Mega Piranha - Cinema Review

'shoots for pulpy B-movie charm but misses by some distance, instead hitting pulpy B-movie mess'

Much like its recent horror counterpart Psychosis, Mega Piranha starts off better than one could be forgiven for expecting, with some nice photography and a quick pace about it that suggests this might be the kind of quick-fire B-movie thrill ride you secretly enjoy, but publicly won't even admit to having seen. Disappointingly though, this is followed up all of two minutes later with a boat load of half naked women, some stunningly bad acting, choppy and occasionally completely missing sound editing and a general sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach as you realise what you've let yourself in for when you sat down to watch this.

Fronted by a combination of ex-pop star Tiffany and journeyman action-beefcake Paul Logan, Mega Piranha shoots for pulpy B-movie charm but misses by some distance, instead hitting pulpy B-movie mess during one of it's 'blow everything up but only with some really poor CGI' moments of madness. There are many of those moments, featuring some fish which look like they were created in Microsoft Paint and, less forgivably, some helicopters which look even worse. Visually, it's a mess and at no point was any of it even clear enough to be entertaining, let alone recognisable.

Even worse than all this is the script which, whilst never aspiring too high, should at least offer up more original moments than 'this just got real!', the worst, most overused and least meaningful phrase in action movie history. Logan delivers everything through the same tight-lipped mumble, inspiring not a whole load of inspiration in the audience and certainly garnering little to no support from his fellow cast.

The one exception to that is Tiffany who has done this sort of stuff before but never made it into anything more mainstream. She throws herself at the merciless task of portraying the scientist who created the fish and now must stop them, with admirable dedication and vigour unbecoming a venture where everyone knows they're making tosh and is only too happy to contribute their own version of awfulness to the pot. Kudos indeed then to the pop star who out acts the actors. A rarefied breed. As indeed, are good B-movies.

Mega Piranha is out in UK cinemas from 16th July. Its DVD release will follow on 8th August.

Look further...

'There are scenes that scream spoof, then scenes that scream serious – tonally it’s all over the place. At least Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus seemed to be having fun with the concept, Mega Piranha is way too stoic for what should be a camp film and as so it fails to generate as much FUN as it’s predecessor' - Blogomatic3000