PIRANHA: THE SPAWNING James Cameron

Piranha Part 2 The Spawning: Movie Review

Grade: F

Seeing as this was director James Cameron's movie debut, I had high hopes for this film, along with its awesome-sounding plot. But, even from the director who would later go on to make other much better sequels like Terminator 2 - Judgment Day (Extreme DVD) and Aliens (Two-Disc Collector's Edition), and the mega-blockbuster Titanic (10th Anniversary Edition), this film apparently fell into the wrong hands. (You can tell the fish are on strings! Strings!!!)

Now that awesome-sounding plot I told you about? Piranhas are genetically bred with a species flying fish, making the ultimate flying/undersea killer. Now that killer, a huge swarm of them, is loose in the ocean waters near a popular resort, and they soon start picking off the local vacationers. Sounds cool, but looks can be deceiving.
There are problems and plot holes in just about every scene in Piranha 2, and the movie just ends up looking downright pathetic in the end. You meet characters that have nothing to do with the movie, ("You're a doctor?" "No...I'm a dentist..." What?! That scene has nothing to do with the movie!!!!) seriously taking away from the action. It's almost as if they are just there to make the movie longer, because without them the movie would be only about an hour and ten minutes, and the Piranhas are only actually in about five of them. You know what that leaves us with? A whole lot more of useless characters, pointless conversations, and long boring stretches that leave major plot holes. I would give some examples of the plot holes, but I'd end up giving away the entire movie, because its alllll plot holes that lead to nowhere.

Now don't even get me started on the special effects: the SciFi channel's special effects far surpass these flying rubber fish on strings, that's all I'm going to say...

Not even the acting can save this movie. Why? Because the acting isn't that great either. To me, it seemed forced, as if the actors didn't even really want to be in the movie in the first place...
And in the end the movie's not even worth your time. Yes, I normally don't mind bad special effects, and yes, I even think most SciFi channel movies are great, but boy, is this one a stinker. They say there's a first time for everything, and this was my first time giving anything one star and a failing review. (I really want to know how they got Lance Henrikson to sign up for this movie...) Jeez, most movies like this one made in the `80's weren't this bad...