Jaws: The Revenge review

Jaws: The Revenge

Even though the title doesn’t state it, this movie is the 4^th in the declining Shark series. It is also one of the worst titles to ever come out of Hollywood. Like any un-needed sequel, the third or fourth movies in the series are usually the worst. They are the kind of movies that the critics and movie-going public can agree that it sucks.

Jaws 4 starts out promising with a nice lens eye view of the shark. Even though Williams didn’t compose the music for this film, his main theme makes a surprisingly impressive return in the opening. Hell, even the opening attack on the Brody kid was done pretty good with only a few continuity errors (Why was there blood in the water before the shark jumps out and bites off his hands?)

From that incident on, the movie just falls completely apart. We are forced to believe that this Great White shark knew exactly who to kill and traveled all the way across the world to follow this family.

Lorraine Gary, while effective as a grieving mother, she simply can’t carry the film. Her love story with Michael Caine is rather boring and goes on forever. Caine actually looks bored, the same as he does in Bewitched. Mario Van Peebles is annoying and loud, and for some reason test audiences loved his character and his fate was changed. (More on this later.)

While we saw very little of the shark in the first film, this movie goes out of its way to give us numerous long beauty passes, showing how fake it looks. And, the shark even has a stalker moment similar to when Jason chases a person through a house. Plus, this shark screams and can swim like a dolphin. I kid you not. All this adds up to just pure stupidity and lazy writing.

Avoid this movie if you can, but if you want a laugh…watch it.

Grade D-

Things worth noting

~Mario Van Peebles has two different fates in two different cuts of the film. One has him killed and eaten and that’s all we see of him. While the other one has him survive the shark attack, bloody and junk. Some of the TV versions have Peebles dying. The DVD has him living. Read here for more http://imdb.com/title/tt0093300/board/nest/17316986

~The way the shark is killed is different as well, depending on which version you watch. Here is the version where the shark is simply stabbed and dies. http://media.putfile.com/Jaws-Revenge

The DVD has the shark get stabbed and explode! How did the shark explode?

Here’s some more info http://imdb.com/title/tt0093300/board/nest/33049194

~Somehow, Caine can swim faster than a shark, or has writers on his side. We clearly see the shark eat his plane, and yet he magically jumps out of the water onto the boat with his shirt dry in seconds.

~One more note: IMDB has movie quotes from characters from the film, someone put this one on the page: Shark: RRRAAARRRRRRR!

Funny!

Someone is having a bad day today...

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