Jaws: The Revenge (1987) Universal/Thriller RT: 91 minutes Rated PG-13 (language, violence, gore) Director: Joseph Sargent Screenplay: Michael De Guzman Music: Michael Small Cinematography: John McPherson Release date: July 17, 1987 (US) Cast: Lorraine Gary, Lance Guest, Karen Young, Mario Van Peebles, Michael Caine, Judith Barsi, Lynn Whitfield, Mitchell Anderson, Melvin Van Peebles. Box Office: $20.7M (US)/$51.9M (World)
Rating: *
Saying that Jaws: The Revenge is a slight improvement over the previous installment is tantamount to saying that a common cold is better than the flu. At least, you can laugh at Jaws: The Revenge, although I’m pretty sure it wasn’t intended as a comedy. The actors appear to be taking it quite seriously even though it borders on parody. I kept waiting for Leslie Nielsen to show up and aid in the hunt in his inimitable style.
Directed by Joseph Sargent (The Taking of Pelham One Two Three), Jaws: The Revenge opens on Amity Island with widowed Ellen Brody (Gary) adjusting to life without her husband. She’s close to youngest son Sean (Anderson, SpaceCamp), now a police deputy on the island. One night, he takes a boat out into the harbor to clear a log away from a buoy. When he reaches into the water, a great white shark jumps up and bites his arm off. After a minute or so of terrible acting on his part, the shark finishes him off.
Ellen is now convinced that great white sharks have targeted her family and it’s been that way all along. Oldest son Mike (Guest, The Last Starfighter) and his family come to Amity for the funeral. Mike, a marine biologist, now lives in the Bahamas with his wife Carla (Young, Daylight) and 5YO daughter Thea (Barsi, Eye of the Tiger). He comes up with the brilliant idea of bringing his mother to his home to help her get over her sudden loss. Okay, The Bahamas is completely surrounded by water and Mike is a marine biologist. How exactly would this help her cope with everything that’s happened? She tries to convince Mike to quit his job, to get out of the water. She doesn’t want to lose her last surviving family member to a shark.
It’s a fact that sharks don’t swim in warm water, but the same shark that killed Sean has followed them to the Bahamas. Mike’s assistant Jake (Mario Van Peebles, New Jack City) is the first one to spot the shark. It’s such an unusual find, he and Mike decide to study it rather than destroy it. Of course, that makes perfect sense. Mike makes the entire crew swear not to tell his mother because it would just upset her. Oh, grow up, Mike!
At this point, I’d like to remind you that acclaimed actor Michael Caine (Get Carter) is in Jaws: The Revenge. He plays a character named Hoagie. He’s a charter pilot and compulsive gambler who takes a liking to Ellen. I can only imagine him hearing the pitch for this movie and reading the script. His reaction to playing a character named Hoagie must have been priceless.
Nothing in the world could have prepared Ellen for the events to come. During a ceremony where one of Carla’s sculptures is on display, Thea is attacked by the shark while riding a banana boat (some kiddie ride). Ellen can’t take it anymore; enough is enough with these [insert Samuel L. Jackson expletive] sharks. She appropriates her son’s boat and heads out to sea to destroy the shark.
I’ve given you the basic synopsis of Jaws: The Revenge, but there’s so much wrong with this movie that you can’t help but sit there and laugh at it. The very idea of a near-elderly woman springing onto action against a force of nature that she clearly misunderstands is incredible enough, but the fact that nobody suggests that she enter therapy to deal with her grief is astonishing. Even in ‘87, I’m sure there were qualified psychologists that could help her. People grieve in many different ways, but Ellen is obsessive about the idea of the sharks’ personal vendetta against her family. Do sharks even have the capacity for this sort of thing? I think not.
Believe it or not, it gets dumber. In the middle of the final battle, Ellen has an impossible flashback to the first movie. Why impossible? She wasn’t FREAKING on the Orca with her husband! How would she know how things went down? While we’re talking about this sequence of Jaws: The Revenge, I’d really like to know how Hoagie could emerge from the water with his hair dripping wet and his clothing bone dry after the shark attacks his plane. There’s no logical answer I can think of. Same goes for a major character miraculously surviving a shark attack despite the copious amount to blood in the water. While we’re on the subject, since when do sharks roar? They do according to Michael De Guzman’s screenplay. Did ANYBODY on this picture do ANY research or did they make it up as they went along? It absolutely boggles the mind how much stupidity is at work here.
So what makes Jaws: The Revenge superior [insert big belly laugh] to the previous installment? For one thing, the location shooting in The Bahamas is gorgeous. The problem is they’re not making a travel film here; it’s supposed to be an action-packed, suspense-filled thriller. It’s NONE of those. What made the first movie so effective is that we didn’t get a good look at the shark until late in the movie. We saw an eye, teeth and, of course, its dorsal fin. That was enough to get hearts pounding. Sometimes the scariest things in movies are the things we don’t see. On the upside, the special effects are definitely an improvement over Jaws 3.
The performances in Jaws: The Revenge; what can I say about them? They must be good because nobody burst out laughing at the ridiculous script. Their ability to keep straight faces throughout is an acting achievement in and of itself. It must be a real slap in Caine’s face when he remembers that he had to miss out on personally receiving his Best Supporting Actor award for Hannah and Her Sisters at that year’s Oscars. He was busy making this dreck. Nobody ever said he’s not dedicated to his craft.
Sadly, there’s an element of tragedy associated with Jaws: The Revenge. 10YO Barsi and her mother were victims of domestic abuse. On July 25, 1988, her scumbag father murdered his family with a shotgun before taking his own life three days later. Barsi was an engaging young actress; it would have been interesting to see her career develop. Seeing her in Jaws: The Revenge is heartbreaking.
Aside from that tragic note, Jaws: The Revenge is a truly terrible movie that generates a great deal of laughter with its abundance of unintentional humor. The tagline “This time, it’s personal” is a real scream. It also should be a tip-off to the potential viewer about what they’re getting themselves into with this movie. It’s a far, FAR cry from the clever Jaws 2 tagline, “Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water”. Hey, don’t knock it. It worked, didn’t it?
Mercifully, Jaws: The Revenge is the last of the Jaws movies. Do us all a favor, Hollywood? Please, for the love of cinema, LEAVE IT ALONE! No remakes, reboots, reimaginings, etc. Haven’t you done enough damage already?
