JAWS: THE REVENGE (1987)
Wow….this one is just rough. The story starts out after Sean Brody’s (yet again played by another freakin actor, meaning Sean Brody is never the same actor in this entire series) encounter at Sea World. He goes back to Amity to work for the police department there. His father “Brody” has passed away from a heart-attack. Sean lives with his mother Ellen Brody (played by Lorraine Gary who came out of retirement for this role). Mike Brody (also played by yet another freakin actor that wasn’t in any previous movie) is now married to Carla (played by Karen Young). He’s researching conch snails with Jake (played by Mario Van Peebles) in the Bahamas because that is like the coolest thing ever. Ellen decides it time to get away after Sean is eaten by a shark (probably because they didn’t want to find another actor to play that damn role if they ever made a 5th movie) and she now has it in her head that this particular shark has a vendetta against their entire family. She does meet a dude name Hoagie (played by Michael Caine) who is a pilot and he does help her start to get over the events that have led her to believe a shark wants to kill her family. Not surprisingly a great white does show up in the Bahamas which backs up Ellen’s fears and she is not having it. She goes right from scared to angry in like 40 minutes.
This movie’s plot is where this movie has most of its issues. The shark revenge plot is bad enough but Mike not telling his own family him and Jake had encountered a shark was out of character, and the fact that Mike and Carla’s marital problems seem to all be solved via sex and arguing feels cliché even for the 80’s. I also have issues with the shark itself actually looking more fake and silly than in the first 2 movies. Then to top it all off the ending is shot in such a confusing way that it feels like total non-sense.
Cinematically the movie is fine and it’s actually not as bad as I remembered, especially when focusing on the dialog. . The acting is actually pretty great and Jake and Hoagie are very likable. There is even a heart-warming nod to the original movie where Mike’s daughter. While Ellen believes this shark is after her family, the film never implies that anyone else thinks so or that the shark that killed Sean and the shark they find in the Bahamas is the same. Only Hoagie sort of mentions it at the very end, having said that, it’s a bit of a strange plot line none the less…unless we were talking about giant killer wasps. Wasps hate your guts and will take revenge. With sharks I’ve never hear about something like that happening.
JAWS : THE REVENGE gets a 3 out of 7 from me. It’s not a movie worthy of a 4 rating as is. There is a lot to sort out in an effort to make this movie make sense. I can understand this when it comes to big popcorn entertainment flicks, but this was marketed as a serious follow up to one of the most respected films ever.
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