| Directed by | Alexandre Aja |
| Produced by | Alexandre Aja, Mark Canton, Marc Toberoff, Grégory Levasseur |
| Written by | Pete Goldfinger, Josh Stolberg, Alexandre Aja, Grégory Levasseur |
| Starring | Elisabeth Shue, Adam Scott, Jerry O'Connell, Ving Rhames, Jessica Szohr, Steven R. McQueen, Christopher Lloyd, Richard Dreyfuss |
| Music by | Michael Wandmacher |
| Editing by | Baxter |
| Studio | The Weinstein Company, Dimension Films, Atmosphere, Entertainment, Chako Film Company, Intellectual Properties Worldwide |
| Distributed by | Dimension Films (United States), Entertainment Film Distributors (United Kingdom) |
| Release date(s) | August 20, 2010 |
| Running time | 88 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Preceded by | Piranha (1995) |
| Followed by | Piranha 3D: The Sequel (2012) |
Piranha 3D is a 3D horror film and the second remake of the 1978 film, directed by Alexandre Aja and featuring an ensemble cast including Steven R. McQueen, Jessica Szohr, Adam Scott, Elisabeth Shue, Kelly Brook, Riley Steele, Richard Dreyfuss, Jerry O'Connell, Christopher Lloyd, Ving Rhames, Dina Meyer, Cody Longo, Ricardo Antonio Chavira, Paul Scheer, Ashlynn Brooke, Gianna Michaels and Eli Roth. The script was written by Josh Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger, the writers of Sorority Row.
Plot
Fisherman Matthew Boyd (Richard Dreyfuss) is fishing in Lake Victoria, AZ when a small earthquake hits, splitting the lake floor and causing a whirlpool. Boyd falls in and is ripped apart by a school of piranhas that emerge from the chasm and ascend the vortex.
Jake (McQueen) is admiring attractive tourists as Spring Break begins. He reunites with his old crush, Kelly (Jessica Szohr) and meets Derrick Jones (Jerry O'Connell) an eccentric pornographer, as well as Danni (Kelly Brook), one of his actresses. Derrick convinces Jake to show him good spots on the beach for filming a pornographic movie.
That night, Jake's mother, Sheriff Julie Forester (Elisabeth Shue), searches for the missing Matthew Boyd with Deputy Fallon (Ving Rhames), who has found Boyd's boat. They find his mutilated body and contemplate closing the beach down. The next morning, a lone cliff diver is attacked and consumed by the marauding fish.
Jake bribes his sister and brother, Laura (Brooklynn Proulx) and Zane (Sage Ryan), to stay home alone so that he can show Derrick around the beach. After Jake leaves, Zane drafts Laura to go fishing on a small sandbar island. They forget to tie the boat down and are stranded in the middle of the lake. Meanwhile, Jake goes to meet with Derrick and runs into Kelly, who invites herself onto Derrick’s boat, The Barracuda. Jake meets Crystal (Riley Steele), another of Derrick’s actresses, and cameraman Drew (Paul Scheer). They film an underwater love scene between Danni and Crystal before partying.
Julie takes a team of seismologist divers — Novak (Adam Scott), Sam (Ricardo Chavira), and Paula (Dina Meyer) — to the fissure. Novak speculates that the rift leads to a buried prehistoric lake. Paula and Sam scuba dive to the bottom and they find the entrance so Sam goes first. There he discovers a large cavern filled with large egg stalks. While down there he's bitten by something and then he finds himself surrounded by thousands of piranha. Paula hears him screaming for help and she tries to help him. As she watches him being ripped to pieces by the piranha, she gets attacked as well, before she can escape and alert the others. Novak dives in to save them but he's too late. Novak and Julie then pull Paula's corpse onto the boat, capturing a lone piranha, which they take to Mr. Goodman (Christopher Lloyd), a marine biologist. He explains that the piranhas are a prehistoric species, long believed to be extinct, and must had been trapped underground for over two million years. At first, they are not convinced that a species of piranha could survive for millions of years, cut off from the surface. Mr. Goodman points out the scars on their piranha specimen, indicating that they have survived through cannibalism. Making them a much tougher species.
Julie, Novak, and Fallon try to evacuate the beach, but their warnings are ignored until the piranhas attack the tourists. Novak boards a jet-ski with a shotgun to help while Fallon ushers people to shore and Julie tries to get swimmers into the police boat. A floating stage set up in the water collapses from the weight of all the panicking guests and the wet T-shirt contest host (Eli Roth) is killed. A partygoer tries to flee by using a speedboat and in doing so runs over fellow guests, killing them. A girl's hair gets caught in the propellor of the boat, and when the craft pulls away, it gruesomely removes her scalp and part of her face.
Jake spots Laura and Zane on the island, and forces Derrick to rescue them. Derrick gets the boat's propeller stuck and crashes into some rocks, flooding the rooms below deck. Kelly is trapped in in the kitchen while Derrick, Crystal, and Drew are thrown from the boat. Crystal and Drew are devoured while Danni manages to get a partially eaten Derrick back on board. Jake calls Julie for help.
Julie and Novak commandeer a boat and take it to the sinking Barracuda. Fallon stays behind to fight off the piranhas with a shotgun in shallow water. Seizing the motor off a speedboat, he turns it on and shreds much of the swarming school with it, sacrificing himself but giving more swimmers a chance to get out of the water.
Julie and Novak reach Jake and attach a rope to his boat. Julie, Danni, Laura, and Zane start crossing the rope but the piranhas latch onto Danni's hair and pull her into the water, devouring her. Laura, Zane, and Julie make it to safety but Jake breaks the rope. Using Derrick's corpse as both distraction and bait, Jake ties the line to himself and goes to save Kelly. He ties Kelly to him and lights a flare after releasing the gas in a pair of stored propane tanks. Novak manages to start the boat after a struggle and speeds away just as the piranhas surround Kelly and Jake. They are dragged to safety and the propane tanks explode, destroying the boat and killing most of the piranhas.
Mr. Goodman calls Julie on the radio, Julie tells him that they killed most of the piranha but she thinks their still more of them out there. Terrified, Goodman tells her that the glands on the piranha they obtained were not mature, meaning that the piranhas they've been fighting are babies. Novak wonders where the parents are. Then a giant adult piranha lunges out of the water, attacks Novak and pulls him into the water, killing him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piranha_3D
2010 films | English-language films | American films | 2010s comedy films | 2010s horror films | American action thriller films | American comedy horror films | Dimension Films films | Film remakes | Films directed by Alexandre Aja | Films shot in Arizona | Natural horror films | The Weinstein Company films | 2010s 3-D films | 2-D films converted to 3-D
