Steven Spielberg’s classic film Jaws turns 40 today, you guys! To commemorate the event, we decided to take this last day of “Jaws Week” celebrate this tremendous feat for aquatic horror films (a sub-sub-genre I am a huge fan of). You read Chris Coffell’s thoughts on each film in the franchise yesterday, but I thought I would give the much-maligned Jaws: The Revenge another shot to see if it deserves all of its criticism. News flash: it does.
I don’t really know what I was expecting when I paid $3.99(!) on the PlayStation Store to rent this movie. It had been years since I’d seen it and I don’t remember it being as terrible as all the negative reviews and Razzie nominations (with only one win) suggested. Boy was I wrong. Jaws: The Revenge is a lazy, dumb and (most unforgivably) boring film that does not need to exist at all.
It’s difficult to discuss anything about Jaws: The Revenge that hasn’t already Rather than go over the issues of the film that are discussed ad nauseum (the roar of the shark, the fact that the shark has a vendetta and follows Ellen Brody to the Bahamas, etc.) and go into some of the other things that make the film so atrocious.
First of all, I would like to point out that Ellen Brody is an unstable woman, and needs to go to therapy. She is irrational and her decisions make no sense throughout the entirety of the film. There is no consistency to her character whatsoever. Also, the way she is written is kind of sexist (she only gets over her fear of the shark halfway through the movie after going on a date with Michael Caine’s Hoagie). She is given a sort of “shark sense” as well, which makes no sense. Basically, she can do exactly what Jake’s (Mario Van Peebles) tracking device can do and detect whenever the shark is attacking someone.
What is confounding about Jaws: The Revenge is that while the shark gets a lot of screen time, it doesn’t really do anything (and most of its screen time is in unnecessary dream sequences). The film can easily be divided into three parts: The first part is a drama following one woman’s grief over the loss of her son, the second part is a romantic comedy featuring Ellen and Hoagie (who spends most of the film sitting in his dinghy) and the third part is the actual “revenge” that the title refers to.
Director Joseph Sargent has stated that he wanted to make a quality film about human beings, which explains the lack of shark action and the emphasis on the romantic exploits of Ellen and Hoagie in the film. Much of Jaws: The Revenge doesn’t feel like an actual Jaws film, which is disappointing. Michael’s wife is also one of the strangest characters the series has ever seen, constantly having sex with Michael (seriously, that’s what she does during most of her screen time) and discussing it with Ellen.
Oh God, the dialogue. It’s the textbook definition of cringeworthy. There’s a moment where Michael and his wife are having a fight while she holds a blowtorch and he actually says (I swear I’m not making this up): “I’ve always wanted to make love to an angry welder. I’ve dreamed of nothing else since I was a small boy.” What. The. Fuck. Also, in the climax of the film, Michael asks his mother why she went after the shark. Her response? “I had to do it! There was nothing else to do!” Um, how about you just don’t go in the water? Which is what you have been telling everyone to do for the whole film. On his dancing date with Ellen, Hoagie states that he has two right feet. Ellen’s response? That it’s alright, because she has two left ones. Ugh.
The body count in the film is surprisingly low. Only two people get killed by the shark (three, if you count Jake’s death in the theatrical version of the film, which I don’t). The character motivations also don’t make much sense. The film seems to completely ignore Jaws 2 and 3, since Michael is still totally cool with going in the water, despite facing a great white shark 3 times before (there needs to be a happy medium between Michael’s and Ellen’s reactions to their pasts).
There are several instances where people know the shark is in the water, yet they insist on practically hanging over the edge of the boat (looking at you Sean). There’s a moment towards the end of the film where Hoagie lands his plane in the water so he, Michael and Jake can swim to the boat. Ellen goesThe list goes on and none of it makes any sense.
Anyway, this is my long harangue on Jaws: The Revenge. As many of you know, I can sometimes be too kind to bad movies, but there’s really no defending this one. It’s not even entertaining to watch. Being boring is the film’s biggest crime (and it commits many). What do you think of the film? Do you actually enjoy it? I confess, out of all the sequels, I have an unabashed love for Jaws 2, and I legitimately think it’s a good film. To celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Jaws, let’s discuss the franchise’s up(s) and downs in the comments below!
