Whereas the previous Piranha movie captured just the right blend of silliness, exploitation, and fun, this new movie seems totally lost. It comes across as forced, ugly, offensive, and lazy. The theme park idea should have been enjoyably ridiculous, but director John Gulager treats it with the same callousness as the David Koechner character treats his water park. Likewise, the piranha attacks are lazy and dumb, using "close calls" to generate artificial suspense. And the movie stoops so low as to show a piranha killing a young boy.
The piranha attacks of the previous movie left an entire vacation resort in ruins, and a news commentator asks, "can it happen again?" It can, and does, in an Arizona water park. A marine biology student Maddy (Danielle Panabaker) returns home for the summer, to find that her stepfather (David Koechner) has turned the family water park into a sex attraction, advertising busty lifeguards and an "adult pool," full of naked women. Unfortunately, he has also tapped into an underground lake and released more of the hungry, bitey, carnivorous fish. With a tall, handsome, crooked cop (Chris Zylka), and a short nerd (Matt Bush) vying for her affections every step of the way can Maddy save the day?
Where the movie succeeds is in its choice of actors. The diminutive Matt Bush makes an unusual romantic hero, and Danielle Panabaker is an appealing and somewhat intelligent heroine. Ving Rhames and Christopher Lloyd, both from the previous film, turn up in small parts, and David Hasselhoff is funny in a self-mocking role. Gary Busey and the director's father Clu Gulager appear in the prologue, which -- in a forecast of things to come -- uses cow farts as a plot device.
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