“Piranha 3-D” is vulgar, violent, and very awesome.

Not that the plot is important, but “Piranha 3-D” is about a lake that becomes populated by thousands of prehistoric piranhas just in time for spring break.

From a strictly film quality standard, “Piranha 3D” is awful. It’s one step above a Syfy Channel movie. Although it did have some excellent special effects, it’s an exploitation film or in other words, an excuse to see lots of topless women getting eaten. The dialog is horrible and the acting is laughable.

But, from a purely entertainment standard, it’s fantastic. If you go in looking for the laugh you’ll find it. The T&A and gore are so over the top, all you can do is laugh.

Within the first five minutes we get the first kill, but then have to wait another 50 minutes for the real carnage to begin; once it starts it doesn’t stop. And some of the best deaths aren’t even from the flesh-eating fish.

The casting of the film is another high point. There’s Elisabeth Shue and Ving Rhames as the town’s police officers. We have acting veterans Richard Dreyfuss, as the fishies’ first victim, and Christopher Lloyd, as the wise old fish expert. Plus, Jerry O’Connell as a “Girls Gone Wild”-esque movie director that was so scummy he even made the piranhas vomit.

If you go into this movie with the right frame of mind and not take any of it seriously you’re going to have a great time. There’s a lot of nakedness, which is unnecessary, but what I expected from this type of film.  It’s a B-movie in a shiny wrapper; the 3-D only adds to the camp and cheese that makes this movie fun.

It’s not good, but really, really fun.

Ashley Christie is our friendly neighborhood Paginator (aka Page Designer and Prettifier). She enjoys candlelit dinners and long moonlit strolls on the -- Whoops! Wrong profile! She grew up in Albany, OR and spent some time in Connecticut too. Now she's back and when she's not hard at work on The Commuter she's probably off somewhere watching a movie. She loves movies; the good ones, the not-so-good ones, and the really horrible ones. And the best advice she can give you is to never get involved in a land war in Asia. You can stalk Ashley at her movie blog, I'm A Movie Nerd.