To start, I must say that some of the acting was good, as I expected it would be. Christopher Lloyd was, as always, fantastic, and Elisabeth Shue, Ving Rhames, and Jerry O'Connell were also good. The kids (Proulx and Ryan) were awesome. The performances by young McQueen and Szohr were far better than the script warranted. These actors, and some others, saved what could have been an abysmal failure. Most of the rest of the acting was mediocre at best.
The visuals could have been far better. Beautiful blue water, clear skies, and so forth, but instead we had to watch a virtual parade of topless coeds. Now, I am sure some young guys won't mind this, but what about the rest of us? I wanted a creature feature, not a soft porn film with some critters tossed in for interest. Some of what occurred had no place in a regular theater at all.
The story and direction started off fairly well, but soon deteriorated. Loved the Dreyfuss scene (and his character's choice in music), and the basic idea of how the fish got into the lake in the first place. However, beyond the basics, that was virtually ignored for the rest of the movie, which was spent on gratuitous nudity, gore, and overuse of the 3-D technology. I had hoped, since the 80's, we would have outgrown that sort of thing. Plus, many of the scenes looked far too familiar to any seasoned viewer of this sort of movie. Time that could have been spent building suspense was wasted on cheap thrills.
Overall, this could have been a LOT better. Sadly, the creators of this movie chose titillation over substance. When the movie relies too much on that, there is a problem. The worst part is that some viewers seem to like this, and even expect it. Such lowered standards mean we all get less quality in the movies. Give me Jaws, or Lake Placid, or the original Piranha, any day over this. As a long-time fan of creature features, I found this one a huge disappointment. First time in awhile I was strongly tempted to demand my money back.
The visuals could have been far better. Beautiful blue water, clear skies, and so forth, but instead we had to watch a virtual parade of topless coeds. Now, I am sure some young guys won't mind this, but what about the rest of us? I wanted a creature feature, not a soft porn film with some critters tossed in for interest. Some of what occurred had no place in a regular theater at all.
The story and direction started off fairly well, but soon deteriorated. Loved the Dreyfuss scene (and his character's choice in music), and the basic idea of how the fish got into the lake in the first place. However, beyond the basics, that was virtually ignored for the rest of the movie, which was spent on gratuitous nudity, gore, and overuse of the 3-D technology. I had hoped, since the 80's, we would have outgrown that sort of thing. Plus, many of the scenes looked far too familiar to any seasoned viewer of this sort of movie. Time that could have been spent building suspense was wasted on cheap thrills.
Overall, this could have been a LOT better. Sadly, the creators of this movie chose titillation over substance. When the movie relies too much on that, there is a problem. The worst part is that some viewers seem to like this, and even expect it. Such lowered standards mean we all get less quality in the movies. Give me Jaws, or Lake Placid, or the original Piranha, any day over this. As a long-time fan of creature features, I found this one a huge disappointment. First time in awhile I was strongly tempted to demand my money back.