CRUEL JAWS (1995)

CRUEL JAWS (1995)

Tagline: This Time It's Even More Personal Than Last Time!

(Action, Adventure, Lifted Shark Footage) [R]

Note: This movie was actually made in 1995. It came out in the United States in 2011, which is what I typically base the “year” on my reviews on. This movie was marketed as JAWS 5: CRUEL JAWS but has no affiliation with any of the JAWS films aside from lifted footage from the first two JAWS movies. 

Something smells fishy!

In this one, a big shark has a vendetta against a coastal town and Florida. As it turns out, it’s warranted because pretty much everyone that lives there is a massive jerk. Meanwhile, the corruption in dealing with the shark goes past the mayor to a Mafia presence in the area. Can a group of rag-tag citizens with terrible attitudes take down an apex predator?

This movie has the bizarre distinction of having lifted footage from JAWS, JAWS 2, DEEP BLOOD, and THE LAST SHARK. We actually do see a mechanical shark head in this for a few seconds and it’s incredibly fake looking up close. It’s like something you would see as a prop at a mini-golf course. From far away it’s fine. The level of stock footage used in this is on a ridiculous level, so a LOT of this movie was just a rough watch due to the lack of effort or originality. 

The terrible acting in this movie is only made worse by the fact that it’s taking itself seriously. It’s actually listed on some websites as a “comedy” because it’s so bizarrely executed. Among the other lazy things that were done is that we get a few scenes that start off with a partial score clearly stolen from STAR WARS. We also have some execution that is just wildly strange. In one scene a helicopter is being pulled from the sky by a shark which is somewhat cool, but as one of the characters is falling inside a helicopter one way, he suddenly jumps out the other way seemingly on purpose dropping his gun and gets eaten. 

This movie was filmed in the 90s but has the look and feel of a ’70s movie. It’s almost a bit of an unintended time capsule in that sense. We even have one of the main actors named Dag (played by Richard Dew) who looks like Hulk Hogan before he started working out and decided to become a wrestler. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend CRUEL JAWS for anything other than watching it to complete an effort to watch every shark movie ever made. Outside of that, the shark attack scenes are okay, but nothing else in this movie is easy to watch. Every character with the exception of maybe two, you are kind of hoping just get gobbled up.

I have to give this one a 2 out of 7. Even with that rating, it’s not the worst shark movie, but knowing that most of it was ripped from several other movies is factoring into this rating. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF WARNER BROS ENTERTAINMENT AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

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