Jaws - The Revenge
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Movie Reviews of Jaws - The Revenge
Movie Review: Better than the third film
Summary: 2 Stars
Remember Jaws 3D when both of the Brody brothers were working together to build Sea World in Florida? The oldest Brody boy was a welder and married to a blond marine biologist. The Brody boy knew a lot about welding but not much about fish.
In this film, both Brody boys are back, except that they are played by different actors, have different occupations, and different personalities for instance, the main Brody boy no longer welds, but is now a marine biologist, that's OK though, because his wife is now a welder.
Their mother is the same actor from the first two films, and the photo of their dad looks the same, he's not actually in the film as he apparently was scared to death of great white sharks sometime after the second film. I'm not joking about that. That's how they explain Roy Scheider's absence. He had a heart attack because he was scarred of sharks. Really.
Really this is a story of a feud between two families as a member of the Jaws family is upset that the Brody's keep killing his or her relatives and plots revenge against the family. First he or she kills Sheriff Brody's youngest son who is no longer a theme-park-building-cowboy but a New England cop like his dad, then swims super-fast to get to the Bahamas around the same time Mrs. Brody and her family get there. Keep in mind that Brody's don't swim from New England to the Bahamas but instead take a plane. That is one fast shark. Maybe I'm being too sarcastic. Perhaps it's a different shark than the one in Amity Island. Maybe the one in the Bahamas is a member of a Miami shark cartel and was paid by the shark in New England.
Oh, and why did Mrs. Brody leave her home in Maine? Because it was on a body of land surrounded by water; in other words, an island, and she was getting kind of freaked out by sharks. So she wisely moves to South Dakota where there are no sharks. No, just kidding, she moves to The Bahamas, which isn't just one island, it's like seven-hundred islands. See, much better.
The shark in this film looks a little long in the tooth. Some of the shots of it feature a broken dorsal fin that's barely connected; it just kind of flops back and forth. Maybe it's the same model from the previous films. If so, maybe this belies some deeper subplot to the franchise. Perhaps the previous sharks didn't explode but have been somehow secretly replacing the fine Brody family members they normally serve here with different people. Maybe that's what was really bothering Sheriff Brody.Later in the film the dorsal fin got better.
Anyway, the dialog is a little better than the third film, which was really bad, but the lack of plot required the director to have lots of scenes that go on and on and on but that don't add anything to the story. It's sort of like the movie is made out of nothing more than deleted scenes. Also, just as a side point, most of the film takes place in the Bahamas, in the sun, yet nobody wears sunglasses. Nobody. Well, there was this one guy, but he wore the flip up kind and always had them in flip up mode. I found this harder to swallow than many of the other inconsistencies that are a constant feature of this movie. And why do great white sharks blow up when you shoot them. And knowing that all you have to do is shoot them, why not shoot them earlier in the film?
On a positive note, it's one of the best looking Jaws films in that the print looks mostly good and is bright and colorful; everything looks as if it was filmed last year. Also, Michael Cain is in it. That's good.
Movie Review: Wherefore art thou, Chief Brody?
Summary: 2 Stars
This film, the fourth in a franchise inspired by Peter Benchley's novel "Jaws" could be used by either the MST3K crew for episode fodder or by a film school to show how not to make an action-adventure film.
The fact that scenes from the original and far superior "Jaws" are spliced into this film might make the viewer rush to eject this film and watch Spielberg's first blockbuster. Nevertheless, the film is good stupid fun if you really have nothing better to do.
The film starts with Mrs. Brody's youngest son Sean (the baby on the beach in the original and the kid on the sailboat in the second) being attacked and killed at night by (presumably) a Great White shark. Mrs. Brody is inconsolable, and she orders her other son, Mike, to stop working as a marine biologist in the Bahamas. He invites her to visit him partly because he's concerned about her mental state and partly to assuage her fears that he will soon become the victim of a shark attack.
She goes to the Bahamas and meets a single pilot named Hoagie (played by Michael Caine). She seems to sense that a Great White is lurking nearby and, sure enough, Mike is stalked through a sunken ship by one and her granddaughter is nearly eaten while riding a banana boat on the beach. Interestingly enough, the boat used in this film is located in 60 feet of water off the shore of Nassau, Bahamas, and local dive stores use it for wreck dives. I dove this wreck in 1998.
Mrs. Brody decides to take matters into her own hands and kill the shark herself so she steals her son's boat. Hoagie and Mike find her (spotting the boat and shark from Hoagie's plane) and they all battle the shark before the film's glorious conclusion: the shark being impaled on the bowsprit of the boat.
The fact that in many scenes the shark is so obviously fake so as to make one's eyes roll is one reason the film was panned. Secondly, Mrs. Brody has flashbacks to events she did not personally witness (Chief Brody's killing the original shark and her son Sean's death as examples); even Roger Ebert pointed this glaring flaw out.
If you want a stupid shark movie, this will do unless you watch "Shark Attack 3: Megalodon" which is even more stupid.
Movie Review: Jaws: The Revenge
Summary: 2 Stars
Considered by most to be the worst film in the series, JAWS: THE REVENGE has earned a notorious reputation for its laughable plot and poor designs, but logical inconsistencies aside, there is still plenty of killer shark action to be enjoyed here. After Shawn Brody is killed by yet another Great White shark, his mother becomes obsessed with the idea that the sharks are out to destroy her family. She demands that Mike, their eldest son, quits his research in the Caribbean to ensure his safety, but when Mike and his research partner discover a Great White prowling the warm waters of the Bahamas, they set off to study the man-eater. How or why a Great White could have made it down to the Bahamas is besides the point. What is important in this third sequel is that the shark is there, and it is royally pissed. This is easily the cruelest and most violent of any of the JAWS films, where the shark literally has to go out of its way to attack everything and anything in its way (planes not excluded). After the Brody family killed four of the shark's closest relatives, it has finally come back to even the score! It is also the darkest film in the series, lacking the lighter humor that broke up the terror and suspense of the earlier films. Lance Guest offers the most memorable take on Mike Brody, bringing a seriousness and intensity to the role despite the silliness of the plot. There is one element present in THE REVENGE that manages to successfully recreate the same heart-racing anxiety of John Williams' original theme, and that is the shark's heart-rate monitor that thumps aggressively as the shark draws nearer. What can't be denied or overlooked is the dreadful design of the shark, itself, which is as unconvincing as it is unintentionally funny. Michael Caine said it best when asked about the film after its release: "I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific." JAWS: THE REVENGE may be as stupid and utterly ridiculous as it has been made out to be, but it is still oddly entertaining as a supremely guilty pleasure.
-Carl Manes
I Like Horror Movies
Movie Review: Jaws: The Revenge (1987)
Summary: 2 Stars
Director: Joesph Sargent
Cast: Lorraine Gary, Lance Guest, Mario Van Peebles, Michael Caine, Karen Young, Judith Barsi, Lynn Whitfield, Mitchell Anderson.
Running Time: 89 minutes
Rated PG-13 for shark violence, gore, and language.
Another unnecessary and ridiculous sequel of another horror series, "Jaws: The Revenge" attempts to cap off the shark versus the Brody family in intense, atmopheric Spielberg fashion. Director Joseph Sargent; however, is not Steven Spielberg and the film certainly shows it. Sheriff Brody (played brilliantly by Roy Scheider in the original "Jaws") has been dead for some years, his sons have grown, and his wife (once again played the comatose, lathargic Lorraine Gary) has tried to move on, but she now fears the water and still has nightmares. Her son Sean (Mitchell Anderson), now a cop at Amity is killed one night in the water, and Ellen decides to visit Michael (Lance Guest), her other son on a Caribbean island. Ellen believes her family is haunted by sharks and wants her son to stop working with them as he now has a family of his own to look after. He will not believe her, but a great white attacks him and his friend Jake (Mario Van Peebles). They escape, but decide to investigate; meanwhile Ellen is falling for local Pilot, Hoagie (Michael Caine). Soon though it becomes clear that the shark is after the family and Ellen decides to find and destroy the shark as she cannot get on with her life and must protect remaining members of her family, and Mike, Jake and Hoagie follow.
There are some moderately good performances here, but they hardly are special. Lorraine Gary and Lance Guest are solid as the Brody family, while Van Peebles is good and provides some banter. Caine looks like he is having fun, it is the Bahamas after all, and he probably was paid well. There are a couple of good moments: the banana boat scene and the shark following Mike into the sunken ship, yet "Jaws: The Revenge" resembles nothing that the original 1975 classic embraced. A poor finish to the series, but then again not much new could really be done to spice things up.
Movie Review: Monk's Cafe
Summary: 2 Stars
A film about "nothing".
A sheriff gets his legs bitten off and yells "Ow!"
A five year old (maybe older) asks her grandma (and I paraphrase) "...now that Brody's (Mr. Ow!) dead, will he be coming back"?
A shark has presence of mind to call Liberty Travel and find out exactly where the Brody's are staying in The Bahamas.
An Aeroflot pilot watches and comes to love the scene where Michael Caine allows the five year old in his lap while piloting a multi-engine Cessna and do dive-bombing runs. Seven years later the captain of Aeroflot Flight 593 allows his 15 year old daughter to take the left seat, where upon she inadvertently disconnects the autopilot and the Airbus A-310 dice bombs into a Siberian mountain.
Ellen Brody gets very Billy/Sonny Landham from Predator and senses the shark just like Billy sensed the Rasta alien.
Said shark doesn't like ebing photographed and roars exactly like Spot from The Munsters whenever he's flashed.
For some reason the shark explodes when Ellen Brody puts on the proverbial strap-on and rams a ship's mast right down his throat.
Mario Van Peebles lives after being used as a chew-toy by said exploding shark. Blood all over the place, but ole Mario's Rastafarian character is cracking wise, which is too bad because he is really, really annoying. His death would have been a highlight of the flick.
So! Do I recommend this? Sure, why not? Of course it's production value (except for the cinematography, thatpart is actually really nice) is worse than a first year undergrad film student. But get yourself buzzed on a nice spliff and you'll think you're watching the greatest comedy of all.