Who's In It: Elisabeth Shue, Jerry O'Connell, Steven R. McQueen, Christopher Lloyd, Ving Rhames, Kelly Brook, Adam Scott, Richard Dreyfuss, Ricardo Chavira, Eli Roth
The Basics: Prehistoric monster-piranhas are in the lake. So are a bunch of idiot spring breakers who deserve to die young. So is a Girls Gone Wild-esque porn director on a boat. So are some little kids. So is Richard Dreyfuss being the guy he was in Jaws. So is some cocaine. So are some tequila body shots and about 500 naked boobs, including Kelly Brooks's. So is Eli Roth's wet T-shirt contest. So is Elisabeth Shue and she was THE BABYSITTER and she will tase you even if you're a fish. So is one-third of the production budget because it appears that's about what they spent on fake blood and guts. So is my heart, which I have given with all my love to this film. And then the movie ate it and vomited it back into my face in 3D.
What's The Deal: So yeah, Inception may be the most original mind-bender of the summer, Toy Story 3 the most emotionally satisfying, the latest from French masters Alain Resnais (Wild Grass) and Jacques Rivette (Around a Small Mountain) the ones that renewed my respect for amazing Euro-cinema and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World the most flashy and joyful. But I haven't shouted out loud more or had more hit-the-armrest fun at a movie than at this one all summer--all year--long. Once it revs up it just goes faster and faster and gets crazier and crazier until you're out of breath from all the insane, humanity-shredding entertainment.
Featuring Christopher Lloyd As The Kooky Old Pet Shop Proprietor Who Is Also Some Kind Of Evolutionary Biologist Who Gets To Yell Stuff Like: "THIS PARTICULAR PIRANHA VANISHED OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH MORE THAN TWO MILLION YEARS AGO!" And not just him. Everyone here knows exactly what movie they're in. No one camps it up too hard. They don't need to. The fish do the work.
You Can Keep Your Family-Friendly Megasharks And Giant Octopi: I somehow missed the "footage too gross to show at Comic-Con" controversy. And the TV spots that warned "This film is not yet rated" got me nervous, making me think they were going to go for a money-enhancing PG-13. And now I realize that "not yet rated" meant "we can't figure out how to make them give us an 'R' because every second of this movie is littered with flying 3D chewed-off body parts, full-frontal everything, nasty death scenarios and puke." In other words, if you're a big squeamish baby then you might consider never laying eyes on this movie. Stay home and take up scrapbooking or something.
Announcing The Official Retirement Of: Lakmé's "Flower Duet." Any other music supervisor who uses this exceptionally familiar piece of opera in any future movie or TV show has just had the bar raised way too high. And naked.