July 3, 2019

So here’s a not-that-interesting story that has nothing at all to do with Jaws: The Revenge. When I was about 8 years-old I was sitting on the floor at my grandparent’s house flipping through the channels. I came upon a movie that featured a shark in the water chowing down on mad people. I asked my grandfather what movie I was watching. He took

a look at what was on the TV and said “Jaws” before getting up and leaving the room. I popped a blank tape into the VCR and recorded about 2/3rd’s of the movie (this was a big thing in the 80’s...surviving comfortably on half-recorded movies or half-recorded

songs captured from staticy radio stations). I watched it a fair amount back in the day and I went to see Jaws: The Revenge when it opened in theaters in 1987. I thought it was pretty good but I was also 8 years-old and thought that literally every movie I saw pretty

good. To this day I have yet to see Jaws 3-D...although I read an interview with Dennis Quaid once where he said he doesn’t like to think about acting in that film because it reminds him of cocaine. Specifically all of the cocaine he wasted by forgetting to take it out

of his pocket before filming the underwater sequences. Sucks bro. Anyway...flash forward to 1996: I’m watching Barbara Walters interview Richard Dreyfuss..who was up for the best actor Oscar for Mr. Holland’s Opus that year. They start talking about about Jaws and I’m confused at shit. “What are they talking about? Richard Dreyfuss isn’t in Jaws,” I say to my buddy Brett. He looked at me like I was the craziest motherfucker alive. “Teebs...whaddya hit your head?? He’s practically the star of the movie!” Then we start going through it point by point--Brett: “Dude...come on...”we’re gonna need a bigger boat...swimming with bowlegged women!” Me: “No...the shark eats a helicopter...and Brody fries him with a power line!” So then...a

horrible realization: Until the age of 17 I mistakenly thought that Jaws PART TWO was the original Jaws! But hey...imagine my delight when I finally DID watch the real Jaws! Steven Speilberg’s Jaws! Not like goin’ down to the pond chasing bluegills or tommycats” Jaws! You can quote me here: Jaws is a near-flawless movie and one of my all time

favorites. I watch it once a year...usually around the 4th of July...sometimes in a proper movie theater if there’s a revival somewhere...and I never get sick of it. It hits the mark every single time. I went back and watched Jaws 2 recently. It’s a pale imitation but totally passable. Someday I’ll have to put on the 3D goggles and check out Dennis Quaid’s sad pocket full of waterlogged booger sugar. But what, then, to make of the fourth and final film in the Jaws series? This one often finds itself on lists of the worst films EVER MADE. Since it’s only 87 minutes long I figured I’d take a trip down memory lane and see what sitting through a movie with a 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes feels like. What happens is this: you know how most

folks are in agreement that the fact that you don’t actually see the shark until about halfway through Jaws is a big reason why that film is so effective? Well no one told the dude who directed Jaws: The Revenge ‘cuz you see that big bad motherscratcher like 10 seconds into this flick. You know the drill; underwater shot....dun nuh...dun nuh...title card...shark...rinse and repeat. Mr Sharky Pants pokes his head out of the water and sees that he’s back in Amity...the town where many a shark before him chowed on many a human person. Actually...I guess it could be a lady shark...but I’m way too lazy to type “they”. Sorry folks. This time it’s the middle of winter so that means way less people to nosh on. Dude is hangry. Meanwhile across town the Brody family is about to sit down to dinner. You might remember them from such films as Jaws 1 & 2. We see matriarch Ellen Brody and her youngest son Sean...but what happened to Chief Brody and big brother Mike? The first thing they teach you in screenwriting class is “show don’t tell” but here Sean comes in and just starts shouting plot points at the audience. Sample dialogue: “Gee mom...I’m sure sad Dad passed away and isn’t here to celebrate Xmas with us. Hey who is that on the phone? Is that my older brother Mike who is now a successful marine biologist living in the Bahamas!?” Seriously, it’s that bad...but I guess that info is all out on the table now. Chief Brody is dead...but a photo of the actor who portrayed him...the then-still-alive Roy Scheider...hangs over the dining room table...where he can glare down disapprovingly at the rest of the cast for dragging his likeness into this shit pit of a movie. Here I should mention that Sean was maybe 3 years old in the original Jaws...which came out in 1975...but is now a full fledged police deputy just 12 years later. I mean...maybe he’s only 15....but I kinda doubt it. Before Sean can sit down to dinner he gets a call that there’s a log stuck in a buoy and he’s gotta get in a boat and go drag it out. So he goes to Amity Harbor...which is totally the Edgartown dock where I got wasted at a drunken barn dance a few years ago...and hops in his boat. As he’s trying to free the log from the

buoy a shark emerges from the water and bites his arm off. At least...I THINK that’s what happens! It is edited so shittily that it’s impossible to tell what is really going on. It’s as if they took the film...sliced it into pieces...thew the pieces into the air...and spliced them together where they landed. So the kid is down an arm...and that sucks...not gonna lie. But he should be an old hat at this sort of thing having survived a grillion shark attacks in the other two Jawses....right? Wrong! Instead of radioing for help and crawling further into the boat, he decides to lie over the edge of the friggin’ thing where he can bleed into the water. The shark eats him. 86 Sean Brody. Michael and his wife who is totally the FBI agent from The Sopranos come to Amity with their annoying as shit little daughter and find Ellen in manic grief panic. She’s running around the kitchen mumbling about how she needs to make fettuccini. She tells Michael that the shark who killed Sean is the same shark who killed their old man. Michael is all “hey kookaburra--I know you’re bereaved but dad died of a heart attack. Also that shark that dad killed is still dead last I checked.” Michael seems to be holding it together alright. He

goes for a walk on the beach with his wife and they talk about how he grew up ther...OH SHIT!...he just takes off running and screaming mid sentence! I guess he’s not OK then? Top shelf acting right there. Michael tells his mom to move down to the Bahamas...where he assures her there are no sharks. She agrees to go...causing Michael’s wife to

try to mean mug him to death. The whole family fly to the Bahamas on private plane. I immediately notice that the pilot of said plane seems to be acting circles around everyone else in the movie...and that is because he is SIR MICHAEL CAINE!!! Like what in the mother fuck is HE doing in Jaws: The Revenge?? Paying the bills is what, y’all. If anyone remembers anything about this movie it’s usually this: Michael Caine won an Oscar for Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters and couldn’t attend the ceremony because he was filming

Jaws: The Revenge (don’t worry...he won again for Cider House Rules and totally got to go...so it’s all good). So there’s that. The family settles into the island and Michael goes to work on his yellow underwater scuba mobile with his best bud and comic relief character

who is not funny Jake (Mario Van Peebles). Ellen is still a friggin’ basket case though. She keeps telling everyone that the shark is coming. From Massachusetts. The same one. She can FEEL it! I don’t know anything about sharks but I’m pretty sure sharks do not work that way. But sure enough...Michael is out on his boat and he and Jake see the same shark who ate his brother...because of course they do. Jake wants to study the shark and begs Michael not to tell his mom ‘cuz she’ll make him quit his job...even though he’s a grown ass man.

There’s a bit where Michael Caine tries to court Ellen...probably because they had Michael Caine in the movie and they needed to give him SOMETHING to do. It’s all boring as balls. That magic juju that made the original so suspenseful and entertaining is missing entirely.

There’s no one and nothing to give a shit about...at all! The Z-list filmmakers don’t seem to give a shit either. Why else would you let one of the characters in your movie hum the theme to that very movie!? You see the shark a butt ton and it looks fake as fuck. So what else? Michael’s daughter goes on a banana boat ride with her fellow kiddie friends and Ellen gets the heebie jeebies and, sure enough, the shark pops up and swallows one of the banana boat occupants in full view of everyone on the beach. Ellen’s reaction is to steal a random boat and sail out into the open sea so she can have a final showdown with the shark who (couldn’t have possibly) killed her husband and son. How she plans to do this without weapons of any kind...we do not know. Michael hears what his crazy ass mother did and decides to fess up

about how he’s been messin’ around with sharks. Michael Caine takes Jake and Michael up in his JFK Jr. killer to look for Ellen. When they spot her Caine decides to crash his perfectly good plane into the ocean where it is promptly eaten by the shark. They all swim safely to Ellen’s boat...where they somehow MacGuyver together an electrical explosive device in like 2 minutes. Jake tries to ram the explosive into the shark’s mouth but he gets chomped on and dragged under a la Quint. They start to shock the shark with a remote control and Ellen flashes back to the scene in the original film where Chief Brody kills the shark...which is pretty impressive considering she was NOT PRESENT when that event took place. And then...and then...I don’t even know what to tell you because it is not clear AT ALL what happens!!! I guess the shark blows up...but we don’t actually see it! We DO see a shot of the shark’s exploded body sinking to the bottom of the ocean and I will BET YOU MONEY this footage was recycled from the original film. Also--everyone is now in the water because their boat has been destroyed. What the fuck happened to the boat, guys??? They don’t show

us ANY of this? Did the friggin’ shark eat the footage or something? For christ’s sake! You’re thinking...at least the movie is probably over now, right? Wrong! First they have to rescue Jake...who is somehow still alive even though he was CLEARLY eaten by the shark...which is about the only thing that is clear about the last 10 minutes of this movie. So yeah...he’s alive...and they all swim back to shore a laughin’ and a jokin’. At long last...the movie ends. Happy 4th, y’all.