Down in Jamaica, Club Elysium
hosts an assortment of “characters,” all soaking up the sun and getting into
mischief while waiting for the annual Grunion fish fry. Scuba instructor Ann Kimbrough (Tricia O’Neil) loses one of her
students to and becomes entangled in a fight against unnatural, flying
piranha. Her husband (Divorced? Separated?) Steve (Lance Henriksen) is the local police chief who divides his time
between investigating the recent rash of grisly deaths and harassing various
residents and visitors. Their son Chris
(Ricky Paull Goldin) is a horny teen
(I’m of the thinking that the unhorny variety is as rare as hen’s teeth). And that’s pretty much all you need to know.
Producer/uncredited
co-director/co-writer (under the guise of H.
A. Milton, along with credited director James Cameron and Charles H.
Eglee) Ovidio G. Assonitis had a
penchant for ripoffs (and some more original, unique fare; The Visitor, anyone?) that were cheesy as all hell but still had a
certain air of legitimacy, because they included genuinely talented Hollywood
luminaries onscreen who seemed to have no problems delivering some genuinely
godawful dialogue. Folks like Henry Fonda, Glenn Ford, Shelley Winters,
and John Huston would saunter into
an Assonitis film, seem to stick
around for slightly longer than they actually do (courtesy of some relatively
slick editing and pacing), and saunter back out. In an interview (if I recall, it was in an
issue of Fangoria), Assonitis was asked how he got such
great actors to appear in his less than auspicious efforts. The Greek maverick’s response was as honest
and forthright (but most importantly, simple) as any of the unabashedly
imitative celluloid he produced: “I paid them.”
Naturally, since he couldn’t
afford someone like Fonda for an
entire shoot to take on the protagonist role (and the advanced age of some of
these actors would have been a little prohibitive considering the physical
requirements), that responsibility would fall to younger folks like Henriksen, Bo Hopkins, et al. What’s
interesting in Piranha Part Two is
that Henriksen really isn’t the star
of the show, as one might expect from his Chief-Brody-esque character. Ann is the main character here, and she’s
actually a fairly strong female protagonist, which I credit to Cameron’s contributions to the
screenplay (the man does self-assured, headstrong women better than most). She’s single-ish, raising and supporting
Chris by herself (yeah, Steve makes time for his son, but it’s mostly just
checking in with him and being proud that he might be getting laid by the
aloofly coquettish Alison [Leslie Graves]). Ann’s job is one of some authority, requiring
both technical knowledge and solid instincts.
Ann propels the plot forward; when she states to Steve that there’s
something fishy going on (sorry), he doesn’t believe her, causing her to seek
out answers for herself. She isn’t
defined by the men in her life, but she’s still a sexual being, and she sleeps
with whom she chooses. In a genre mostly
ruled by Everyman heroes (think: Doug
McClure in films like Humanoids from
the Deep, and I’m pro Doug McClure),
it’s rather refreshing at this point in cinema history to have an Everywoman capable
of defeating the Big Bad who isn’t just a Final Girl.
Much like in the first Piranha, the idea of evolution is at
play. In that one, the killer fish were
engineered to withstand the cold waters of the rivers of Vietnam. Here, they’re engineered to fly. Why?
Because flying piranha. Though
said evolution is man-made like something the Marvel Comics’ character The High
Evolutionary might do, it’s still purpose progression (and piranha that can fly
certainly have that many more options for dinner). This notion of evolution branches off into
the realm of mating, being (as far as this non-scientist writer knows) the
actual course that evolution takes.
There’s the Grunion spawning at the resort, wherein the female
tastily-named fish flop themselves up onto the beach to lay their eggs and
become inseminated by the males.
Meanwhile, we have such human characters in pursuit of sex as Beverly,
the ditzy, soon-to-be-corn-rowed bimbo who desperately flings herself at dorky Leo
as soon as she hears that he’s a doctor (those survival instincts kicking
in). Mal, the stuttering chef at the
club, gets hoodwinked into feeding co-floozies Loretta and Jai based on the
promise of a strenuous ménage à trois.
Ann beds down with scuba student (and possibly more?) Tyler (Steve Marachuk), and Chris, of course,
gets a bit of trim from Alison. Then
there is the nameless, faceless couple who get interrupted just prior to
bumping uglies as the film opens. You
can argue that the sex in this film has nothing to do with mating or advancing
and propagating the species, that in Piranha
Part Two, it’s all principally for pleasure (both the audience’s and the
characters’), and you would be correct, but like Sinatra crooned, you can’t have one without the other, and this is
where it starts.
What’s perhaps most intriguing
about this film is that it succeeds despite its one-dimensionality. Aside from Ann, none of the characters are
all that compelling. The people in films
like this are typically set up to be fodder, and that rule remains in effect
here. Cameron and company give us no reason to feel anything when any of
them bites it (or gets bitten by it, take your pick). Where Joe
Dante’s original film gave us satirical caricatures, Piranha Part Two simply gives us cartoons, but it still wants us to
care about their fates. The rich boat
“captain” that Chris works for is a gormless snob. Chris and Alison are just hot young hormones
on parade (fair enough on that one). Jai
and Loretta are cruel, duplicitous opportunists. Beverly and Leo are spastic geek. The hotel manager (in the coveted Larry Vaughn role) is just venal
enough to be a dick but not enough to stress what the annual fish fry really, really means for his business. Gabby (Ancile
Gloudon) and his son are local fishermen who ply their trade with dynamite
(we know they’re okay, because Steve lets them off for, what I would take to
be, a rather serious safety violation).
We get a couple scenes where they show up, but aside from being what I
assume is the sole source of dynamite within a twenty-mile radius, they mean
nothing to the story despite the death of one of them, which is intended to be
solemn and carry some emotional weight (it doesn’t). Which brings us to Steve, who should have some
kind of development in regards to his relationship with his family. Yet, all Steve does in the story is be
somewhat of a condescending asshole to Ann and pat Chris on the head. Yes, he takes part in the big climax, but
honestly, for all that came before with his character, it could have been any one
of the others doing what he does. Nevertheless, Piranha Part Two still manages to be enjoyable up to a point,
regardless of its vacuity, partly because it’s well paced, partly because it’s
just cockamamie enough for a lark, and partly because it does have Ann as the
one shining point around which the rest of it congeals. It’s not a standout of the Horror/Animals
Amok genre/subgenre, but it fits the bill as a harmless diversion.
MVT: Ann is smart, and sexy,
and adept, and O’Neil’s performance
sells what could have been rather foolish in the wrong hands.
Make or Break: The finale is
nicely edited, intercutting multiple events and building tension
competently. An abrupt ending undercuts
it slightly, but not enough to totally ruin it.
Score: 6.75/10
