The history of Piranha is almost hilarious. Actually, no, not Piranha, the 1978 Joe Dante film that was, oddly enough, the screenwriting debut of auteur John Sayles, or even Piranha 2, the 1981 sequel which served as the feature directorial debut of this filmmaker named James Cameron. That history is humorous in its own ways, but the history I'm referring to is the history of Piranha 3D, the new Alexandre Aja remake that already has a history of being banned well before the film even hit theaters. Last month at Comic-Con, they denied the film's privilege to show footage from the incredibly-hard-R-rated film at their panel. They rectified the matter in their own way, by holding their own event (which I attended and LOVED) outside of the convention grounds and, as of yesterday, news spread that a TV spot for the film was banned by several TV networks. It seems that the whole world is against this uber-bloody, balls-out 3D film, with all of the aforementioned news and the kiddie film Nanny McPhee Returns and a spoof "comedy" Vampire Flick being released in more theaters than Piranha 3D this weekend. It might seem that way, but the bottom line is I can't imagine any normal adult will have more fun than they'll have at Piranha 3D than they'll have at the theaters all year.

Piranha 3D is, simply put, batshit, effing insane. It is probably the bloodiest film ever put on celluloid (and that's saying something after watching Ninja Assassin last year). Much like most remakes, they "modernize" the initial premise of the film, but, unlike most remakes, it, in its own twisted way, makes more sense than the original premise. Instead of genetically-engineered, bloodthirsty fish that were emancipated into the general population's water stream, this actually makes more sense, in its own twisted way. The film takes place in the fictitious Lake Victoria (the film was actually shot at the very real Lake Havasu on the Arizona/California border), a normally-sleepy town that turns into a hotbed of rowdy coeds once a year during spring break. This would normally mean that Sheriff Julie Forrester (Elizabeth Shue) and Deputy Fallon (Ving Rhames) would be dealing with thousands of drunken kids for a week, but this year, they have to deal with so much more: maimed, bloody drunken kids. After an earthquake opens up a rift at the bottom of the lake, some scientists, lead by Adam Scott's character, comes to town to investigate and they discover that this new underwater portal is actually a gateway for thousands of a deadly, thought-to-be-extinct breed of piranhas who invade the lake and find loads of tasty coeds to feast on.

The film puts on display a healthy dose of corniness, but the great thing about it is that writers Josh Stolberg and Peter Goldfinger truly embrace the corny elements which brings us a film that not only provides for an insane amount of blood and gore (it was said that over 8,000 gallons of fake blood was used in the film...), but also a film that is one of the funniest movies I've seen this year. We get some of the more inventive kills I've seen on the silver screen in quite some time, including one where a cable literally cuts a busty blonde coed in half... while snapping her bikini top open at the same time, and horrormeister Eli Roth, who has a brief cameo as a wet t-shirt contest host, has one of the best deaths I the film as well. The film is unabashedly over-the-top, with Jerry O'Connell playing Derrick Jones, a character that is "loosely" based on Girls Gone Wild creator Joe Francis (I hope I don't get sued for writing that...), and a host of wonderful cameos including Roth, Christopher Lloyd as a local fish expert and Richard Dreyfus, who opens the film as a character who you'll likely recognize (Hint: he needs a bigger boat). Shue and Rhames do a fine job in the film - Rhames is featured in one of the best scenes in the film, where he takes a boat motor to the water to shred up these vicious little fishies - but we won't see any little gold men being handed out for the acting here. Steven R. McQueen does a serviceable-but-not-outstanding job as Jake Forester, the son of Shue's character who skips out on babysitting his younger siblings (Brooklyn Proulx and Sage Ryan) to work for O'Connell's Derrick Jones and Jessica Szhor leads a cast of young hotties as Kelly, the apple of Jake's eye who he, of course, has never had the stones to make a move on, and who gets sucked in by Derrick's wily ways and ends up on their yacht, much to the dismay of Jake (i.e. he wants her but doesn't want her to get all crazy). Kelly Brook and Riley Steele also star as Derrick's hotties Danni and Crystal, who are featured in a hilarious scene where they're completely nude and doing their best mermaid impression underwater, set to a classical music piece. We also get solid performances from funnyman Paul Scheer, who plays Derrick's cameraman and the always-awesome Adam Scott as Novak, one of the scientists who also gets to slip into action mode for a bit here, with a great scene where he's riding a jet ski while shooting at piranha's with a shotgun, channeling Arnie's Harley/shotgun scene in T2 in its own weird way. While most of these performances aren't the greatest, they still seem to fit perfectly into the overall scheme of the film.

Director Alexandre Aja finally returns to greatness after the misstep that was Mirrors. I absolutely loved High Tension and The Hills Have Eyes remake and he returns here with a fantastic film that knows exactly what it is and makes no bones about it. It is likely by far the bloodiest film of all time, with tons of wonderful, gory makeup effects splashed in with scantily-clad and oftentimes topless beauties. And, yes, a severed penis floating in the water, which is proof that this may in fact be the hardest-R-rated flick in recent memory. The piranha effects are delightfully cheesy and if Aja does anything wrong here it's that the piranha feeding scenes are cut so fast/furious-like that you don't really see anything until the aftermath. Perhaps that's what Aja was going for here, but it seemed like there could've been more in those scenes besides the frantically cut-together scenes we get when the piranhas feast on flesh. It's nice to see a film that truly understands what it is, no matter how many people it may gross out or offend. While many are tiring of the 3D trend, it's actually done rather nicely here. It's not the super-immersive experience that Avatar boasts and it's more of the old-school style with new-school technology. They could've easily gone overboard with the 3D here - since they went purposefully overboard with almost everything else - but they showed some welcomed restraint with the 3D, which truly adds to the fun of the film in awesome ways, the way 3D truly should be done.

Piranha 3D is just plain fun. Plain, adult, topless-chick, blood-spewing, dismembered, 3D insane fun that is probably the best way to close out a lackluster summer at the theater.