Blood and beauty mix in Piranha 3D

If it's thrills you are looking for, the recently released 3D horror film Piranha 3D, starring 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, and Eli Roth, has no dearth of it. Read on to find out why the Associated Press review calls the film "hugely entertaining." In the photo: Kelly Brook stars as Danni in Dimension Films' Piranha 3D. (Photo: Dimension Films)

Mere words cannot describe how awesomely gnarly Piranha 3D is, how hugely entertaining, and how urgently you must get yourself to the theater to see it. Like, now. This is not a joke, by the way. This movie is a complete blast. To borrow a phrase from the kind of B-horror flicks to which Piranha 3D is such a loving and effective homage: Run, don't walk. (Text: AP) In the photo: Riley Steele as Crystal in Dimension Films' Piranha 3D. (Photo: Dimension Films)

Like Snakes on a Plane, which came out in the dead of summer four years ago, Piranha 3D knows exactly what it is and does exactly what it should do. It's about piranhas ... in 3-D. Do you really need to know anything else? (Text: AP) In the photo: Riley Steele as Crystal in Dimension Films' Piranha 3D. (Photo: Dimension Films)

It's cleverly knowing without collapsing into parody. It makes great use of its extremely random cast, including Elisabeth Shue in an unusually bad-ass role as a sheriff, Ving Rhames as her deputy and Jerry O'Connell as a Joe Francis type. (Text: AP) In the photo: Riley Steele as Crystal in Dimension Films' Piranha 3D. (Photo: Dimension Films)

Christopher Lloyd has one great scene in full-on, crazed Christopher Lloyd mode as the resident fish expert. The second you see Eli Roth - playing the emcee at a wet T-shirt contest, no less - you know some hideous fate will befall him. And then there's Richard Dreyfuss, who makes a very cute cameo off the top. That's all we'll say. (Text: AP) In the photo: Riley Steele as Crystal in Dimension Films' Piranha 3D. (Photo: Dimension Films)

But the whole point of this kind of movie is the gore, and French director Alexandre Aja finds hilarious and creative ways to kill off his characters. Not a huge surprise, given his previous movies - the suspenseful High Tension and a Wes Craven-approved remake of The Hills Have Eyes - but here, there's a lightness and a sense of fun about the carnage. If that makes sense. (Text: AP)(Photo: Dimension Films)

Besides, partying provides the premise for the film. It's spring break at Lake Victoria, Ariz. - really Lake Havasu - and hordes of drunk, horny college students have arrived to trash their perfect bodies. (Text: AP)(Photo: Dimension Films)

But there's something swimming in the water that can do that much more efficiently. Actually, there are thousands upon thousands of them. (Text: AP) (Photo: Dimension Films)

The piranhas have razor-sharp teeth and ferocious eyes, but they almost look as if they're smiling as they prepare to tear into some unsuspecting fool's flesh. (Text: AP) (Photo: Dimension Films)

A seismic shift beneath the lake created a rift that unleashed these prehistoric creatures. Now they're here, and they're hungry. (Text: AP) (Photo: Dimension Films)

In classic horror-movie fashion, the victims get picked off one by one. Sheriff Julie Forester (Shue) and Deputy Fallon (Rhames) discover the first body and call in the scientific experts, led by Adam Scott (cast against type). (Text: AP) In the Photo: Kelly Brook is drop dead gorgeous in the Piranha 3D still. (Photo: Dimension Films)

But containing the fish is as difficult as stopping the partyers from dancing on boats in their bikinis to generic house music. (Text: AP)(Photo: Dimension Films)

And so when the inevitable bloodbath happens - and oh yes, it does happen - it's vast and horrifying but with some giddy glimmers of absurdity sprinkled throughout. (Text: AP)(Photo: Dimension Films)

Stuck in the middle of this are Julie's three kids, the eldest of whom, Jake (Steven R. McQueen), has become an impromptu crew member on a 'Girls Gone Wild'-style video shoot. (Text: AP)(Photo: Dimension Films)

Yes, there is plenty of nudity and girl-on-girl action here, but again, it's used with a wink and a smile. Piranha 3D knows it needs to titillate on every level. In the Photo: Jerry O'Connell and Riley Steele in Piranha 3D. (Text: AP)(Photo: Dimension Films)

Visually, though, it was shot in 2-D and then converted to add a third dimension, but it looks better than other films that have followed the same path, including M. Night Shyamalan's muddled The Last Airbender. (Text: AP)(Photo: Dimension Films)

Still, some of the underwater mayhem is a bit hard to make out, especially when the fish are doing their damage in darkened caves. (Text: AP)(Photo: Dimension Films)

But Aja mostly employs the 3-D precisely as he should with this genre: in totally gimmicky, gratuitous ways. A guy sprays beer from a keg and it shoots right at you. A girl has too many tequila shots and yacks off the side of the boat and into your lap. And of course there are the fish, zooming right at you to take a bite. (Text: AP)(Photo: Dimension Films)

There could be a moral to this story: Don't go to the lake and act like a cheesy, drunk idiot during spring break. But that would be no fun. In the photo: Elisabeth Shue and Adam Scott in Piranha 3D. (Text: AP)(Photo: Dimension Films)

Other Reviews: "Hands down and body parts floating, the most irresistibly sick movie in years is Piranha 3D, which should be retitled Piranha 3D, Double-D and C for all the topless cuties director Alexandre Aja feeds the fish and audience." (St. Petersburg Times). In the photo: Elisabeth Shue as Sheriff Julie Forester in Piranha 3D. (Photo: Dimension Films)

Other Reviews: "What really matters is that the film works. It's a genuinely suspenseful, no-holds-barred masterpiece of sex 'n' horror exploitation." (Philadelphia Inquirer). In the photo: Elisabeth Shue as Sheriff Julie Forester in Piranha 3D. (Photo: Dimension Films)

Other Reviews: "Roger Corman could only dream of producing a movie this stupefyingly gory and loaded with exposed flesh, making the updated Piranha that most unlikely of remakes-an improvement." (Time Out New York) (Photo: Dimension Films)

Other Reviews: "There's a degree of gruff integrity at work for at least two-thirds of Alexandre Aja's grindhouse piranhapalooza Piranha 3D, in which a megaschool of man-eating fish thought to be extinct burst through an underwater fissure to terrorize a normally placid lake in Arizona." (Movieline)(Photo: Dimension Films)

Other Reviews: "A pitch-perfect, guilty-pleasure serving of late-summer schlock that handily nails the tongue-in-cheek spirit of the Roger Corman original." (The Hollywood Reporter) In the photo: Adam Scott as Novak Radzinsky in Piranha 3D. (Photo: Dimension Films)

Other Reviews: "I call Piranha 3D "exploitation," rather than a quality scare movie, because it serves up well-timed gross-outs instead of genuine suspense and because the movie has no pretense of providing character, plot, acting, or dialogue that's anything more than boilerplate." (Entertainment Weekly). In the photo: Elisabeth Shue takes the role of Sheriff Julie Forester in Piranha 3D. (Photo: Dimension Films)

Other Reviews: "Piranha 3D ends the summer on a note of shamelessly entertaining B movie bottomfeeding." (Rolling Stone). In the photo: Panic and mayhem in the Piranha 3D still. (Photo: Dimension Films)

Other Reviews: "Remember the film you hoped Snakes On A Plane would be - this is it! By any sane cinematic standards, meretricious trash...but thrown at you with such good-humoured glee that it's hard to resist" (Empire). In the photo: Panic and mayhem in the Piranha 3D still. (Photo: Dimension Films)

Other Reviews: "The script is ridiculous, the bodies are great and the film skates so long on the line between knowingly bad and bad that by the time the body count hits 100 and the booby count hits 1000, we've lost track of the difference." (Boxoffice Magazine). In the photo: A still from Piranha 3D. (Photo: Dimension Films)

Other Reviews: Piranha 3D is trying so hard for the laughs and the allusions amid all the gore, and endless bloodbath of bare naked ladies, that it completely forgets to frighten anyone." (Los Angeles Times). In the photo: Panic and mayhem in the Piranha 3D still. (Photo: Dimension Films)

Other Reviews: "The 32-year-old carnivorous fish franchise has lost none of its bite, serving up a fresh batch of spring-break revelers for the fearsome creatures to attack." (Variety). In the photo: Adam Scott and Elisabeth Shue in The Weinstein Company's Piranha 3D. (Photo: Dimension Films)

Other Reviews: "Piranha 3D is more funny than disgusting, even when screen fills with half-nude swimmers, bobbing like human dumplings in a roiling vat of borscht. This isn't just sick, it's clas-sick!" (The Globe and Mail Toronto). In the photo: Steven R. McQueen stars as Jake Forester and Dina Meyer stars as Paula Montellano in Dimension Films' Piranha 3D. (Photo: Dimension Films)

Other Reviews: There are few real scares, though, and even fewer actual laughs. Despite several obvious gags, Aja never captures the spoofy fun of the 1978 original." (New York Daily News). In the photo: Adam Scott and Elisabeth Shue in The Weinstein Company's Piranha 3D. (Photo: Dimension Films)

Other Reviews: "It's not as scary as it needs to be or as clever as it thinks it is, but the new 3D version of Piranha is at least as gimmicky as those fabled 3D films of yore. With all the pointless 3D cartoons and joyless 3D Clash of the Titans conversions, at last here's a picture that tosses its cookies, its coffee cups and its D-cups right in your lap." (Orlando Sentinel). (Photo: Dimension Films)

Other Reviews: "The film's centerpiece is a massacre at a wet T-shirt contest, which the horror director Alexandre Aja has a good time staging (yes, Eli Roth, we see you with the water gun). But it feels like an imitation of B-movie beach schlock and John Waters. The visual humor lacks wit or nerve." (Boston Globe). In the photo: Richard Dreyfuss in The Weinstein Company's Piranha 3D. (Photo: Dimension Films)

Plot Summary: Every year the population of sleepy Lake Victoria explodes from 5,000 to 50,000 for Spring Break, a riot of sun and drunken fun. But this year, there's something more to worry about than hangovers and complaints from local old timers; a new type of terror is about to be cut loose on Lake Victoria. (The Weinstein Company) In the photo: Richard Dreyfuss stars as Matt in Dimension Films' Piranha 3-D. (Photo: Dimension Films)

Plot Summary: After a sudden underwater tremor sets free scores of the prehistoric man-eating fish, an unlikely group of strangers must band together to stop themselves from becoming fish food for the area's new razor-toothed residents. (The Weinstein Company) (Photo: Dimension Films)

Richard Dreyfuss stars as Dr. Gordon Raybanks in Dimension Films' Piranha 3-D. (Photo: Dimension Films)

A scene from Dimension Films' Piranha 3-D. (Photo: Dimension Films)

Dina Meyer stars as Paula Montellano in Dimension Films' Piranha 3-D. (Photo: Dimension Films)

A still from Dimension Films' Piranha 3-D. (Photo: Dimension Films)

Elisabeth Shue as Sheriff Julie Forester in Piranha 3D. (Photo: Dimension Films)

Elisabeth Shue takes the role of Sheriff Julie Forester in Piranha 3D. (Photo: Dimension Films)

A still from Dimension Films' Piranha 3-D. (Photo: Dimension Films)

Jessica Szohr in The Weinstein Company's Piranha 3D. (Photo: Dimension Films)

A poster for Dimension Films' Piranha 3D. (Photo: Dimension Films)

Actress Kelly Brook as Dani in Piranha 3D. (Photo: Dimension Films)

Kelly Brook and Riley Steele on the sets of Piranha 3-D in Lake Havasu, Arizona. (Photo: Dimension Films)

Kelly Brook and Riley Steele are seen on the sets of Piranha 3-D in Lake Havasu, Arizona. (Photo: Dimension Films)

Kelly Brook and Riley Steele on the sets of Piranha 3-D in Lake Havasu, Arizona. (Photo: Dimension Films)

Kelly Brook and Riley Steele on the sets of Piranha 3-D in Lake Havasu, Arizona. (Photo: Dimension Films)