Movies & More reviewer John Gillispie thinks that "Piranha 3-D," rated R and starring Elisabeth Shue, Ving Rhames, and Jerry O'Connell, is a waste of talent.

You would think that you know what to expect from a film titled "Piranha 3-D," which is playing locally in theaters, but for a little while I was slightly surprised. There are talented people in this film.

The movie begins with Richard Dreyfuss -- he's an Oscar winner -- as a man fishing on Lake Victoria in Arizona. A massive underwater earthquake creates an opening that allows prehistoric piranha to escape their subterranean lake and swim into Lake Victoria. Dreyfuss' character Matt does not last long as he is the first to fall victim to the killer school of fish.

Then, imagine my surprise to see Elisabeth Shue -- she's a former Oscar nominee and an actress I have long admired -- playing the town sheriff. Despite having Ving Rhames as one of her deputies, Shue's sheriff is overwhelmed because thousands of students have descended on her turf to celebrate spring break. So, the timing of the piranha escaping their subterranean home couldn't be worse for the tourists or better for the hungry fish.

The sheriff's oldest son Jake (Steven R. McQueen) is a teen who is hired by a porn filmmaker named Derrick Jones (Jerry O'Connell) to help scout locations on the lake. Ditching his young brother and sister at home instead of watching over them, Jake sets out on the lake with the porn crew and a teenage girl he has a crush on. Of course, his younger siblings will end up in jeopardy later.

Despite the excess nudity even for a movie with a porn crew in it, "Piranha" is almost tolerable at first and some of its early underwater sequences are suspenseful enough until a blood bath near the beach goes on and on for far too long. Seeing young men and women as characters we know nothing about eaten alive and losing body parts left and right for what seems several minutes is horrific, but it is definitely not entertaining.

So, for a movie that hired Dreyfuss in what seems a nod to the classic horror film "Jaws," "Piranha" bites itself in the foot with too much gore.

John Gillispie is the public relations director for the Huntington Museum of Art. Contact the writer at jgillisp@hmoa.org.