{"id":6751,"date":"2024-10-25T10:41:35","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T14:41:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6751"},"modified":"2024-10-25T10:41:35","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T14:41:35","slug":"jaws-the-revenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/25\/jaws-the-revenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Jaws: The Revenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Jaws: The Revenge <\/strong>(1987)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 91 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (language, violence, gore)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Joseph Sargent\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Michael De Guzman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Michael Small\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: John McPherson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: July 17, 1987 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Lorraine Gary, Lance Guest, Karen Young, Mario Van Peebles, Michael Caine, Judith Barsi, Lynn Whitfield, Mitchell Anderson, Melvin Van Peebles.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $20.7M (US)\/$51.9M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating:<\/strong>\u00a0*<\/p>\n

Saying that Jaws: The Revenge<\/strong> 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<\/strong>, 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Joseph Sargent (The Taking of Pelham One Two Three), Jaws: The Revenge <\/strong>opens on Amity Island with widowed Ellen Brody (Gary) adjusting to life without her husband. She\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Ellen 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It’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!<\/p>\n

\u00a0At this point, I’d like to remind you that acclaimed actor Michael Caine (Get Carter) is in Jaws: The Revenge. <\/strong>He plays a character named Hoagie. He\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Nothing 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I’ve given you the basic synopsis of Jaws: The Revenge<\/strong>, 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 \u201887, I\u2019m 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\u2019 personal vendetta against her family. Do sharks even have the capacity for this sort of thing? I think not.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Believe 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\u2019t 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<\/strong>, I\u2019d 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\u2019s 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\u2019re on the subject, since when do sharks roar? They do according to Michael De Guzman\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0So what makes Jaws: The Revenge <\/strong>superior [insert big belly laugh] to the previous installment? For one thing, the location shooting in The Bahamas is gorgeous. The problem is they\u2019re not making a travel film here; it’s supposed to be an action-packed, suspense-filled thriller. It\u2019s NONE of those. What made the first movie so effective is that we didn\u2019t 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\u2019t see. On the upside, the special effects are definitely an improvement over Jaws 3.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The performances in Jaws: The Revenge<\/strong>; 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\u2019s 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\u2019s Oscars. He was busy making this dreck. Nobody ever said he\u2019s not dedicated to his craft.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Sadly, there’s an element of tragedy associated with Jaws: The Revenge<\/strong>. 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<\/strong> is heartbreaking.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Aside from that tragic note, Jaws: The Revenge<\/strong> is a truly terrible movie that generates a great deal of laughter with its abundance of unintentional humor. The tagline \u201cThis time, it\u2019s personal\u201d is a real scream. It also should be a tip-off to the potential viewer about what they\u2019re 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\u2019t knock it. It worked, didn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

Mercifully, Jaws: The Revenge<\/strong> 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\u2019t you done enough damage already?\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jaws: The Revenge (1987)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 91 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (language, violence, gore)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Joseph Sargent\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Michael De Guzman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Michael Small\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: John McPherson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: July 17, 1987 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Lorraine Gary, Lance Guest, Karen Young, Mario Van Peebles, Michael Caine, Judith Barsi, Lynn Whitfield, Mitchell Anderson, Melvin Van Peebles.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7118,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,15,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror","category-sequels-remakes","category-this-sucks-so-bad"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Jaws-The-Revenge-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6751"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7120,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6751\/revisions\/7120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}