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Synopsis: As Christmas approaches
in Amity, Deputy Sean Brody (Mitchell Anderson) is kept from his family
celebration by a report of a dock piling that has become snagged on a
channel marker, posing a threat to the returning fishing vessels. Sean
pilots a boat out to the marker. As he leans over the side to struggle
with the tangled wood, an enormous shark lunges at him from the water
and tears off his arm. Sean falls back into the boat, shrieking for
help, but cannot be heard over the Christmas preparations in town. The
shark attacks again. Sean is pulled into the water, then under it….
Michael Brody (Lance Guest), Sean’s marine biologist brother, flies in
from the Bahamas with his wife, Carla (Karen Young), and young daughter,
Thea (Judith Barsi). He finds his mother, Ellen (Lorraine Gary), in a
state of near total collapse, and begins to fear for her mental
condition when she claims that the shark deliberately sought out Sean
because he was a Brody. Later, she demands that Michael give up his job,
insisting that otherwise he will die like his father and brother. When
Michael points out that his father died of a heart attack, Ellen claims
it was brought on by fear. Unable to combat his mother’s obsession,
Michael tries to convince her that no great white shark has ever been
seen in the area where he works, that the water is too warm, but she
will not listen. After Sean’s funeral, Michael manages to talk Ellen
into accompanying himself and his family to the Bahamas. On the last leg
of their journey they are flown in by a local character known as Hoagie
(Michael Caine), who takes an immediate liking to Ellen. The holiday
does not begin well, however, when first Ellen overreacts to Thea being
near the water, then begins to suffer nightmares of her own death by
shark attack. Meanwhile, Michael and his partner, Jake (Mario Van
Peebles), get back to work on their research into conchs. Christmas
arrives, but Ellen cannot shake her depression. She tries again to talk
Michael into changing his line of work, but he continues to insist that
it is perfectly safe. Even as he speaks, however, an ominous shape is
gliding through the water towards the Bahamas…. As Ellen builds
sandcastles on the beach with Thea, she is suddenly gripped by a
terrible certainty. She stands staring out at the water, as if waiting
for something…. With an effort, Ellen pulls herself together. She and
Thea are then joined by Hoagie, to whom Ellen finds herself confiding
her conviction that the shark that killed Sean is coming for the rest of
the Brodys. Watching from his boat, Michael is disturbed by the sight of
his mother in such close companionship with a comparative stranger.
Michael and Jake get back to work, this time with Jake using their
one-man submersible to hunt for conchs. Without warning, an enormous
shark looms up near the submersible. Stunned, Jake can only speak numbly
of “a big fish”. Over the radio, Michael laughingly inquires how big?
His question is answered when the shark breaks the surface of the water
in front of him, attacking the boat just where he stands….
Comments: It is a documented fact
that the original concept for the third Jaws film was a spoof of
the preceding two entitled Jaws 3, People 0. That’s right, my
children: there was a time when a film series was presumed to have worn
out its welcome after only two entries. However, the early
eighties was not only the time when the concept of the “automatic
sequel” first began to raise its ugly head: it was also the era of a
brief revival in the 3D format; and instead of the intentional comedy
originally planned, Universal Studios produced a wholly unintentional
one in the shape of Jaws 3-D. For the most part simply a mediocre
action movie, Jaws 3-D moves into the more rarefied realm of the
Truly Bad Film by serving up some of the most atrocious special effects
ever to grace [sic.] a major studio production. The thought of
what they must have looked like on the big screen, and in 3D, is
absolutely mind-boggling. Confronted by the sight of a appallingly
superimposed model shark shattering to pieces with its snout a slab of
animated glass or, better yet, by that of poor Bess Armstrong having to
hold her fibreglass co-star upside-down in the water to indicate
its death, the viewer can only wonder if there was any way that the
comedy that the studio originally planned could possibly have been any
funnier than what, in all seriousness, it finally saw fit to release.
When it comes to Jaws: The Revenge,
you get the feeling that someone at Universal was still clinging
stubbornly to the notion of a spoof sequel. Certainly the trailer
indicates so: the ominous music, the underwater POV shots, and then –
that tagline:
This time, it’s personal.
A joke, right? Had to be. But then
Jaws: The Revenge was released, and stunned movie-goers found
themselves confronted not just by a film with a plot predicated upon one
of the most ludicrous concepts in the history of motion pictures –
namely, a great white shark with the honour code of a Mafia don, a V8
engine under the hood, and psychic abilities to boot – but by the
realisation that they were being asked to take it seriously.
Seriously.
And in one sense, it’s just as well,
because when you get right down to it, Jaws: The Revenge is a
mighty hard slog. Its only virtue is the sheer idiocy of its
premise. The film is as short on action as it is excruciatingly long on
boring character scenes, and it boasts a body count to rival that of
your average romantic comedy. But for all that, and however tempted you
might be, when Lorraine Gary launches into her seventy-second straight
Oscar-Clip grief scene, to start reaching for the remote, in the end I
think you’ll settle back in your chair and keep right on going; because
let’s face it, how often do you get a watch a film about a psychic shark
on a mission of revenge?
Also, the shark roars.
Seriously.
After our Spring Break in Florida with
J3D, J:TR sees us back in Amity. The credits sequence is an
underwater POV shot that occasionally breaks the surface to scan the
town; we haven’t much doubt about whose POV it is. (There’s a thought:
all those critics who wag their fingers about POV shots that supposedly
make the viewer identify with psycho-killers--- Anyone ever complained
about this kind of POV? Because, frankly, this is an
identify-with-the-killer set-up I can really get into.) John Williams’
immortal theme music accompanies this sequence which, tragically, will
prove to be the high point – that is, the artistic high point –
of the whole film. There is, of course, no dialogue in this section of
J:TR, which as we will soon discover is another reason to enjoy
it. The story proper opens in the Brody household, and we are, uh,
“treated” to the first of the film’s thuddingly ham-fisted conversation
scenes, this one intended to casually clue us in on the events that have
been going on between our last outing with the Brodys and this one.
Thus, Ellen Brody makes a past-tense reference to her husband, letting
us know that Roy Scheider had the exceeding good sense not to touch this
bucket of rancid chum with a ten-foot pole. Good for him, pity for the
rest of us. We are then introduced to the current incarnation of Sean
Brody – Deputy Brody, that is. Last we saw of Sean, he had
briefly forsaken his landlocked Colorado refuge to pay a visit to Sea
World, and was promptly punished for it. If Sean had problems, as we
were assured he did, and understandably, before he got to Florida, we
can easily imagine his state of mind following his third
encounter with a massive great white shark; yet J:TR asks us not
just to accept that after those events, he chose to return to Amity, but
that he chose also to follow in his father’s footsteps, a profession
that requires a lot of messing about in boats.
You may insert your own
swampland-in-Arizona joke here.
(The obvious interpretation of all this is
that J:TR is pulling the standard sequel trick of simply
pretending that its predecessor never happened. However, I have a few
thoughts of my own on that subject, which I will share with you anon.)
Ellen and Sean then have one of those
families-who-love conversations that rarely exist anywhere but the
Hallmark Channel. Er, and in crappy studio productions about killer
sharks. I’m sure all this is intended to make us feel all warm and fuzzy
towards the surviving Brodys, but frankly it just made me identify with
the shark even more. Then, believe it or not, things get worse, as we
are introduced to the current incarnation of Michael Brody, plus
family. Ellen has a telephone conversation with her granddaughter, Thea,
who is five years old and the only grandchild that Ellen has. We know
this, because these facts are mentioned in a way that doesn’t feel one
bit dragged into the conversation, nossirree. It gets worse. When
Michael gets on the line, Sean fills us in on him with this artlessly
constructed greeting:
“Ask the big doctor about his job! Tough
life, you Bahamian beach bum, playing in the water all day!”
And it gets worse again. We further
learn that it’s Christmastime, and that Sean is engaged to be married.
In short, the whole thing is so happy-happy-joy-joy, that you just know
something appalling is about to happen – even if you weren’t
watching a killer shark film. (Hollywood always seems to think that
showing how blissfully happy people are just before something terrible
happens – see Godsend for a particularly heavy-handed recent
example – heightens the ensuing tragedy. Personally I’ve always found
the thought of losing someone just after you’ve had a blazing row with
them and told them how much you don’t love them far more
poignant.) Sean checks in at the police station and is sent to remove a
snagged dock piling from the channel, to clear the way for the returning
fishing boats. It has to be him who goes, because the other deputy (or
the sheriff, they aren’t clear) is off checking on an outbreak of
“cow-tipping”. (They have cows in Amity?) And the Coast Guard? Oh –
they’re “busy”.
So, as Amity rehearses its upcoming
Christmas pageant in the background, Sean sets out to take care of
business. He stops his boat near the channel marker and starts leaning
over the side to pull clear the troublesome piling, at which point we
get….a POV shot.
Uh-oh.
The shark launches from the water, which
oddly is already churning with blood, and in a flurry of confusing
editing, takes off Sean’s arm. His wound, presumably to compensate for
the mess in water, noticeably fails to bleed. Sean shrieks for help, but
cannot be heard over the incessant carolling from the town. The shark
then attacks again, chomping a piece out of the boat and tipping Sean
into the water. He is soon dragged under, and the boat goes down in
sympathy. We are then given a close-up of the piling that caused all the
trouble, and….
….but more on that later.
After a brief (and, I would have thought,
procedurally unnecessary) identify-the-body scene, it’s time for some
real pain and suffering (no offence, Sean), as the rest of the Brody
clan flies in from the Bahamas.
Some people – myself and
others – happen to feel
that the depiction of the four central characters in Jaws 3-D was
the one really successful aspect of that sorry enterprise. Jaws: The
Revenge, conversely, seems determined to put as much distance
between itself and its predecessor as it can by giving us central
characters who are unlikeable, annoying and dull. Which brings us to
this film’s version of Michael Brody. As I’ve intimated already, it’s
often claimed that J:TR ignores the existence of J3D, one
of the main arguments being the lack of continuity between the two
Michaels. Personally, I disagree. I think this Michael Brody is in fact
that Michael Brody, but that this Mrs Brody isn’t that Mrs Brody
(using the title in potentiality). My theory is, that Michael has
suffered a romantic dislocation between films; that after several months
of twiddling her thumbs in the wilds of Venezuela, the first Mrs
Brody finally threw up her hands, announced, “Screw this for a
joke!”, and took that dream job at the Scripps Institute after all. Upon
which, on the rebound, Michael took up with the first bimbo who wandered
along – never mind how irritating she might be – and, in tribute
to the departed – and probably in recognition of what an extremely poor
bargain he’d made, exchanging Bess Armstrong for Karen Young – underwent
a mid-stream career change, and became a marine biologist himself.
Oh, okay, okay. But don’t try telling me
that this is any dumber than anything else this film asks us to accept!
Hmm…. A lengthy and pointless diversion. I
wouldn’t be avoiding something, would I? Well, yes; and that
something would be Thea Brody, a prime example of that mysterious
Hollywood breed of child characters, who obviously the audience is
supposed to find irresistibly adorable (as do all the adults in
the film, who laugh uncontrollably at her every cutesy-wootsie
utterance), but who is in actuality utterly, utterly noxious. In
fact, Miss Thea Brody (aged five) manages the not inconsiderable task of
wresting away from Mario Van Peebles’ Jake the title of Character We
Would Most Like To See Get Cacked By A Great White; our sentiments being
exacerbated, of course, by the knowledge that, this being the kind of
film it is, we haven’t the slightest hope of our dreams coming true.
Anyway…. Michael, the second missus
(Carla, if you care) and Thea arrive in Amity, and we notice that Thea
seems rather bright and bubbly for someone whose near relative just
fulfilled his manifest destiny. Michael goes through the house to where
his mother stands by the water (!?) and tries to comfort her. And, lo –
it begins:
“It came for him. It waited all this time,
and it came for him.”
At the time Michael just lets this remark
go, but later Ellen is more explicit: “I want you to get out of the
water. I want you to give up that terrible job! I don’t want anyone in
my family near the water ever again, never!”
Michael tries to convince Ellen that her
belief that the shark specifically picked out Sean as a victim is – how
shall I put this? – somewhat improbable, but Ellen won’t listen. Perhaps
he should have framed his argument in words other than, “Sharks don’t
commit murder.” (In fact, Michael also uses the word voodoo. An
odd choice, you might think, except that as Ken Begg revealed
in his review of J:TR,
one of the, uh, “explanations” for the shark’s behaviour offered in the
alternative drafts of the screenplay was nothing less than a voodoo
curse! Still – whether that version of the story could possibly have
turned out any stupider than what they went with is moot.) Ellen stands
firm: “It picked out Sean! It killed your father!” Michael is forced to
point out that his father died of a heart attack (RIP, Martin), but even
that carries no weight with Ellen: “He died from fear! The fear
of it killed him!”
Uh-huh. Let’s try this pop quiz, shall we?
Your two encounters with great white sharks (from both of which you
emerged triumphant, let us not forget) have induced in you a state of
pathological fear so great, it could – and ultimately does –
induce a fatal heart attack. Do you: (a) move away from the water; or
(b) continue living on a fricking ISLAND!!??
Of course, those of us who have stuck with
the Jaws films, and suffered through their instalment by
instalment deterioration, know perfectly well where the idiotic notion
on which J:TR turns came from: Jaws 2,
in which, yes, Martin Brody, confronted by the knowledge that a second
great white shark had wandered into his jurisdiction, did indeed begin
to wonder whether sharks go gunning for particular human beings – only
to have that film’s marine biologist, Dr Elkins, put him in his
place in a typical smug and snotty movie scientist way: “Sharks don’t
take things personally, Sheriff!” And Martin, if not quite convinced,
nevertheless conquered his fear and did his job, because that’s the kind
of guy he is. Was. Which the screenwriter of this epic seems rather to
have overlooked.
And yet, you know, it isn’t the image, as
ludicrous as it is insulting, of Martin Brody cowering beneath his
covers as a vengeful shark plotted its revenge out in the ocean that
most annoys me about all this. What I want to know is – who the
heck is “it”??
I mean, this isn’t some superhero vs
supervillain story, with the bad guy temporarily thwarted and vowing
revenge at the end of each episode. In each previous film, the shark
died!! So this isn’t the mate of the shark in Jaws, because
she (or he) died in Jaws 2. And it isn’t the child, or even
grandchild, of those sharks, because both of them died in
Jaws 3-D, one from a grenade, the other
from an even deadlier dose of human stupidity. So what we have here is
some distant relative, some third cousin twice removed, who nevertheless
feels compelled to give up his peaceful existence and carry out a bloody
(and inevitably fatal) campaign against a bunch of people he’s never
heard of, in order to revenge relatives he barely knows.
Crimeny. It is the Mafia. Or
possibly an Anthony Mann western.
We make it through Sean’s funeral, and
then Michael & Co. manage to convince Ellen to come back to the Bahamas
with them. Because, of course, there’s nothing like a beach holiday to
help someone get over a shark attack.
As the Brodys leave Amity, we are given an
ominous close-up of a floating piece of wood, no less than the very
piling that led to Sean Brody’s death; and here we are forced to accept
something that, previously, our brains have been desperately trying to
deny. You see, there are marks all over the piling; long, slash-like
marks; the kind of marks that might be caused by….the jaws of a shark.
Yes. Yes, it’s true. There’s no point in
denying it. Jaws: The Revenge does in truth ask us to accept that
Sean Brody’s death was the result of a deliberate ambush laid by a
shark.
And when you think about it, the ambush
itself is almost easy to believe, considering what must have come
before: that the shark knew who Sean was, and that he had returned to
Amity and become a cop; that his job would compel him out onto the
water; and that, assuming both his co-deputy and the Coast Guard were
“busy”, he would be the one sent to, oh, I don’t know….try to free a
piling that had somehow become caught on a channel marker, perhaps….
In other words – Jaws: The Revenge
boasts the second stupidest back-story in the history of motion
pictures, right after I Still Know What You
Did Last Summer.
But, hey! – you know what? I can accept
all of this. I can. The specialised knowledge. The diversionary tactic
that kept the Coast Guard busy. The snagging of the piling on the
marker. All of it. In fact, the only thing I’m having a problem
with….
….is figuring out how the shark organised
the cow-tipping….
Anyway, back to the Brodys. The final leg
of their trip is on a light plane piloted by J:TR’s name
guest star, Michael Caine….whose character bears the unfortunate
sobriquet Hoagie.
Let’s stop for a minute here, and consider
Michael Caine.
(Oh, come on, I hear them cry,
not ANOTHER pointless diversion!? Yeah, that’s right – and don’t
expect me to apologise for it. When the film manages to
engage my interest as thoroughly as my own random thoughts, I’ll stop.)
One of the odder things about the world of
Truly Bad Film is the arbitrary way that a reputation can stick – or
not. Hence you get someone like, say, Richard Burton, who with offerings
like Bluebeard, The Medusa Touch, and above all
Exorcist II: The Heretic, almost managed to obliterate the memory of
the great achievements that had come before. Conversely, you get someone
like Michael Caine, who has not only given great performances in a
number of truly great films, but has also lent himself to a remarkable
number of absolute stinkers: The Swarm, above all, but also
Hurry, Sundown, Beyond The Poseidon Adventure, The Island,
The Hand, Blame It On Rio, The Holcroft Covenant,
On Deadly Ground….and, oh yeah, Jaws: The Revenge. Funny
thing is, though, no-one ever seems to think of Caine as “Bad Film Actor
Michael Caine”, still less “Bad Actor Michael Caine”; he’s just good old
Michael Caine….who happens to have made a bunch of Very Bad Films. With
some people, it just – doesn’t – stick.
Sir Michael did, however, find himself in
the middle of a uniquely humiliating experience early in 1987, when he
finally landed a long-overdue Oscar (BSA, for Hannah And Her Sisters),
and got to accept it via a live cross to – ulp! – the set of Jaws:
The Revenge. A good sport as always, Caine took the awkward
situation in his stride. His explanation for his involvement in
this piece of nonsense is that he got a free holiday in the Bahamas, and
was able to pay off his new house. Put like that, how could anyone blame
him? And it’s not as if any of what’s wrong here is his fault.
Nor does he piss all over this wretched film, as an actor of his stature
might consider himself entitled to do (one with a little less class,
that is). Rather, he gives a lackadaisical performance quite in keeping
with the idiotic tone of the film; one so very lackadaisical, it gives
the impression of being entirely ad libbed. (As I recall, my
reaction upon a first viewing of it was to remark, “You’re just making
this shit up, aren’t you, Mike?”) And who knows? Maybe Joseph Sargent
did just turn Caine loose and let him get on with it. After all, by this
stage of the production, he had a number of much bigger problems
on his hands….
Hey, the Brodys! Remember them? They’re on
their way to Michael and Carla’s, their driver serenading them on the
way with a Christmas song. (In his review, Ken suggests that they were
going for an off-kilter feel here, with the whole “Christmas in the
sunshine” thing. Speaking as someone who rather too frequently has spent
Christmas Day dodging bushfires, I didn’t even notice that something was
supposed to be “wrong”.) Thea’s first act upon arriving home is to dash
out to play on a rope swing at the end of a dock, and Ellen’s is to have
a major freak-out as a consequence. We cut from that to the sight of
Ellen swimming alone in the sparkling Bahamian waters, and being
gruesomely dismembered by a shark. This, I’m sure you’ll be astonished
to hear, is Just A Dream.
And then we get to see Michael at work.
And to meet Jake. Mon. How’s this for a tone-setting opening speech?
“Will you stop farting around? Michael! What th’ hell you doing down
there, hey? Listen, you remember what dey look like? Dey hard on the’
outside, chewy on th’ inside? Sometimes dey come wid a little grime
attached? Move your ass, man!”
In case you haven’t figured it out, Jake
is the Odious Comic Relief. This realisation comes with the accompanying
pain of knowing just how seldom OCRs get killed off. Although, as it
turns out---
Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
The “they”---sorry, “dey” that Michael is
looking for is a certain species of conch, which he and Jake are
supposed to be tagging in order to report their numbers, movements,
breeding, and so on. Upset about Michael’s, excuse the expression,
sluggish efforts, Jake launches into an abusive speech that highlights a
strange detail of the film (yes, another one), the various characters’
ongoing lack of consideration towards Michael. For instance,
Carla, his loving wife, keeps asking him What’s wrong?, while
Jake, his colleague and best friend, starts by referring to his trip to
Amity as simply “going away”, goes on to complain about his demeanour
upon his return, and caps things off by reacting to the presence of a
great white shark in the Bahamas with a glee wholly untempered by the
fact that his best friend’s brother died in a shark attack all of a
week ago. Anyway, here the two of them patch things up; and then
it’s Ellen’s turn to go on a downer, which she does in the middle of the
Christmas present opening. She and Michael have yet another “I want you
out of the water” argument, which climaxes with Michael uttering one of
my all-time favourite movie lines:
“Jake and I are scientists. We’re
almost PhDs. We know what we’re doing.”
Heh….
Heh, heh, heh….
Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh….
Heh.
Sorry. It’s just that I’ve got a few too
many friends doing post-graduate research.
But really, this is why I love this film.
I reviewed Tornado! last year primarily to highlight its
ridiculous concept of how scientific research is funded and conducted,
and Jaws: The Revenge is even more absurdly misinformed. When
Michael is first refusing to give up his job, we hear that he and Jake
have “just got our first grant”. Shortly hereafter, Jake will complain
that they have “three months left of work, and no money left to support
it”. Unenthused about sea-snails, he greets the shark’s appearance with
a cry of, “Now we can do some real research!” Oh, some real
research? And what would that be, exactly? And as for the snails, “We
write it up, wrap it up, and hand it in.” Michael objects, “Look, my
name goes on the report. If it’s a half-assed job, I don’t get my
doctorate and neither do you.”
So, as I understand it, in this
universe, you do a maximum of six months’ fairly casual and basic
research (as freelancers, too, it seems: we see no sign of an
administering university or, God forbid, a supervisor); you write
– and jointly – a “report”; and, assuming you don’t do too
half-assed a job, they hand you a doctorate. Well, well, well…. I’m sure
all this will be of great interest to my many friends and colleagues who
have devoted between three and seven years to the same pursuit.
Anyway, Ellen and Michael’s latest
circular argument ended with him insisting, “There’s nothing to worry
about.” Naturally, this is the cue for a cut beneath the water, and a
confirmed sighting of Cousin Bruce. As he cruises towards the Bahamas,
we must pause – again – to reflect upon the fact that the one
aspect of this film that has drawn the most derision over the years –
more, that is to say, than the opening ambush, or the notion of a shark
carrying out a personal vendetta against a particular family, or even
that of a shark establishing a telepathic link with one of its potential
victims (oh, yes – we’ll get to that shortly) – is its suggestion
that a shark could swim from Amity to the Bahamas in about three
days!!! Hard [*cough*] to believe of any shark, but
most of all of Cousin Bruce, who is, one has to say, looking a little
ragged. You’d think over time that improvements in technology would
also allow for improvements in such things as mock-up sharks, wouldn’t
you? – but it is a strange truism of film-making that the later in a
series a film is produced, the worse the effects are, regardless of the
budget. (Hard as it is to believe, this thing cost more than
Jaws 3-D.) The only exception to this rule that I can think of off
hand is the Child’s Play films, which reversed the trend with a
vengeance.
And as Cousin Bruce wends his merry way,
Ellen is building sandcastles on the beach with Thea. Digging a moat,
she backs into the lapping waves; and as soon as she touches the water
she stops – and turns – and stares out to sea….
Seriously.
Hoagie then shows up, and Ellen ends up
confiding to him her conviction that not only was Sean’s death not an
accident, but that the shark in question is heading towards them. Hoagie
takes this with a straight face, proving conclusively that Michael Caine
is a very fine actor. As the two stroll on the beach, Michael looks on
disapprovingly from his boat, initiating a subplot that will lead
precisely nowhere, but will establish Michael as a dick of the first
order. Ellen and Hoagie then go for a joy flight in his plane and end up
at a local festival.
Now – I rather like the fact that the film
is happy to shape a romance for two characters generally considered
beyond the Hollywood cut-off age for that sort of thing, but the fact
remains that the Ellen/Hoagie/jealous Michael stuff is just filler in a
killer shark film sadly bereft of killer shark action. The problem, of
course, is that we know this shark basically only wants to kill Brodys;
and there simply aren’t enough Brodys, eligible Brodys,
available. I mean, personally I’d be happy to see any or all of Ellen,
Michael, Carla and Thea – especially Thea – bite it, but let’s
face it, it ain’t gunna happen. If they had to go ahead with this
idiotic storyline, they should have invented more Brodys, relatives of
Martin’s, obviously, already established in the Bahamas, who invite
their recently bereaved cousins for a visit. That might have
worked. Or at least livened things up.
Back at sea, it’s Jake in the submersible,
mon, when Cousin Bruce looms up rather comically along side him. Jake
can only stutter about “a big fish”, allowing Michael to laughingly
inquire how big? – and Cousin Bruce to answer by lifting his head out of
the water and chowing down on the research vessel right at Michael’s
feet. And once again, there is a blood in the water despite there being
no attack. Frankly, I’m getting a little worried about Cousin Bruce’s
state of health.
Jake gets out of the water and launches
into an excited speech about the shark! – a great white!! – and in
the Bahamas!!! – that, to be honest, I have some sympathy with. Michael
eventually responds with a plea that Jake not mention the shark to
Ellen, which belatedly reminds Jake about, you know, that whole dead
brother thing. In the end they both decide to keep silent, the one to
have the opportunity of doing some real research, the other out
of concern for his mother. And I’m sure the beachside community of which
they are both members will have no trouble at all accepting those
explanations, once they hear them during the inevitable coronial
inquiry.
While all this has been going on, we’ve
been cutting back and forth between Cousin Bruce and Ellen, who senses
his presence, no less. She is obviously shaken, but puts on a show of
bravado for the benefit of Hoagie, who doesn’t buy a penny’s worth of
it. They end up in a bar, where Hoagie gives in to an “irresistible
urge”. (He kisses her, you pervs!) Later that night, Michael is
worrying, no, not about the honking big shark that seems to be following
his family around, but about the company his mother is keeping. Hoagie
eventually brings Ellen home, manfully keeping up the schtick that here
counts as “characterisation” – that is, emitting an endless stream of
anecdotes. We heard the start of one concerning head-hunters up the
Amazon as he and Ellen flew off; here, we get a punch line involving
flies and disinfectant. The only wonder is that he never makes an entire
roomful of people break into guffaws with the line, “Now we can
all get some sleep!” (Regional joke, sorry. Actually, come to think of
it, generational regional joke. Very sorry.) Michael
continues to glare out the window at his mother and her companion, until
Carla distracts him up slipping off her knickers and firing them at him.
Ew.
And then – more filler, as our
characters see in the New Year. Ellen dances with Hoagie, and Michael
goes all Hamlet on them. He’s trying to work up the nerve to tell Ellen
about the shark. She, on the other hand, tells him that she’s
over that whole silly shark-coming-to-kill-us-all business. I think what
we have here is a failure to communicate. And then – still more
filler, as Michael and Carla have a spat over who should take the
garbage out. Man, I wish that shark would get on with it!! He
doesn’t, of course, but we do get something approximating action as Jake
prepares to stick a transmitter into Cousin Bruce by – get this –
attaching himself to the boat by a rope and leaning out over the
thoroughly chummed waters.
They’re scientists, mon. They know what
they’re doing!
Jake’s plan is carried through with an
astonishingly lack of fatalities – rats! – and we instigate a thoroughly
annoying “tracking the shark” bit that will be used in a futile effort
to build suspense, as Jake’s equipment will repeatedly crap out at
just the wrong moment – that is, until one of our brainiacs taps on
the side of the receiver. They’re almost PhDs, mon! Here we make the
surprising discovery that Cousin Bruce has a wobbly dorsal fin….and
I’m not sure he isn’t supposed to be making the Carcharodonian
equivalent of an obscene hand gesture at Michael as he submerges (which,
by the way, he does like a submarine: straight down!).
Why is it that bad sequels always remind
you of their good predecessors? J:TR, for reasons best known to
Michael de Guzman and Joseph Sargent, serves up periodic flashbacks from
Jaws (and in sepia, no less). During Sean’s funeral, we saw Ellen
“remembering” how he used to mimic his father; and now, here---
Yes, I’m sorry, they are going to
do that; and it’s just as appalling as you might anticipate.
Back to the ocean blue, and Michael
tagging some snails. You know – what he’s being paid to do. Jake
assures him that if the shark comes within a radius of three miles,
he’ll know it; so it’s no surprise when it instantly appears beside
Michael. Actually, given a speed of three miles a minute, Amity to the
Bahamas in three days is almost feasible. Cousin Bruce attacks
the submersible, but Michael gets away. That last burst of speed must
have worn poor Brucie out, though, because Michael easily evades him –
rats! – taking refuge in a wreck where he and his adversary play
cat-and-mouse down the narrow passages of the ship. Michael finally gets
away by opening up the air-valve on his scuba tank and rocketing to the
surface….which puts us in mind of a similar escape in Jaws 2,
which resulted in a severe case of the bends and a victim consequently
unable to say he’d seen a shark. Consequences to Michael Brody?
Zip. Zilch. Nada. Rats.
I must say, though, that the previous
sequence is one of the high points of them film, because it grants us
lingering, unobstructed views of Cousin Bruce….and he is a shocker.
He looks like he’s made of carpet off-cuts (seriously: in one shot, you
can see the seam!); he lists as he moves through the water; and
during the pursuit through the wreck, we catch glimpses of both the
rails he was running on, and the rod used to propel him! I suppose that
Cousin Bruce never quite reaches the heights of his distant relative,
The Amazing Retractable Swiss Army Shark, but boy! – he does have his
moments….
I haven’t said much about Carla Brody to
date – chalk it up to lack of interest – but now you need to know that
she is an artist “of growing reputation” who has just had a piece, an
abstract metal sculpture, commissioned for display near the beach by the
local authorities. The dedication ceremony is today. It’s the biggest
moment in Carla’s professional life….and where is her loving husband?
Why, out on his research barge, of course, chasing that shark he
still hasn’t told anyone about. He gives the “When you fall off a
horse….” speech, which I’m not sure actually covers nearly getting
munched by a great white, and it takes Jake – Jake, mon! – to
remind him of Carla’s special day….which he chooses to ignore.
Something tells me it won’t be long before
the second Mrs Michael Brody goes the way of the first Mrs Michael
Brody….and who can blame either of them?
And indeed, at the beach we find Carla
with steam starting to curl from her nostrils. She restrains herself,
however, as she is introduced to the gathered crowd by a local authority
figure who is played by a cameoing Melvin Van Peebles. (I guess the call
of a free holiday suckered him in, too.) All the speechifying is
too much for Thea, and she persuades her distracted mother to let her go
and play on a “banana boat”, a long inflatable yellow thing that you sit
on while it is towed through the water.
Anyone see where this is headed?
Ellen is among the crowd at the ceremony,
and as Carla steps up to take her bow, she is looking instead out to
sea….sensing something. Sure enough, a fin cuts the water right
near the banana boat. In fairness, this attack sequence is probably the
best staged scene in the film (although Cousin Bruce’s pink plastic gums
are a bit too evident), and remarkably, someone is actually killed.
That makes a whole two – count ‘em, two – victims! Though of
course, the victim isn’t Thea – rats! – but an unfortunate responsible
adult sitting next to her. Cousin Bruce ensures that the horrified
onlookers all get a really good view of it, too, by somehow holding his
body above the water line as he munches. The rest of the boat
riders make it to shore, and as Carla comforts Thea, Ellen turns towards
the open ocean with a grim expression that says that---well, that
This time, it’s personal!! She strides off, eventually commandeering
Michael’s own boat, and heads purposefully out to sea. As for what that
purpose is, ya got me. I’ve never been able to figure out what Ellen
thinks she’s doing here. Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt and say
she’s just drawing Cousin Bruce away from the shore.
Michael eventually arrives home, and it
seems at length to have dawned on him that he’s likely to be in the shit
with his wife, although exactly how much shit, he has no idea. He opens
with an apology about missing the ceremony, but that has slipped down
Carla’s list of priorities. (One gets the feeling that Michael will be
hearing a word or two on the subject at some future time, however.)
Carla tells her husband that “Thea was attacked by a shark!” – which,
strictly speaking, is true, although Carla doesn’t know it.
Michael is dumbfounded – dumb something, anyway – and lets slip that he
knew about the shark. Also – if only he’d realised (i.e. bothered
to think) – that there was a very good chance of it coming after
Thea.
Ooooh, Mikey….start looking for a good
lawyer now, mon!
Carla mentions Ellen. Michael gets this
“Uh-oh!” look and demands to know where she is. He then realizes his
boat is missing and takes off. He and Jake set out in a small motorboat.
They encounter Hoagie, out fishing, and the three end up searching for
Ellen in Hoagie’s plane. Jake tries to reassure Michael that Ellen will
never find the shark – “We couldn’t!” “It will find her!”
retorts Michael, upon whom the light has finally dawned. Hoagie reveals
that Ellen had told him her belief that the shark was hunting the Brody
family. And believe it or not, Michael thinks this is a good
moment to get pissy over his mother having a B-O-Y-F-R-I-E-N-D.
Dickhead.
Anyway, Ellen and Cousin Bruce have indeed
found one another. Ellen gazes grimly at her mortal enemy and mutters,
“Come and get me, you son of a bitch!” Which (apart from being yet
another painful Jaws rehash) again raises the question of
what the hell Ellen is doing? Sacrificing herself for the greater
good? If Cousin Bruce is hunting all Brodys, how would that help
Michael, Carla and Thea? Gahh!
The three in the plane spot Ellen just as
Cousin Bruce starts to attack her boat, during which Brucie bounces up
out of the water in a manner rarely seen outside of
False Bay, South Africa. Hoagie
pulls off a stunt landing on the water and orders Michael and Jake to
Ellen’s boat, insisting that he’ll keep the shark busy – presumably by
entertaining it with a string of anecdotes. (“Ha, ha, ha! Good one,
Hoagie!”) Jake babbles something about the shark being attracted by the
plane’s “electromagnetic impulses”, which I suppose is meant to explain
why Cousin Bruce attacks the plane – in the greatest
animal-versus-machine tussle since the bear took out a helicopter in
Grizzly – despite there being a nice, juicy Brody in the water.
Michael and Jake make it to the boat, but the plane goes under….as, it
seems, does Hoagie.
Swampland-in-Arizona time again, folks!
And indeed, the other three have barely had a moment’s mourning (passed
chiefly in Michael and Ellen swapping not unreasonable inquiries as to
why each of them was stupid enough to come out there) before Hoagie is
climbing in on the far side of the boat. The others demand to
know how he got away and, to my unending delight, Hoagie gives the exact
same answer that John Agar did in Curse Of The
Swamp Creature, when his character was asked how he could find
oil without any equipment:
“It wasn’t easy!”
(Check out Michael Caine as he “climbs out
of the water”, too; he is perfectly dry! I guess a bad reputation
isn’t the only thing that won’t stick to him.)
They then try to leave, but naturally the
boat’s engine isn’t working. Jake’s shark-tracking equipment is, though.
Jake then has a brainwave, and cooks up some sort of gizmo that (to cut
a lot of incoherent technobabble short) can deliver strong electric
shocks to Cousin Bruce, if only they can get it down his throat. To
achieve this, Jake attaches his zapper to a pole and does exactly what
Martin Brody, he of beloved memory, once sensibly refused to do: he
climbs out on the prow of the boat. Cousin Bruce attacks again,
swallowing the zapper. He also takes out the prow, and….Jake.
A moment’s silence, if you please. Or a
moment’s wild celebratory cheering. Whatever.
This, uh, tragic scene is hilariously
rendered in slow motion, so we get very extended versions of the others’
shocked reactions….and a big drawn-out “JAAAAAAAAAAAAKKKKEEEE!!!!” from
Michael.
Ellen stares out at Cousin Bruce and
starts having – I don’t know what else to call them – visions: of
the attack on Thea – fair enough, she was present – and of Sean’s death,
when she wasn’t – and of Martin shooting the original Bruce – ditto. The
only explanation I can come up with is that Cousin Bruce is
transmitting these images into her mind….presumably (hey, in the
latter case he wasn’t there either!) having received them himself from
some of his relatives. Oh, well. I guess it isn’t any stupider than
anything else that’s been going on.
Michael grabs Jake’s newly-devised gizmo,
which he uses to send a violent electrical charge at his enemy. And
Bruce convulses, launching up out of the water again, and….and….
….roars.
Yes, that’s right. Roars.
As I think I’ve mentioned elsewhere, great
white sharks can in fact vocalise. However – as far as I’m aware, they
don’t actually sound like they’re auditioning to do vocal work in the
dubbing of a Godzilla movie.
Previously, Hoagie ordered Ellen to take
the wheel while he worked the pump, so that they could try to outrun
Cousin Bruce. She takes the wheel, all right, but she ain’t
running away, no sir. She sends the boat directly at the oncoming
shark, both of them gathering speed. One more zap from the gizmo lifts
Brucie up out of the water again (“Rrrrrooaarrrrr!!!!”). The
jagged prow of the boat impales him, and the shark….
….uh….
….explodes!!!???
Uh. Yeah. Okay. The shark explodes. After
everything else that’s gone on, why the hell not? The shark explodes.
And in fact, thanks to the wonders of
crappy editing, he explodes four times. Words fail me when I try
to describe it. Instead, I recommend that you hop on over to Ken’s
review, where you will find a
graphic pictorial rendering of this unforgettable climax.
Oh – and just to add insult to brain
injury – Cousin Bruce’s sinking corpse is actually the shot from the
climax of Jaws, when the original Bruce met his own grisly
demise. Bastards.
(And if you look closely, you can see the
shattered air-tank hanging out of “Cousin Bruce’s” mouth!)
The [*snicker*] explosion tips
Ellen, Michael and Hoagie into the water, and their boat sinks. They
scramble to find wreckage to cling to, and as they do so, they hear a
faint cry.
Oh, no! you shudder.
Ohh, yes, sighs I.
Yes, they did it. They failed to kill off
Jake. Bastards.
The explanation behind this is that test
audiences liked Jake and didn’t want him killed; so Universal re-shot
the ending to include his highly improbable survival. Which prompts me
to ask: (i) what kind of dumb-ass test audience saw this film!? – and
(ii) you’re telling me that the biggest problem they had with Jaws:
The Revenge was Jake’s death!!!???
(Although I do quite like Hoagie’s
reaction to this turn of events: “Son of a bitch!” he exclaims. Amen,
bro’!)
So the four of them make it out alive, and
our last scene is Ellen flying off into the sunset with Hoagie (well….in
Hoagie’s plane, anyway; they never do bother to resolve their
desperately important romantic subplot), the last words spoken yet
another anecdote from Hoagie, the one about the time he flew one hundred
nuns to Nairobi…. Thus ends this film, and thus ends, or so it seems,
the Jaws franchise. And in conclusion, I’d just like to say:
Heh….
Heh, heh, heh….
Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh….
Heh.
Footnote: As always, I stayed
right to the end of the credits after J:TR, and very near the
end I saw something that almost made me fall out of my chair: someone -
apparently an actual scientist from an actual university
- allowed himself to be named publicly as the "Scientific
Consultant" to this film!!
But then I looked a little closer....and
it all became clear... |
Director: