' cameo....but it pales in comparison to Christopher Lloyd and Dina Meyer as a couple of wackdoole fish store owners/scientists Mr. and Mrs. Goodman. When he pronounced these things as prehistoric pirahnas, a wave of knowing laughter rippled through the theater...
In short. Aja knows exactly what he needs to do to entertain us, and acquits himself admirably. It prolly will be forgotten the moment you leave the theater, but while you're there it'll just make you laugh and cringe at turns.
This was my first time at the Loews Kip's Bay in Manhattan since my college days; it seems that the $6-before-noon policy is good all over the city for AMC/Loews' theaters (It's the only way I'll see a 3D film, as the policy makes them the same price as a regular matiness elsewhere). It's got one of the friendliest staffs I've experienced in a while...but the prices for concessions--even the vending machines--are insane.
The trailers contained the usual one of Machete that never gets old, a pretty decent one for Faster that gives me hope that Dwayne Johnson got all that family crap out of his system, the guardedly promising Tron Legacy, two airings of Resident Evil: Aftermath 3-D in both flatscreen and 3-D, and the nightmare-inducing-for-all-the-wrong-reasons collaboration between M. Night Shamalyn and Jim Dowdel, Devil. Of course, the biggest nightmare came from watching the puff piece for You Again?, in which Kristen Bell's tormentor from high school is marrying her brother (and what's more, her mom's tormentor is her tormentor's aunt, and they only discovered this juuuuuust now...it's as if Bell has decided she never wants to make another film that won't make me throw up again...
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