Piranha 3DD

The best part of Piranha 3DD, the pointless sequel to the utterly unnecessary 2010 remake of Piranha, is the credits. Not only do they signify that the film is finally, mercifully over, but they also allow for David Hasselhoff to sing the theme song to a new fake TV series called The Fish Hunter, a clever meta-gag that nods both to Baywatch and the Hoff's international recording success. Had Piranha 3DD director John Gulager (Feast) allowed for that level of fun throughout the rest of the movie’s 83 minutes, perhaps he’d have a future overlooked jewel of trash cinema on his hands. Unfortunately, Piranha 3DD takes itself entirely too seriously, actively trying to infuse the ridiculous plot — wherein the titular prehistoric flesh-eating fish from the first movie have managed to invade a water park — with brow-furrowing gravitas. Anchorman’s David Koechner plays Chet, the proprietor of an adult-themed aquatic wonderland called the Big Wet that is staffed by strippers. Step-daughter and park co-owner Maddy (The Crazies’ Danielle Panabaker) disapproves both of the ta-ta-centric direction the business has taken and the way Chet cheats the water company by filling his pools via a well that taps into an underground lake. Said lake also happens to house thousands of tiny meat-eating fish eager to chow down on a series of faceless teens, including the virginal Shelby (30 Rock's Katrina Bowden), who apparently didn't get the memo about skinny dipping in horror movies. Despite an underdeveloped love triangle and a b-plot about a crooked deputy, everything marches along predictably. The first half of the film merely treads water in anticipation for the eventual bloodbath, and once the teeth start gnawing, it’s just one laborious machination after another to get to the end of the movie, which stops without much of a resolution. The only brief thrills come care of Christopher Lloyd and Ving Rhames, two veteran actors who deliver appropriately over-the-top performances. They should probably know better than to accept this kind of work, but they also seem to be only people in the movie who undertood the kind of picture they were making. Everybody else just slogs through with heads down, waiting for the whole ordeal to be over and for Hasselhoff to send the audience home happy with a little ditty.