“[A shark] has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we’ve got on our hands…is a dead shark.”
– Woody Allen
It’s the same for franchises. Leave one alone long enough, and it goes into remission, until it becomes “retro” and is remade. And so, perhaps merely to keep the Jaws name alive under the mistaken impression it would again somehow become profitable, Universal released a Jaws movie four years after Jaws 3-D suggested how Sisyphean such an effort would be. Sadly, there is little further reasoning going into the existence for Jaws: The Revenge; it merely exists by fiat. As one of the legendarily worst films ever made (though long off IMDb’s list celebrating such feats), naturally whatever production whims led to Jaws: The Revenge as we know it are now lost to the depths of time.
It didn’t have to suck this bad. The director, Joseph Sargent, had one genuine thriller classic under his belt (The Taking of Pelham One Two Three), and he surely had Universal’s monetary backing. The title even attempts to indicate respectability; just as Jaws 2 was one of the first sequels to adopt a “2” title (evolved slightly from The Godfather Part II’s more respectable Roman numerals), so is this fourth Jaws one of the earlier fourth sequels to give up on numbering altogether. This is common amongst fourths, as it’s assumed the number “4” (or numeral “IV”) has a desperation about it that cannot be covered up with the term “trilogy” – even while The Revenge’s producers falsely liked calling their turd “the third film of the remarkable Jaws trilogy.” Nice try, guys.
Of course, making that The Revenge part as tiny as can be, it’s possible to trick more impressionable viewers (like me at age 6 when I first saw this) into somehow thinking this is the real Jaws. “Boy,” I thought, “if this is that world-famous classic thriller, people sure do have awful taste!”
(Whatever class The Revenge gains by dropping the “4” is itself lost with the subtitle The Revenge. This concerns the movie’s dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb premise, so let us not go into it here. Still, someone had the chutzpah to proclaim writer Michael De Guzman’s narrative idiocy in the film’s tagline: “This time, it’s personal.” Uh oh.)
Of course, both Jaws 3-D and Jaws: The Revenge are bad, but it’s different. Jaws 3-D is good-bad, stupid-bad, the sort of accidental comedy bad movie purists relish. Jaws: The Revenge is boooooring, a stately character melodrama is a series that cannot whatsoever support such a conceit – especially when it focuses on one of the minor characters, Ellen Brody. That’s right, Sid Sheinberg is getting his wish! Universal’s CEO, well, his wife is now at long last an action heroine, allowing Sid to let moviegoers know by proxy how enormous his penis is. I’d suspect this is really why Jaws: The Revenge exists – a decade-delayed bit of cock-measuring gotten out of hand and perpetrated upon a classic.
As always, the credits involve some shark’s POV Myersing it up at the seabed – this time, also taking in the lovely Amity surroundings circa Christmastime…1987? And the only, only thing helping the movie out is the score from Michael Small, which sees fit to rip off “Tubular Bells” nearly as much as it does John Williams’ original work. Oh, and oddly enough, the cinematography ain’t too shabby either – John McPherson, you pass.
At the Brody household, Loraine Gary’s Ellen Brody is engaging her grown son Sean (Mitchell Anderson) in a game of “exposit the back story.” These are the facts: Ellen exists, Martin Brody is long dead (of an expired contract and a reticent Roy Scheider), and Sean is now himself sheriff of Amity, a strange career choice for this water-phobic Colorado grad. Also oddly, this lad hasn’t aged a day since 1983, though more distressingly he’s changed so much in appearance, it’s almost like he’s a different actor.
Ellen’s granddaughter, Thea (Judish Barsi, and do not research her life history), calls on the phone, proving herself the world champion at exposition that is both over-informative and artless. Thea lets us know in no uncertain terms that her name is indeed Thea, she is Ellen’s granddaughter, she is 5-years old, her father is Mike Brody (the talentless yet bearded Lance Guest – Halloween II, The Last Starfighter), and Mike is a marine biologist in the Bahamas. That’s a hell of a career switch from Sea World’s engineer, made harder to swallow by his new wife Carla (Karen Young), and Thea’s age indicating she was born out-of-wedlock a year before Jaws 3-D, when Mike romances a totally different wench before presumably abandoning her in the wilds of Venezuela…Either that, or the producers have simply forgotten about the events of Jaws 3-D, like the rest of humanity.
It’s the holiday season, as Sargent’s oppressive directorial hand never lets us forget. And Sean must leave his overly-cheery pre-tragedy home life to see to a bit of driftwood in the harbor – ah, priorities. Creating problems where there were none, the movie insists the Coast Guard cannot do it because they’re “busy,” and Sean’s coworker is off either tipping cows or arresting people tipping cows – it ain’t too clear. No matter, Sean heads out in the police vessel for an exciting night of wood reduction when –
SHARK! (Pre-bloodied shark.)...For all of a nanosecond, as the series’ jumbled editing was exacerbated yet again – Verna Fields, where are you when we need you? Sean’s arm is off. He obliges the shark by nearing the boat’s edge, and soon he is dead. And that danged driftwood still isn’t cleared!
So…a third shark in Amity (for their thirteenth death-by-shark)?! Don’t worry, the movie has an answer for that…A stupid, stupid answer.
Loraine Gary (that is, Ellen) weeps like the Actress her CEO husband assures her she is. As her Mike-based family arrives what for the consolation, Ellen enacts an excess of wistful sea-gazing. When Mike sees to her, Ellen assures him “it [shark] came for him [Sean].” That is, premeditated shark-icide. And Martin was killed by a shark…a heart attack, actually, but Ellen assures us all this was over extreme shark terror – from a man who’d successfully eviscerated two of ‘em (with no more in sight)!
So…The Revenge? The shark’s out for revenge against the Brodys as an overall clan, for the fantabulous four shark deaths they’ve responsible for so far. Yeah. An earlier draft, and hence the film’s novelization, “justified” this as a voodoo-curse, ‘cause some houndour wanting the Brodys all deadified (for some unjustified reason) makes so much more sense than a shark alone wanting it. Oh well, at least then they’d embraced the idiocy.
At Sean’s funeral, The Revenge starts actively angering its audience, as sepia-toned footage from the original Jaws appears to highlight the quality drop.
(Repeated insistence upon that abetting driftwood suggests the proper truth – the shark placed it there in ambush for Sean. Other reviewers have pieced together the precise stupidity of this notion, so I’ll let it pass in peace…)
Mike has convinced Ellen to escape from shark-terrors to the Bahamas, justifying that they’d never go someplace so warm – whereas Amity, pre-Jaws, was equally carcharias non grata. And really, when your villain’s a waterborne menace, and you’re its one and only prey, you’ve really gotta work to make yourself available to it!
Pilot Hoagie Carmichael (Michael Caine) flies the Brodys to Nassau, where – That’s right, I said Michael Caine. Sir Michael Caine, of The Ipcress File, Get Carter, The Man Who Would be King…and, er, The Swarm, Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, On Deadly Ground, and THIS. Justifies Caine: “I’ve never seen it [the rubbish that is Jaws: The Revenge], but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific!” Good enough, good Mike! And at your laziest, you’re the best part of this.
Carla’s an artist, doncha know, of randomly-welded together deadly metal – I’ve dabbled in this myself, so I cannot critique. Still, these shots of characters within the piece’s “shark mouth” are what Jaws: The Revenge employs as a tension-creating device, while Jaws was actively pitting man against animal in no uncertain terms. (I’m mostly neglecting the melodrama that makes up 88.449% of this picture, which leaves little content indeed.)
Now Ellen, persistent ocean-avoider that she is, is swimming in the ocean. And here’s the SHARK to –!
Nope, dream sequence!
So Ellen ain’t goin’ near the water, really (she acts suddenly hysterical within feet of it, which is rather much, I think), but Mike – Oh, he’s still a credible shark morsel. This is because, and only because, of his deep sea diving he does on a daily basis. What would this shark do otherwise?! So Mike tags conches, day in and day out, part of his recent research grant he’s already plowed through on booze. Aiding him in snail categorizing is Rasta mon Jake (Mario Van Peebles, star of Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasss Song, and director of BAADASSSSS!) – at a career low here as a be-dreaded islander whose irritating vocal mannerisms are not helped by the constant distortion they receive in Mike’s underwater sub, mon.
Ellen is well aware of the danger Mike is in per his job, but Mike assures her, facial expression never changing even one iota, that “there is nothing to worry about.”
Cue Not Bruce swimmin’ along swimmingly, reassuring us that, melodramatic Hallmark reenactments to the contrary, Jaws: The Revenge is indeed a killer shark flick…mon.
As a killer shark flick, it’s time to get on to the central matter at hand – An extended romantic subplot between Ellen and Hoagie (you got an actor like Michael Caine, you don’t simply have him appear as the pilot in one scene). By inference, we’re supposed to think that Sid Sheinberg looks exactly like Michael Caine. Sure, Sid!
They fly, Sandwich – er, Hoagie teaching Ellen how to fly. You’d be mistaken to think this is a skill she’ll use against the shark, or ever. It’s just tossed off. Then Hoagie, he of the anecdotes, tells tale of one time, in Burma, when he was up against a local warlord who was stealing diamonds, then just tossing them away, because “some men just want to see the world burn.”…Wait, that’s The Dark Knight. No, sorry, Hoagie’s story is about cannibals in…oh, let’s say Burma, mon.
While Hoagie is showing Ellen the local Junkanoo (read: something I learned about from Thunderball), she starts getting all seizurey. Look, I know Loraine Gary was a little old, but couldn’t you do a second take? – Oh wait, it’s because she has a psychic link with Not Bruce. Tell me again why voodoo was deemed too stupid for this flick?
As Ellen is having her little psychic fit, Not Bruce is well at work, attacking Mike. ‘Bout freaking time! We’re only nearly half over. And what a half-shark-assed attack it is, as Not Bruce simply snacks on the research platform a little bit, then vanishes for another 10 minutes of screen time or so, mon.
And what’s the shark doing in the Bahamas anyhow?! I mean, how’d it get there?! Let’s calculate, shall we…It’s been a week, from Christmas Eve to New Year’s Eve (I’m being as generous as possible here). It’s 1,233 miles from Martha’s Vineyard to Nassau. Charcarodon carcharias can go 25 mph – that’s a top speed. So, plugging that into the ol’ calculatorizor…Holy crap, a gung-ho shark could get there in two days?! It’s unlikely as hell, but amongst The Revenge’s faults, this isn’t its greatest. I mean, voodoo, man!...Er, voodoo, mon!
Time-wasting character scene during New Year’s Eve. Mike and Jake, the asses, intend to investigate the Not Bruce, screw conches, through a strangely-argued bit where they wildly misconstrue how a research grant works. This is their big secret and...that’s our drama! Mike will not tell Ellen he saw a shark (ooh!), while she gets her Big Vague Oscar Speeches (with Hoagie) where she constantly refers to her problem as “it” – making it more “accessible” to the common man. Even when sharks are the driving focus of these “character” issues, the word “shark” is never said. This is one lackluster Jaws movie, I tell you what, mon.
Mike and Jake get their own context-free scene of “drama,” a leeeeeeeeeeengthy scene, about making some sort of nebulously defined transmitter doodad to track the shark.
Mike gets a different “drama” scene with wife Carla about taking out the garbage. She actually threatens to do Mike in with her soldering torch and – oh wait, I forgot, this one ain’t in 3-D…Where’s the damned shark, mon?!
Oh! In a sudden and unmotivated scene transition, there it is, again harassing Jake and Mike upon their dinky platform. Jake pokes it, placing on a tracer – meant to be this entry’s equivalent to Quint’s yellow barrels, for how much the “shark sonar” thing is grossly underutilized. Mike, our hero, is all the while just standing around watching. Which, frankly, is also what he did in Jaws 3-D.
Ellen and Grinder – er, Hoagie – have a, yeah, a character scene, this time in a cabana – Ah, changes of pace. “I’ve grown tired of one-way conversations,” Hoagie says. Translation: “I’m sick of masturbating.” And the seduction of Ellen Brody has begun, mon!
(Going back to Sean’s death – the one death we have to console ourselves with the hour-to-date of this “horror” flick. Originally, it was meant to be Martin Brody, ‘cause that’s what folk wanna see five minutes into their Jaws sequel – Well, the makers of Halloween Resurrection think something similar. Anyway, had that been the case, this seduction-by-Michael Caine would be even queasier than it already is.)
SHARK! AAH! MON!
Actually, it’s just Mike’s dream, mon. Damn it, that’s twice you’ve gone to that dream well! And for different people!
The Brody family enjoys a domestic dinner scene – Honestly, they had the temerity to call this thing a thriller?! Anyway, Mike runs through a scene with daughter Thea that perfectly mirrors one involving Martin Brody with Sean in Jaws (the one we saw as Ellen’s “flashback” already). This is the saddest sort of sequel, the one that traffics solely in indirectly referring to the first film. It doesn’t even have its own action sequences!
A though occurs: Following a quick, useless scene in a casino, I’ve discovered Jaws: The Revenge’s Oscar-worthy symbolism. Hoagie is the shark! Bear with me…He’s a card shark, sure, with predatory intents upon Ellen Brody, which disturbs Mike to a rather disgusting degree. So the extended scenes of Ellen and Mike with Hoagie are the metaphorical substitutions for good and wholesome Sharkly Action and – Look, I’m grasping at straws here, mon!
Mike is back out at sea in his sub, as though nothing had happened up ‘til now (it hasn’t), when Not Bruce does when it should’ve done at the 20 minute mark: Finally and without equivocation attack Mike Brody! This is an extended chase, with long, loving close-ups depicting the sadly stagnant art of animatronic shark construction. Mike swims into a sunken house (Haiti?), then runs through a sequence of narrow escapes that was far more competently parroted in Finding Nemo. He escapes to the surface with a blast from his oxygen tank, somehow avoiding both the bends (by fiat) and the research vessel (by one foot).
While Mike is intentionally involved in such stupidly self-destructive “research,” his wife Carla is at the beach presenting her grand work of art – which they’ve been leading up to all this time. So Mike ain’t there. This isn’t the healthiest marriage ever, is it? It’s just as well Mike managed to sire Thea, staving off the inevitable divorce by about 18 years (just like many of my friends have done, mon).
That divorce is briefly more viable, as Thea is out upon a banana boat when Not Bruce attacks. They’ve got things reversed; the Alex Kintner mirror still occurs in the 20th minute, sure, but here it’s the 20th minute to the end, not from the beginning. Oy! And Thea ain’t et – You thought they’d be so brave?! Naw, the poor, nameless wench beside her is. Mmm, Brody-adjacent.
That’s all Ellen can stands, she can’t stands no more! Feeling the need to get this damn thing over with, she hijacks Mike’s boat (which is now at dock, in spite of the previous scenes to the contrary), and pilots herself out to sea, with the least-developed notion in history about how she’s gonna track and kill a great white. Honestly, she has no plan, mon!
…I do love it when a screen shot can sum up the emotional experience of a movie in one visual. Here’s that moment for Jaws: The Revenge:
Boring!
Mike and Jake race out to join the climax, enlisting Hoagie and his biplane. After what feels like minutes of flat ocean footage, they discover Ellen’s boat, Not Bruce closing straight in…
Hoagie then lands his seaplane (poorly), as Mike and Jake paddle over to the boat. Then Not Bruce up and eats the airplane, also enjoying himself a Hoagie sandwich. Farewell, Michael Caine. Maybe you’ll actually be able to make it to the Oscars to accept your award for Hanna and Her Sisters, mon…
No, wait, never mind, Hoagie’s alive…and not even all that wet, ‘cause who likes a soggy Hoagie? His explanation for his survival? “It wasn’t easy, believe me.” This movie has stopped caring in a way even the Monogram Charlie Chans never did!
Not Bruce circling back around to once again to a complete lack of damage to Ellen’s boat, Jake and Mike gather together to technobabble out a solution. Jake shall place a “receiver” inside the shark, a “slave unit that’ll shock the hell outa him.” Wiring up this fearsome gizmo (a flashlight), Mike opines that it shall apparently confuse the shark – it sure as flapjacks confuses me! I mean, what are they talking about?!
Then Jake goes out on the mast to feed Not Bruce the thingy, only instead Not Bruce eats him. I mean, he was black, mon. (Cue long, slow-mo “Noooooooooooooos.” Leave no cliché unturned!)
Boat now somehow sinking, Mike preps his whatever machine and zaps the vocal chords outa the shark. It think it ate a lion (or Godzilla) at some point.
Seeing flashbacks to a minutes-worth of the Jaws climax, Ellen stabs the haunched beast with the mast. Hey, if it was good enough for Cthulhu (or Ursula)!
Then the shark explodes! The head, the tail, the whole damn shark.
This was a reshot ending, done to appease test audiences (who somehow found nothing else wrong with Jaws: The Revenge). Originally, the shark simply ceased living, sorta like the franchise. Oh well, at least they gave us a memorably stupid ending to cap the tedious melodrama.
Oh, and Jake has survived…Again, test audiences apparently demanded it – dumb-dumbs! And that’s Jaws: The Revenge. Body count: 2
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Back to the Future Part II depicts the year 2015 as playing host to Jaws 19 (“This time, it’s REALLY personal.”). Well, we’ve still got five years for the 15 extra Jaws movies to show. Of course, shark’ll still look fake…
Actually, the Jaws franchise never really got out of the water, as it were. Some movies just aren’t made to have sequels, no matter how hard a studio insists, and frankly, that’s Jaws. But here’s the way the new blockbuster and sequel environment Jaws created differs from that of the ‘40s: Most sequels then were B-movies; little expectation or weight was attached to them. Post-Jaws, studio sequels were A-efforts, like Jaws itself. Thus three Jaws sequels are somehow more impressive than 47 Charlie Chan movies, and their steady deterioration of quality is also all the more striking. And that’s why the modern era celebrates and laments sequels to an extent never imagined in the ‘30s and ‘40s Golden Age of Sequels. They mean something now, and with sequels and Jaws progeny (by which I mean all blockbusters) dominating Hollywood’s output, we don’t have the stuffy prestige pics to fall back on like before.
And there’ve been sightings in the water…sightings of something terrifying and long-dreaded. Sightings…of a Jaws remake! (With Tracy Morgan. In 3-D.)
Related posts:
• No. 1 Jaws (1975)
• No. 2 Jaws 2 (1978)
• No. 3 Jaws 3-D (1983)
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