This Week’s Worst – Jaws: The Revenge
Utterly compelling, brilliantly scripted, a masterclass of acting and direction – the original Jaws is quite simply one of the greatest films ever made…
Following up Quint’s devastating Indianapolis speech, as well as Chief Brody’s awesome toe-to-toe with the shark in the finale, was never going to be easy. Director Jeannot Szwarc had a fairly acceptable attempt with Jaws 2, which saw Roy Scheider’s Brody electrocute a bigger, badder and very annoyed underwater beastie, whilst single-handedly carrying the film on his shoulders.
The almost vertical decline in quality would follow.
Jaws 3-D was an upsetting mess with Dennis Quaid portraying Brody’s eldest son Michael, who is now working at SeaWorld. The aquatic park manages to attract a psychotic 40-foot (?) shark that can roar and swim backwards. Suffice to say, this was not a positive step, and certainly not Quaid’s finest moment. The shark death: protagonists use a very long rod to pull the pin out of a grenade that is still in the hands of a diver eaten earlier in the film (what?).
If you haven’t seen it, we assure you it makes even less sense than you think.
Surely the best thing to do at this stage is kill the franchise before anyone turns mental and goes on a mad, murderous rampage in disgusted protest. Alas, this was not to be, and a fourth instalment was given the green-light.
Jaws: The Revenge returns to Amity Island, where Sean, the late Chief Brody’s younger son, follows in daddy’s footsteps by becoming a lawman. Whilst out at sea, he is very efficiently chomped to death by a shark.
Ellen Brody, Sean’s mum, believes that the shark deliberately went for her boy, and also that the ‘fear’ of another shark attack killed her husband years before, as opposed to the heart attack mentioned by doctors at the time.
Ellen’s insistence that the shark is hunting her family must surely render her certifiable, and in need of some very intense medication in a hospital far far away from any water or other people.
Michael Brody, Ellen’s eldest son, is now a marine biologist (Jaws 3-D is ignored throughout the film), and he thinks his mum is a wee bit bonkers, so he takes her and the rest of his family on a break to the Bahamas.
Somehow, the shark follows them. This is painfully ridiculous and would involve the shark swimming almost 1,500 miles in 2 days, as well as utilising some kind of very advanced ‘Brody radar’.
We have to suffer through a collection of awful moments that try, and fail, to crank up the tension, and unfortunately Michael Caine has somehow got caught up in the madness, playing Ellen’s potential love interest Hoagie.
A journalist asked Caine, “What did you think of Jaws: The Revenge?” He simply replied, “I haven’t seen it, but I have seen the house that it built, and it’s terrific.”
A very nice escape Mr. Caine, similar to his own climactic moment in the film where he manages to avoid a good munching whilst face-to-face with the shark, emerging unscathed from the water with dry clothes and a cheeky smile.
One can easily squirm through the movie for a laugh, but the climax is truly shocking.
The shark jumps several feet out of the water in order to eat Michael’s work partner and friend Jake (Mario van Peebles), who has some kind of sonic device in his hand. Once the shark returns to the water, Michael starts triggering a sonic charge. This upsets the shark so much that it sort of bobs strangely in and out of the water whilst roaring incessantly and doing a great job of looking like a cheap toy.
Seeing an opportunity to attack the shark with the boat’s broken bowsprit (what????), Ellen charges toward the beast.
Inexplicably, Ellen begins to have flashbacks of Brody’s final moments battling the shark in the original Jaws (how?). Brody’s glorious moment (“smile, you son of a…”) is juxtaposed with Ellen spearing the shark, and then it proceeds to explode for some reason.
Van Peebles’ character, Jake, had spent the movie being spectacularly irritating, and his demise was a rare moment of joy. He was quite clearly devoured, yet the ending sees him appear from nowhere alive and well, floating amongst some wet sushi.
We are seriously considering instigating some form of belated justice by making our own film, People: The Revenge, where we repeatedly stamp on a copy of this movie, shortly before it explodes. Mario van Peebles will not co-star.
Image: Jawsmovie.com
