hellholehorror The fish swimming underwater looked better than the original. Also gorier. Just as cheesy and with as much nudity as the first movie. It isn't as good as the first but still kinda fun. Yes, James Cameron made a film about killer flying fish. Could you imagine how good he'd make a b-movie if he made it now?

Eric Stevenson The only reason I watched this movie because it was the directorial debut of one of my favorite directors and probably one of your favorite directors, James Cameron. I did not see the original "Piranha" movie, but I have seen "Piranha 3D", which happens to be the most critically acclaimed movie not screened for critics ever made. Not much, but that's something. I really don't care to see the original, as this one is just plain bad. Even the opening credits seem to be done in a really choppy manner. The cuts in this film are really bad. What was it about little things attacking people in movies at this time? The original film was released the same year as "Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes!".This movie features piranhas that are actually genetic experiments that are able to fly. We get so many shots of these little things just swimming and flying aimlessly. It's a pain for the eyes to see these cheap special effects and listen to these weird sounds they make. I don't recall a single character's name. This movie has way too many characters and not a single one is memorable. Almost all of the acting is really bad. It's especially pitiful when the one guy, "I'm a kill those fish". This film is also painfully boring. It builds up to an attack that only lasts for a few minutes. "Piranha 3D" knew how to do its pacing and it went all the way with its detail and was shot nicely. Something like "Evil Dead" holds up because of how well it looks. This is just a shoddily put together film with nothing memorable. It's easily the worst thing James Cameron ever worked on and it's nice to know he only went uphill from here. Cameron himself is an atheist. When your career starts with a movie as bad as this, I can understand you lacking faith. *

jacobjohntaylor1 Piranha (1978) is a great movie. But this is better. 3.5 is underrating it. This is one of the scariest horror movies of all time. This movie has a great story line. It also has great acting. It also has great special effects. If this movie does not scary you then no movie will. I give 10 out of 10 because it is a great movie. The Jaws movie are better. Anaconda is also better. But still this a great movie. I think reason people do not like movie is because it is a sequel. Godzilla (1998) is better. Still this is a great film. This is the best Piranha movie. The original Piranha is a great movie. This is better. James Cameron is a great film maker. This is better then Terminator. The only Jame Cameron movie I have seen that is better then this one is Aliens. And have seen Terminator 2 and all of his big movies.

oneguyrambling Last year pre: Avatar's release, I saw a hype interview for Avatar with James Cameron. The interviewer (justifiably) crapped on and on about all the great stuff Cameron has made over his career, focusing on T2 and Titanic before commencing to fawn about Avatar for the next 12 minutes, with Cameron contributing about 5 smug "you know it" comments without actually talking himself up for fear of any "King of the World" backlash.Then the interviewer did the but you know he wasn't always this successful bit, you know when the guy drags out a clip of the interviewee when he/she was a kid in a commercial or something.In Cameron's case it was a little different, him being a director and all, so the clip was a 20 second burst of Piranha 2: The Spawning, his first film from the 80′s, a low budget drive-in special.Cameron's response? "Yeah but it was the best flying piranha movie ever made!" Now I still realised that this was a movie with a 99% chance of suckage but I thought rather than watch T2 or Aliens for the 27th time, I'd watch a couple of his earlier efforts including yes: Piranha 2 – The Spawning. The finest flying piranha movie ever made.P2 – Judgement Day is set in Saint Anna in the Caribbean and focuses mostly on one family really, which is lucky so Cameron doesn't have to spend too much time introducing new characters. Luckily the family includes a much younger Lance Henriksen as the local cop, (holding true to his credo of doing just as much sh*tty stuff as good stuff), and also a young ugly kid who happens to be his son, and his mum who is a driving instructor.The first half of the film can't decide what it wants to be, so it is a wannabe sex comedy - only without the sex and the comedy.Even without the sex though there is much random toplessness. The amusing sign of the times is that there is a noticeable lack of enhancement surgery if you know what I mean, which in this case wasn't a bad thing as the 44DD era has been going for so long that sometimes a change is as good as a holiday.About half way through though it seems that the movie studio got the dailies through and demanded some flying killer fish. From this point the movie faithfully follows the normal horror conventions. Sex = death, being naughty = death etc But how the f*ck do you justify flying killer fish? You blame the army that's how! So now we have genetically altered flying killer fish with bloodlust. As a vacationer how does one escape that? Run? Wave your arms? Lie down with your hands over your head? Wear a hat? Or you could go inside and shut the door, no-one seems to think is a good idea, in this film at least.The ending could only come from a drive in special such as this, at least one with genetically altered flying killer fish, they blow up the fish's lair. So the school of piranha are fortunately planning to all be in the same spot at the same time apparently.Does it work? Who cares, just the fact that Cameron tried it in the first place is enough for me.There is practically no SFX in this film aside from some lousy fish stuff, which is justifiable given that the budget of P2 would now be James Cameron's lunch money for one day on the set of Avatar.P2 is the best thing that could happen when you decide to make a sequel to a killer fish film.Final Rating – 5.5 / 10. Amusing in a retro unintentional way, but you could blow 90 minutes in worse ways.If you liked this review (or even if you didn't) check out oneguyrambling.com