What came first, the hen or the egg? It’s not like I ponder over this extremely annoying question everyday. But for me, there has always been something fascinating about beginnings. How does life evolve, how do people build up a business and how does an artist start a new painting? When it comes to film, it is always interesting to look back at a director’s first – often shaky – steps with a camera on her/his shoulders. In this feature, I will look back at a certain director’s first film every month.
It will be a long time before I forgive James Cameron for making me sit through Piranha Part Two. Because clearly, it’s his fault that I watched it. Okay, maybe it’s my own fault. But still: why, James Cameron, WHY? How desperate did this man have to be to direct this awful, despicable B-movie? It is nothing but sex–piranhas–sex–piranhas and so on.
Plot? There’s not much to say. Some people live in a little town by the water, most of them work in a big hotel and then the piranhas attack. All of this is ‘spiced up’ by a lot of sleazy side plots and dialogue, embarrassing direction and tiny costumes.
I really enjoy listening to podcasts or watching video reviews about bad movies, always thinking ‘Well, if I had more time I would probably sneak in a bad movie or two every once in a while’. The people that watch these movies make them sound hilarious; so bad they’re good. While there definitely are movies like this, and I’ve seen some of them, I don’t think I’m the right person to watch bad movies. Though I was initially entertained by Piranha Part Two, the amusement rapidly wore off and left me with boredom. I never even bothered watching the last 5 minutes of them film after an interruption that forced me to stop it at that point.
There are so many questions. Why is the teenage son flirting with his mom, and why is she flirting back heavily? How are the piranhas able to fly? Who would ever enjoy a movie like this? What is its purpose? How much did James Cameron enjoy making it? But actually, I couldn’t care less about any of the answers.
The thing is, I actually enjoy James Cameron as a director a lot. Granted, they may have more gloss and senseless action than actual depth but I do think that Cameron has a good sense of humor and is willing to take risks with his films. That’s why the absolute humor-lesness of Piranha Part Two baffles me. Since he co-wrote the screenplay, he must have had some say in the content of the film. But then again, he was young and needed the money. Funnily, now that he’s old and has too much money, the quality of his film-making is dropping again.
Isn’t it ironic?
