JAWS 3-D (1983)
Synopsis: As Sea World prepares for the gala unveiling of its new “Undersea Kingdom” facility, a team of water-skiers practices its routine out on the open ocean, not noticing that a fin has broken the water nearby…. The skiers return to the park, entering the huge, artificial lagoon by passing through a pair of mechanised gates, which begin to slide shut after then. Suddenly, the gates jam, as if caught on something. Some workmen observe this, and call for the park’s chief underwater engineer, Mike Brody (Dennis Quaid). Mike discovers that the gates have somehow been knocked off their tracks. He orders his men to secure them shut, even if they can’t immediately be fixed. He then heads for another section of Sea World, where his girlfriend, the park’s senior biologist Dr Kathryn Morgan (Bess Armstrong), is working with an orca. As the two talk, Kay learns from her assistants that the dolphins are behaving strangely, refusing to enter the lagoon. Mike and Kay leave for the day, intending to meet up with Mike’s brother, Sean (John Putch), who is visiting from Colorado. As they exit the park, they see its owner, Calvin Bouchard (Louis Gossett Jr), and the world-famous adventurer, Philip FitzRoyce (Simon MacCorkindale), meeting the press. As the sun begins to set, Shelby Overman (Harry Grant) dives down to inspect the damaged lagoon gates. All of a sudden, he is viciously attacked…. At a local bar, Sean finds himself attracted to Kelly Bukowski (Lea Thompson), one of the park’s water-skiers. Later that night, after a few drinks, Mike and Kay walk on the beach, and Mike breaks the news that he has been offered a job in Venezuela; while back at the lagoon, Kelly tries to lure the water-shy Sean in for a swim. Meanwhile, elsewhere on the lagoon, two poachers are diving for coral. When his partner fails to surface, the other poacher begins to panic – and then is suddenly dragged beneath the water…. The next morning, Kay has a training session with the dolphins, but finds them still skittish and distracted. Mike learns that Shelby Overman failed to return home the previous night. Discovering that all of Shelby’s personal possessions are intact, he becomes concerned about the possibility of an accident. He prepares to search the lagoon in a submersible, and Kay joins him. The two find nothing at the section of the lagoon where the currents would have taken a body, and decide to search the lagoon’s “sunken galleon” attraction. They begin to move through it, and recoil in terror as without warning, a great white shark slams into the side of the boat….
Comments: “Free! Free at last!” cried Fredric March’s Mr Hyde, as he was released from the moral confines of Henry Jekyll; and, as I finally sit down to write my review of Jaws 3-D, so do I cry, “Free at last!” I’ve had this film on my “to review” shortlist ever since---well, ever since I reviewed Jaws 2, I guess. The reason it didn’t get done earlier? An e-mail conversation with my colleague, Ken Begg, who reacted to my Jaws 2 piece by observing dreamily, “You know, I once had this idea about reviewing all four Jaws films sequentially; examining how the series degenerated with each sequel….” Well, call me overly sensitive (read: thin-skinned, weak-willed and easily manipulated) if you will, but that hint was enough to make me back off – not just because Ken had “called dibs”, but because I really wanted to see what he would do with the films; not only the inevitable (and well-deserved) eviscerations of Jaws 3-D and Jaws: The Revenge, but how Mr World Of Awful Movies would cope with having to review a good, even great, film – Jaws itself.
But of course, as soon as I made up my mind that I couldn’t/wouldn’t review Jaws 3-D just yet, it became the one thing in the universe that I most wanted to do. But still I waited. And fretted. And waited…. And signed off every e-mail exchange with Ken with an oh-so-casual, “So – thought any more about that Jaws series…?”
And then, last September, the B-Masters turned their collective attention to the topic of “Jaws rip-offs”. And while I can aver that I had no ulterior motive in mind when I suggested that particular Roundtable theme, it was, nevertheless, a perfect opportunity to say, just one more time, “So – thought any more about that Jaws series…?”
And lo – the Kraken woke….
Which left me with a slight problem, namely, the fact that attempting to review a film after Hurricane Ken has gotten through with it is kind of like turning up at an all-you-can-eat seafood restaurant after Homer Simpson has been there and expecting to get a square meal. What was there left for me to say?
Short answer: nothing. But I wasn’t about to let that stop me. When you get right down to it, I’m not writing this review for you guys; I’m doing it wholly for myself. Because much as I would fight to the death to defend the right of sharks to live their lives unpersecuted, and apoplectically angry as I get about the anti-shark scare-mongering and lies of certain motion pictures, the fact remains – I do love me a good killer shark film. A psychiatrist might be able to explain that. I sure can’t.
(Well – that is – not a good killer shark film, exactly….)
Jaws 3-D – or Jaws 3 – or Jaws III, depending upon which print you have – was, self-evidently, part of the brief early eighties 3-D film revival. It is less notable for that, however, than it is for its jaw-droppingly bad special effects. Of course, none of the Jaws films have effects that are exactly brilliant. Jaws itself is notoriously the way it is largely because Steven Spielberg had to find ways of keeping his defective model shark off the screen for as long as possible. In doing so, he ended up crafting a taut and suspenseful thriller, one charged with the terror of the unseen. The subsequent Jaws sequels, however, had, as you might anticipate, directors considerably less technically able than Spielberg; as the series progressed, its sharks got more and more screentime. Simultaneously, despite the general improvements in special effects technology overall, the model sharks themselves got worse and worse. The original Bruce may have had his little mechanical and anatomical deficiencies, but he’s a work of art compared to his various relatives. Jaws 2, for example, is highlighted by the moment when Bruce II lunges at a boat, his gaping mouth giving everyone a clear look at the machinery that was making him go, nestled within his hollow interior. (Bruce II also has a series of facial burns, acquired during the boat explosion early in the film, presumably because a mere twenty-five foot great white shark wasn’t considered scary enough. I failed to mention these scars in my review – because the quality of my P&S print was so crappy, they weren’t actually evident! Jaws 2 is by far the hardest film of the series to review, simply because it’s so middle of the road, generally being rated as somewhere between good and mediocre. While I tend to the latter assessment, the film does have its defenders, some of whom I’ve corresponded with; and in deference to them, I intend to take another look at it on DVD, to see whether, as is often the case, a good quality widescreen print makes the film’s virtues more apparent. And if that means I also get a better look at Bruce II’s scars and hydraulics, well, reassessment cuts both ways, after all.) In Jaws: The Revenge, as we shall see in due course, the attack scenes are so carelessly blocked and edited, the various propulsion devices that animate the model shark are clearly visible throughout. But it is Jaws 3-D in which the series’ effects hit rock bottom. There are two “real” sharks in this film, and both get a lot of screentime, and many loving close-ups – and if you can refrain from howling with laughter each time one of them wanders into view, you’ve got a stronger constitution than I have. But the quality [sic.] of the shark effects isn’t all that’s wrong here. Jaws 3-D additionally boasts some of the most truly horrendous bluescreen work that you will ever see, and model work almost of the same, uh, standard. Then, of course, as with all 3-D films, it also suffers from the need to keep poking things into the camera. Now – as I have explained before, the whole 3-D phenomenon is one that passed me by, thanks to my defective eyesight. I am, consequently, unable to judge how certain effects in this film might have played on the big screen. On the small screen, however, they are nothing short of abysmal.
(By the way: long term visitors might recall that during my review of Friday The 13th Part 3, I indicated specific instances of 3-D effects using [square brackets!]. I will do so again here, at least for the most eye-poking effects.)
Jaws 3-D opens as you just knew it would, with the inevitable red writing that zooms towards the audience. The infliction of pain by this film begins almost immediately, with the credit “Screenplay by (ulp!) Carl Gottlieb and Richard Matheson”. (In an effort to maintain my sanity, I choose to believe that whatever those two contributed was substantially re-written by person or persons unknown, who wisely chose to remain anonymous.) The film proper then commences, with a POV shot approaching a singularly unalarmed grouper. A flurry of activity later, and we get our first intimation of the quality of the impeding effects work, as in an awful bit of bluescreening, a [decapitated fish head – mouth still working!] drifts towards us out of a cloud of red paint. Over this scene plays the film’s tentative score, composed by (no, not that) Alan Parker. I say tentative, because it keeps hovering between the re-use of John Williams’ classic music, and its original – and sometimes wholly inappropriate – content. Here, accordingly, we get a few half-hearted daah-duh-s before the new material kicks in.
We cut to the surface of the water, for out first glimpse of the entity that will terrorise viewers throughout the film: a team of trick water-skiers belonging to Sea World, of which we will see far too much as Jaws 3-D progresses. (And yes, much of this was really shot at Sea World, although many of the specific attractions we see are fictional. I guess the same corporation owns both the marine park and Universal Studios.) The film then wastes no time introducing its other horror (what did I tell you?), as a fin breaks the water not far away from the skiers. Suddenly, there is a glitch in the routine and the skiers – including our secondary heroine, Kelly Bukowski, played by Lea Thompson – plunge into the water. A lengthy underwater shot of thrashing legs follows, getting up our hopes that with some help from our fine finned friend, the threat posed by the skiers will be averted before it begins. Some engine trouble with the motorboat raises our hopes still further. But just at the last moment, the boat’s engine starts up and the skiers are towed to safety. Rats. We see the fin following, however. As the skiers enter the huge artificial lagoon that will host most of the film’s action, a pair of mechanised gates begin to close behind them. They do not shut, though, but jam on something, which causes them to “jump their tracks”. Sea World, we learn, is in the midst of being extensively renovated, with the construction of an “Undersea Kingdom” in the middle of the lagoon, and is due to open shortly. Some of the associated workers see the problem with the gates, and decide it’s time we all met Our Hero: “Someone get Mike Brody!”
Well, almost time. Elsewhere, the press is interviewing Calvin Bouchard, the park’s owner, and Lou Gossett Jr is thoroughly embarrassing himself. Well, I guess it’s not entirely Gossett’s fault. Bouchard is one of the film’s more misconceived aspects. He is – gasp! – rich; so it probably won’t surprise you to learn that he’s as close as we get to having a human villain. Problem is, whoever wrote this couldn’t decide what kind of villain he was. Bouchard ping-pongs annoyingly between “self-made millionaire who will do anything for money” and “rich guy with far more money than sense”; between bad-ass and dumb-ass, if you like. Now, some throwaway dialogue makes it plain that Bouchard is a highly successful, if not overly scrupulous, businessman, so the various acts of short-sighted stupidity that he is called upon to perform are both ill-considered and extremely irritating. Bouchard is interviewed by a swarm of reporters and, when asked if he has anything “special” planned for Sea World’s re-opening, replies that one “Philip FitzRoyce” will be present, which draws impressed cooing from those gathered. It is a mark of the script’s quality that it never bothers to explain just who this guy is, but leaves us to infer that he’s some kind of professional adventurer, who travels the world having his exploits filmed by his faithful retainer and loyal sidekick, Jack Tate. (Who says “Guv’nor” a lot.) FitzRoyce is also the film’s secondary human villain, and, as it happens, “the 16th Earl of Haddonfield” (whoops, silly me! – I thought Haddonfield was in Illinois!), so his chances of making it to the end credits are rather slim, I’d imagine. (Oh, and by the way – [*snicker*] – “Philip FitzRoyce”!? Note to American screenwriters: real British aristocrats don’t always have poncy handles, you know; rather, many of the oldest families have fairly common surnames like Howard and Russell and – remember this one? – Spencer. And let’s not forget Christopher Guest, aka Nigel Tufnel aka Mr Jamie Lee Curtis, who is actually the fifth Baron Haden-Guest of Saling.)
Okay, now it’s time to meet Our Hero, as we see the third cinematic incarnation of Mike Brody inspecting the damaged gates. Mike seems to have had somewhat of a growth spurt in the five years since his last sharky adventure, as he’s now played by Dennis Quaid. (As Ken points out in his Jaws 3-D piece, the warped chronology of the Brody kids over the series as a whole is simply hysterical.) Mike sees that the gates can’t be fixed immediately, and orders them “secured” in the meantime. Apparently, his subordinates weren’t capable of thinking of that for themselves. This piece of brilliant leadership out of the way, Mike wanders off to visit his girlfriend, Dr Kathryn Morgan – or “Kay”, as he calls her. You know, when you watch a lot of bad movies, you often find yourself wondering how particular actors got sucked into appearing in them. Well, in the case of Bess Armstrong in Jaws 3-D, there’s no mystery at all: she was offered the chance to spend a large proportion of her screentime interacting with an orca (we first see her riding on Shamu), with dolphins, and with a simply adorable fibreglass shark. Heck, for I chance like that, I’d---I’d---I’d bankroll the making of Jaws V! Uh – if, that is, I looked as good in a wetsuit as Ms Armstrong does. Some exposition follows, as we hear of Sean Brody’s impending visit, and learn that the park’s dolphins are upset about something, and reluctant to enter the lagoon. As Mike and Kay leave work for the day, they see Bouchard with FitzRoyce, the latter’s presence causing Kay to turn up her nose. But just when it looks, for a moment, like we might be about to get something approximating an explanation, Sean – cowboy hat ‘n’ boots ‘n’ all – shows up; and after much hugging, the three young people depart.
Now, it was broad daylight when Mike ordered the lagoon gates secured; but for some reason the sun has begun to set before anyone does anything about obeying. We see one Shelby Overton preparing to dive – alone, and after dark? Not very likely. Overton submerges to inspect the gates and, after a couple of false scares, becomes our first victim. (Actually, for a while there he looks like being our only victim – but that’s a complaint for later on.) First his [mask!] sinks to the lagoon floor, and then we get a look at his [severed arm!] in a shot that would actually be pretty gruesome, if the bluescreen work with which it was accomplished wasn’t so miserable.
An extended “character” sequence follows, as Mike and Kay have a few drinks at a bar, and Sean (perhaps overly cute-meet-ly) pairs up with water-skier Kelly. Wonder of wonders, all this ain’t too painful. In fact, it’s really not painful at all. Ken took the time to praise this aspect of Jaws 3-D, and I agree with him. It’s not just that these four young actors put over their characters in a likeable, believable way, it’s that the film itself treats them fairly well. First up, it’s rather pleasing to see a film centred on a stable young couple, when so many feel compelled to base themselves either on their hero and heroine coming together during a crisis, or on a dysfunctional couple re-connecting during same. Mike and Kay (Dennis and Bess, perhaps I should say) are nicely convincing, conveying a pleasing degree of simple friendship, as well as their evident love for one another. (I also like the touch of Mike having a pet name for his girlfriend that no-one else uses: she’s “Kay” to him, “Kathy” or “Kate” to everyone else.) The other thing that’s welcome is that the four young people are allowed to behave like young people – with no punitive outcome. You know – when you watch a lot of horror films, you see an awful lot of horrendous punishments dished out to the characters, often for the most petty of moral transgressions. Jaws 3-D, on the other hand, is willing to concede that a group of young adults might indeed be able to have a drink or two, party a little, and commit a few minor infractions, and yet still be intelligent and responsible people. Even Sean and Kelly getting hormonal with one another (they don’t Do It, but certainly would have, if not interrupted) isn’t punished all that severely. It’s refreshing to watch. Anyway (sorry for the tangent!), a tad the worse for alcohol, the four stagger out of the bar. Mike and Kay walk on the beach, and Dennis Quaid delivers some nicely judged film-linking dialogue about his father, “that shark attack”, and Sean’s consequent fear of the water. We also learn that Sean is attending university in Colorado. (Which by my reckoning makes him the only Brody in four films to react to his selachophobia by doing something sensible, i.e., moving away from the freaking water!!) Unfortunately, this scene culminates with the introduction of a wholly unnecessary subplot involving the young couple’s conflicting job offers: Mike’s in Venezuela (as with FitzRoyce, we never learn exactly what Mike does – I’m guessing underwater engineer) and Kay’s, once she finishes up at Sea World, at the prestigious Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. Can this relationship be saved??
(By the way – anyone who thinks it won’t be the female half of this couple that eventually sacrifices her dream job for lurrve hasn’t watched enough movies. Or, for that matter, seen enough of the real world.)
Meanwhile, Kelly is using a bit of basic biology to lure the gun-shy Sean into the water. (If the film as a whole were less lackadaisical, we would probably better appreciate the irony of Sean being offered the lagoon as a safe alternative to the ocean.) We are then given cause to wonder just how big this lagoon is – big enough to have discrete weather patterns, anyway – as we watch a couple of coral poachers going about their business elsewhere on it, surrounded by a fog bank. One of the poachers dives and doesn’t come up again. The second peers anxiously into the water, and then is yanked overboard. And then, uh, the rubber raft is pulled under as well. I dunno – roughage, I guess. (Throughout this scene, we have distantly heard our young protagonists laughing and shouting together, and as the second poacher disappears, Sean Brody says distinctly, “Oh, you’re dead!”)
The next morning, after another nice character scene, we see Kay working with the dolphins at the park. (Look, I like dolphins as much as the next person, but there really is way too much of this stuff in the film.) The animals are still jittery and unresponsive. Their poor performance draws a rude comment from the wandering FitzRoyce, who further remarks that he is “looking for someone in authority” – whereupon Kay informs him frostily that she is Sea World’s senior biologist, no less. FitzRoyce looks incredulous, as well he might: Kay is the most junior senior biologist I’ve ever seen! (In truth, both Mike and Kay are far too young for the positions they hold, but this is such a Hollywood “given”, it hardly seems fair to criticise this particular film for it.) The two fence verbally a bit more, to no particular end. Elsewhere, Mike is learning the hard way that Shelby Overman is missing – the “hard way” being via some extraordinary dialogue from Shelby’s girlfriend, Charlene: “You tell Shelby Overman from me that he can take a flying leap at a rolling doughnut on a gravel driveway!” However, when Mike realises that all of Overman’s effects are intact (for some reason, the late Shelby liked to carry his passport, credit cards and driver’s license around loose), he begins to get worried. Kay wanders in during these events, and the two decide to search the lagoon in the Sea World submersible. My first glimpse of this contraption drew from me a cry of, “Hey! Cool! Thunderbird 4!” It soon transpired that I had done Gerry and Sylvia Anderson a grave injustice: nowhere in Thunderbirds will you see an effects sequence as abysmal as the one we suffer through here, as a toy submersible chuffs around in front of a painfully obvious bluescreen lagoon. You might also want to look out for the moment when the sub banks to the left, and part of its front section disappears! (Bert I. Gordon would be proud.)
Anyway, Mike pilots the sub past a huge filtration pipe, about which he and Kay exchange some unconvincing dialogue – indeed, given the interplay between these two so far, it’s unconvincing enough to draw attention to itself. Dum, dum, duumm…. It turns out that Shelby’s body isn’t where you’d expect the currents to have deposited it, so Kay and Mike climb out of the sub in order to search the lagoon’s “sunken galleon”. We get a few more pointless 3-D effects at this time, like a [fake skeleton!], its [bony hand!] jutting inevitably towards the audience. As the two swim towards the artificial ship, Kay’s favourite [dolphins!], Cindy and Sandy, suddenly burst into sight. They do everything they can to alert the dim-witted humans to the fact that something’s badly wrong, short of grabbing them by the collar and bellowing, “Get out of here, you morons! There’s a freaking SHARK in the lagoon!!” into their faces. But neither Mike nor the animal-attuned Kay takes any notice of their odd behaviour, instead venturing into the galleon, where they are briefly menaced by a [Spring-Loaded Moray Eel!]. And then finally, it’s time for some onscreen shark action – and, oh my friends! – what action it is!
As I’ve mentioned, there are two sharks in this film (two supposedly real sharks, that is; there are clearly a number of different models). Shark #1 is….simply breathtaking. For once sensibly sized, about ten feet long (that’s a clue, for those of you who are paying attention), this….thing….does….nothing. I swear! It’s not just stiff as a board, it is a board. It’s made of fibreglass, or something similar, and it is completely inflexible, being moved around either by offscreen technicians or, occasionally, onscreen actors. Here it makes its first appearance by abruptly slamming into the galleon – and then departs the way it came. Now, I got to deliver a “sharks can’t swim backwards!” diatribe during my Deep Blue Sea piece, and I won’t repeat it here. In fact, the shark departing backwards is the least of our worries. It doesn’t swim; it is all too obviously jerked back, by some unseen stagehand. And then just to make things complete, they cut in some stock footage of a real shark, which for some unknown reason has been speeded up. Classic!
Our so-called heroes try to make their escape, but have to be rescued by the dolphins, who tow Mike and Kay away at a rapid pace. A mind-blowing piece of editing follows. (Poor Verna Fields must be rolling around in her grave.) First, Kay – who spends endless hours working with these dolphins, remember – loses her grip on her ride. (That’s girls for you, I guess.) A long shot shows her about halfway between Mike and the shark, at the surface of the water; she calls to Mike for help, but what she expects him to do is anyone’s guess. The next shot shows her about ten feet under the water. The very next instant, the shark is on top of her. And the next instant, the dolphin has suddenly managed to interpose itself between Kay and the shark. This intrepid animal also contrives, in a split second, not just to distract the shark, but to twist around so Kay can grab it, and put a distance of about ten yards between itself and the fibreglass menace. Mike and Kay scramble frantically out of the water, and Kay shrieks for one of her assistants to close the gates to the dolphins’ pool. This leads to what is surely the most fondly cherished moment in Jaws 3-D. The dolphins make their way to safety, and the gates slide shut just in the nick of time, causing the pursuing shark to slam into them head-first – while this, in turn, causes the shark’s head to snap back into its neck!! (Since I wouldn’t want to deprive anyone of the wonder of this moment, I’ve pinched one of Ken’s screenshots and put it at the foot of this review. Be warned, though – people with weak hearts should probably refrain.)
Up on the dock, meanwhile, Mike is shrieking, “What the hell was that!? What is it!!??” Hmm….guess he’s blocked a few things out over the years.
News of the shark is carried to Bouchard and FitzRoyce, who join Kay and Mike at the lagoon. Kay announces that it was “a great white, exhibiting a typical feeding pattern!"” – by which she presumably means it was trying to chow down on a Brody. FitzRoyce immediately goes into his “big white hunter” routine here, proposing to Bouchard that they could make a fortune by filming the killing of the shark. (Ewww!! You sick bastards! Okay, I realise that this was twenty years ago, and that the push for the protection of the great white as an endangered species was still in its infancy, but jeez Lou-ise! – can you imagine!? Well, yeah, okay, I guess you can. On Fox, maybe – When Sharks Get Their Bellies Slit Open For The Cameras, perhaps….) Bouchard’s eyes start to gleam, and Kay hurriedly intervenes, pointing out the potential long-term financial gains of having the only great white in captivity in the world.
Jaws 3-D mishandles Kay here. You can’t keep a great white in captivity – or any of the larger sharks, for that matter – and Kay would know that. The reasons for this are as yet unclear. Some people think that captivity plays havoc with the species’ exquisitely sensitive navigational system; others that whites, like terrestrial animals such as bears, need constant stimulation and a far more complex environment than an aquarium can provide in order to stay healthy; still others that, more simply, a large expanse of water is a fundamental requirement of the species. But whatever the reason, there has never been a great white kept alive in captivity for any length of time – although a heartbreaking number of them have died over the years in the attempt. (From memory, they did have one for a while at a zoo in San Francisco, but I think they let it go when its health started to deteriorate.) So far from being eager to keep the shark, Kay should be against it all the way. However, since just letting the poor thing go obviously isn’t an option, she might well propose trying to keep it alive at Sea World, but only as the least of the various evils confronting her, and not as a desirable course of action, as it is presented here. Anyway, Kay’s ploy works: both Bouchard and FitzRoyce see the possibilities in her idea, and FitzRoyce volunteers to help catch the animal. For some reason, this has to be done immediately – that is, at night. FitzRoyce prepares an anaesthetic (ridding the syringe of air bubbles by shooting [the liquid!] directly at the camera), then begins arming himself with grenades. (Plot point! Plot point!) Mike, already in a state over Kay’s involvement in the capture, intervenes here, pointing out the possible consequences of an explosive device being detonated in the artificial lagoon; and Bouchard agrees with him. (It is one of the nicer touches in Jaws 3-D that both Mike and Kay essentially stick to their own area of expertise, rather than becoming instant experts on everything, as happens in many films.) FitzRoyce is dressed in a bright red wetsuit, intended to attract the shark, while Kay dons an anti-shark chain mail diving suit.
(And here, my droogies, I am going to insert a few reminiscences about some other of my sharky influences, Ron and Valerie Taylor. You know them, right? At any rate, they hold a significant place in my childhood memories. Every summer saw them swimming across our television set, exploring the underwater world and, in particular, acting as advocates for the shark. [Hmm….I wonder if they’re the reason I’m not scared of sharks? Here’s an interesting fact: I spent most of my childhood holidays at the beach, and while I always had a healthy fear of tides, rips, and dumpers, I do not recall ever once worrying about the possibility of shark attack….even in the post-Jaws era.] Ron and Val still turn up regularly on Discovery Channel. One of their documentaries shows them trying out a chain mail suit just like Kay’s. Ron ordered it for himself, but it was too tight on him, so Val put it on – leading to the hair-raising sight of a man calmly filming away while his wife sat in front of him encouraging sharks to bite her….
Oh, and just in case you were wondering: (i) Val didn’t get bitten, but ended up with a long-term elbow injury from being vigorously shaken; and (ii) no, she did not encourage a great white to bite her….)
Kay and FitzRoyce (with Jack, who’s filming as usual) enter the water (there is, mysteriously, much more light below the surface than above it), while Mike waits up above armed with a kind of a crossbow, loaded with a spear with a rope attached. (So much for Mike sticking to his area of expertise.) We then learn why they may have preferred to film this sequence in the dark, as Kay is attacked by – the Fibreglass Shark! Of course, it only grabs her air-tanks. FitzRoyce drives it off by bonking it on the nose. The shark – briefly reverting to its stock footage incarnation – withdraws – rapidly – then obligingly heads for the surface of the water. Its fin breaks through, and Mike pulls off a [*cough*] remarkable shot with his crossbow, the [spear!] travelling towards the audience (just ignore the wires, folks!) before hitting the fin dead centre. The rope proves to have a drag float attached to it. Under the water, Kay sticks an anaesthetic dart into the shark’s belly. She and FitzRoyce head for the surface, and there’s another good Kay moment as, despite the terror and excitement of her experience, her first thought is for the shark, which we next see in a sling, being lowered into its recovery tank. Kay and her assistant, Liz (hey! cool!), begin “walking” the shark, keeping it moving until it recovers. (I’m honestly not sure how long a white could go without moving, and not suffocate. In order to breathe, whites have to keep moving forward, constantly forcing water into their mouths and over their gills. If they become trapped in any way, they will die. That said – if you’ll forgive another Ron ‘n’ Val anecdote, I did once see footage of them trying to save a white that had become tangled in netting. It took them quite some time to get it cut free, and yet that animal survived, albeit somewhat the worse for wear. So there obviously is a certain window of opportunity.)
Some time later, Mike shows up, complaining to Kay that he’s “lonely”. (How long have they been walking the thing!? Jeez, just as well Mike and Kay managed to get jobs at the same facility, isn’t it? – otherwise he might not have survived. [And actually, there is some dialogue early on indicating that they were hired by Sea World at the same time. I wonder what the odds are of a marine park requiring an underwater engineer and a senior biologist at exactly the same moment…?]) Kay is apologetic, but rightly shows no disposition to stop what she’s doing; so after a moment Mike calls Liz out of the water and hops in himself to take her place. He’s barely touched the shark when it abruptly comes to life. (Man! – that “Brody-scent” must be powerful stuff!) The humans scramble out of the tank, Mike understandably panicky, Kay understandably ecstatic, while the Fibreglass Shark….just kinda lies there. Kay reminds her subordinates (they need reminding?) that nothing should be done to traumatise the animal.
Hmm….something tells me that the Fibreglass Shark is Not Long For This World….
The film’s most annoying sequence follows, as we waste endless minutes with scenes of Sea World’s grand opening. Guides, dancers, Shamu, and water-skiers, water-skiers, water-skiers – aack! After all this, uh, excitement, Jaws 3-D takes a moment to remind us of the fate of the unfortunate Shelby Overman (remember him?), with Mike using a model of the lagoon to explain where he and Kay searched, and Bouchard bringing up that darn filtration pipe again. (Amusingly, Mike’s reply to Bouchard is an exact repeat of his earlier answer to Kay, when she asked him about the pipe. I think they’re trying to tell us something, don’t you?) Bouchard then wanders off with his dogsbody, Leonard, and learns from him that ticket sales are sky-high. And then he has a brainwave – or his Supreme Dumb-Ass Moment, however you prefer to put it – and orders the shark put on public display, against Kay’s strict orders.
Let’s pause here a minute, and see if we can count how many different kinds of stupid this is, shall we?
· Sea World has had no time to prepare a suitable display tank for its prize. (Of course, given the nature of the Fibreglass Shark, it probably doesn’t want one, but that’s another matter.)
· There’s been no time to mount a proper publicity campaign (or to generate the inevitable merchandise), as you would want to do to exploit such a situation.
· The tank to which the shark is moved (about which, I shall have more to say in a moment) isn’t isolated, meaning they’re not charging any extra for people to see the animal.
· The park’s senior biologist has warned that any trauma could kill the goose and its golden eggs.
· Sea World is a success; it’s not like they need to boost sales, is it? Why wouldn’t they let the park’s opening draw all the people it can on its own, then use the shark to pull in a second wave of huge crowds? Guess I just don’t understand how Big Business works….
Kind of makes you wonder how Bouchard got so rich in the first place, doesn’t it? Oh, and one other thing: who moved the shark? And how could it be moved without Kay knowing about it?
Feh! Anyway – who wants to be worrying about these things, when we could be watching – water-skiers? Water-skiers, water-skiers, water-skiers!! Sean meets up with Kelly, who drags him away to the bumper boats. We then get our first look at the much-ballyhooed “Undersea Kingdom” which, no offence to Sea World, really makes me appreciate Sydney’s two aquaria. (Oceanworld at Manly in particular! It’s cool! And you can dive with sharks there!) We briefly follow three young girls as they enter the new attraction, passing through an entrance guarded by a sea serpent (looks kinda like Ghidorah!) who sticks its [bifurcated tongue!] into the camera. The girls are menaced by a [Crappy Animatronic Moray Eel!], then a [Crappy Animatronic Octopus Tentacle!]. Cut to Mike and Kay, who are feeding a dolphin (thrill as Dennis Quaid fails utterly to get a single fish into the animal’s mouth!), and we are briefly threatened with having to listen while the two of them have “a serious conversation” about their respective situations. Thankfully, Mike is paged, and then Kay hears over the park PA – the PA, mind you!! – that the shark has been put on display. Horrified, she sprints off.
One of Jaws 3-D’s most hysterical sequences follows, as we see the way the makers of this film think a unique attraction ought to be handled. First, the shark’s whereabouts are announced by nothing more than a tiny, hand-stencilled sign! Second, as I’ve said, they’re not charging visitors extra to see the animal; a few dozen people are simply milling about the most fabulous shark tank you will ever, ever see! Picture this, if you can: an above-ground pool (not a tank, in fact), about knee-high to an adult – waist-high to a small child – with no guard-rail, and about four inches between the surface of the water and the edge of the pool – on and over which, numerous visitors are casually leaning.
There are, of course, various zoologists who claim that the great white shark poses no particular threat to human beings, and who dive amongst the animals unprotected to prove it. And the longer Jaws 3-D goes, the more it feels like the film was made by these people as a piece of pro-shark propaganda. It certainly features two of the least successful predators of humans that have ever graced our screens. Here, you’re just waiting for someone to exclaim, “See! See! You can stick your hands right in the water, and nothing will happen!”
Of course, this particular shark’s placidity might be a side-effect of its physical condition: the Fibreglass Shark chooses this moment to do what it’s been trying to do all along (and would have much earlier, if only those pesky stage-hands had left it alone): it floats to the surface of the water and rolls over onto its side. Kay comes rushing up, demanding explanations of her subordinates (who, you will notice, made no attempt to inform her of the shark’s move). Seeing the shark’s condition, she and her assistant, Dan, leap into the pool (one of the reasons that pool’s the way it is, I imagine) and try to walk the animal, but to no avail. It’s been painfully evident all along that this shark is incapable of any movement on its own, but here we get The Apotheosis Of The Fibreglass Shark as, to indicate that the animal has died, Bess Armstrong has to roll the thing over with her hands and hold it on its back!!
As the (bewilderingly unconcerned) members of the public who have witnessed this tragedy file away (and where, one might ask, has that swarm of press people that was bugging Bouchard earlier on got to?), Kay climbs out of the tank. She is – depressed. No more. This is ludicrous. I know there’s some idiotic cinematic convention out there that dictates that “nice” women don’t get angry (or if they do, they must apologise for it later, no matter what their original justification), but there is no way that Kay would react to this situation just by getting a bit upset. She should be furious – indeed, homicidally furious. Not just because of the shark’s fate, but because Bouchard’s disregard of her professional advice is a monumental slap in the face for her. But in fact, Kay barely reacts at all! – and certainly not in a professional sense. Although Mike earlier became angry when FitzRoyce’s grenades threatened “his” lagoon, Kay never utters a word of umbrage about “her” shark. It must be a “girl thing”….
(Although it never plays like it, I assume that one of the points of this incident was to goad Kay into quitting her job, thus settling the issue of her and Mike’s career conflict. And in fact, looked at objectively, this could have provided an unusually sensible solution, inasmuch as Kay could have gone to Venezuela for six months, then taken up her position at the Scripps Institute, with Mike joining her in California when he finished his own tour of duty. Because, of course, resolving the issue is left entirely up to Kay. Annoyingly, there is never the slightest suggestion that Mike might turn down his dream job for Kay’s sake (when he says to her early on that she should “just give up your life and follow me”, he’s not entirely joking), nor that their relationship might actually be strong enough to survive a temporary separation. [Mike’s “loneliness” permitting, that is.] Nope, it’s all or nothing: either Kay goes or Kay stays; no third option. And ultimately, the decision – no prizes for guessing what it is – will be made with a ridiculous lack of difficulty and heart-burning – as if long-term jobs at the Scripps Institute were just a dime a dozen….)
Anyway, Shark #1 having carked it, it’s just about time for Shark #2 to put in an appearance. We cut back to the three girls at the Undersea Kingdom where, for no readily apparent reason, the [mutilated corpse of Shelby Overman!] is about to put in an appearance, drifting up past the viewing windows. (In a bizarre and inexplicable moment, someone shoves one of the girls up against the glass, pressing her face near that of the body as she screams in horror.) More idiocy follows. Despite the recovery of a dead body (how and who by, we never do learn), no-ones bothers to call The Authorities. Instead, Mike (?) comes to identify the victim. (Ah! I do believe it’s the traditional “This was no boat accident!” scene!) With trepidation, Mike twitches back the sheet, uncovering an unexpectedly gruesome corpse, worms squirming in its mouth and a crab scuttling over one lidless eye. Eww! Mike reels away, gagging, but recovers sufficiently to name Shelby Overman. Kay then demands to see the body. Mike and another guy immediately intervene (we all know that girls aren’t up to that kind of thing), but Kay argues, not unreasonably, I guess, that if it is a shark attack, she’s seen it before. (Of course, this fails to make sense on a second level: if Shark #1 – the shark, as far as these guys know – is dead, why the urgency? Kay must be psychic….) The men reluctantly step aside, and Kay pulls the sheet right back, revealing that the corpse has a huge chunk out of its right side. (As we know, it’s missing its arm.) She doesn’t gag (attagirl!), but she does give a cry of horror, holding her hands about a yard apart. She then turns and sprints for the door, Mike in her wake.
Hey, remember that filtration pipe that everyone keeps going on about? Well, it’s about to get another mention. Turns out there’s some kind of obstruction in it. Hmm….wonder what that could be…?
Bouchard, FitzRoyce and Jack are in the underwater restaurant (which looks so cool, I suspect it’s a real Sea World facility). There are some small sharks cruising around outside, and we learn that they are confined to this one section of the lagoon by a “bubble wall” which they dislike crossing. (Uh, remember that, folks.) Bouchard is notified of the problem with the wretched filtration pipe, and orders it shut down. Kay and Mike then come charging in, and Kay drops her bombshell. When she claims that Overman was killed by a shark with a bite radius of about a yard across, she is scoffed at, FitzRoyce – who apparently carries the bite-radius-to-body-length conversion rates for all species of shark around in his head (he must be a blast at cocktail parties) – arguing that this would imply a shark of some thirty-five feet in length. (Or to put it another way – that’s fourteen feet longer than the biggest real white ever recorded, and ten feet longer than the sharks in Jaws and Jaws 2. Hmm….what’s that smell? Could it be a whiff of desperation?)
Kay gravely agrees with FitzRoyce’s conclusion….then drops bombshell #2: the second shark was the first shark’s mother!
This plot twist is by far my favourite aspect of Jaws 3-D, as it offers (unexplicated, admittedly) three different possible scenarios, each one stupider than the last:
1. The mother shark entered the lagoon seeking quiet waters in which to give birth, and became trapped there
2. Mother and child were just, you know, hanging together, and both got trapped in the lagoon
3. The baby got trapped, and its mother, presumably having seen Gorgo one too many times, came rushing to the rescue
Option #3 needs no dismissal, of course. (Woulda been fun, though!) Option #2 is highly improbable – whites do occasionally hang out together, but the odds of mother and offspring doing so aren’t brilliant. (Assuming the two were related – how the heck would Kay know?) Yet strange as it might seem, Option #1 is actually the least likely. I can believe that a pregnant female might have taken refuge in the lagoon, but not that she produced a single ten-foot baby! Here’s the thing: whites, which are ovoniparous, generally have a multiple birth, producing anywhere up to fourteen four to five feet long pups. If a white gave birth in that lagoon, it should be swarming with young sharks!
(And of course, this summons up a beautiful fantasy of that water-skiing team discovering this fact the hard way…. Just makes you feel warm all over, doesn’t it?)
Anyway, Kay’s startling pronouncement is the cue for Brucette to make her appearance. As you’ve no doubt surmised, she’s been hiding in the filtration pipe, the inference being that its water pressure was strong enough to allow her to breathe without moving; although why she’s been hiding is never explained; a well-developed sense of dramatic timing, perhaps. The pipe being shut down means that Brucette is forced out into the open, something she achieves by – sigh – backing out of the pipe….
Brucette isn’t quite as dismal as her offspring. She can move her tail from side to side, for one thing (even if this does cause her to list to the right slightly, and even if you can see the mechanism working under her skin). Much more importantly, however--- Well, allow me to quote from Ken’s review:
“No doubt to the delight of Lyz Kingsley, this is the first fake shark in a Jaws movie whose lips draw back to expose its teeth, as those of a real shark can.”
Yes, it’s true; I admit it. The first time I saw this film, when Brucette first pulled back her lips I thrust out a finger, bounced up and down in my chair, and let out a squeal that could have shattered glass. Yeah, I know – sad, isn’t it? No, not just sad. Pathetic.
(I should perhaps mention that my excitement was subsequently tempered by the realisation that Brucette’s gums were, all too obviously, made of pink plastic.)
Her cover blown, Brucette then decides to reveal herself to our human protagonists, which she does via some amusingly bad effects work. A POV shot cruises through that bubble wall we heard about earlier (so much for it acting as a barrier). Inside, Mike looks up and reacts with shock, pointing out into the lagoon – where, though the miracle of appalling superimposition, Brucette is hovering.
The humans scatter. Bouchard heads for the park’s control room to order the Undersea Kingdom evacuated. Mike rushes towards the lagoon. Deciding halfway there that he needs a form of transportation other than his own feet, he commandeers a small cart and putts across the park at about half the speed he was travelling under his own power. In an hilarious sequence of events, Mike suddenly finds himself bearing down on two babies being pushed in dolphin-shaped fun-park prams. He swerves to avoid them (dashing my hopes of a low-speed re-enactment of Death Race 2000), finds himself blocked by a whole row of unoccupied dolphin prams, swerves again, and ends up deposited on the ground in an undignified heap when his cart tips over. And then he gets back to his feet and resumes sprinting. He charges into the show area, interrupting the water-skiing display (yay, Mike!), and tries to call the skiers in (boo, Mike!). We get one of the film’s better moments here, as one of the skiers, being lifted horizontally by her male partner, leans right back – and sees a fin break the water behind her. Unfortunately, this is accompanied by one of the film’s dumbest moments, particularly after all that harping on the shark’s length. You see, its fin ends up immediately, and I mean immediately, behind a line of skiers – which means that its mouth is about fifteen feet in front of them!
Well, a panic ensues, as you’d expect, and the skiers plunge into the water. An underwater shot shows the usual thrashing of legs and churning of water, and we wait for Brucette to make her move. And in fact, with a bloodbath at this point, a mass slaughtering of the skiers, Jaws 3-D might have gone some distance towards redeeming itself. But it doesn’t happen. In fact, not one of the skiers is so much as nipped.
Remember what I was saying about this film actually being pro-shark propaganda, being intended to demonstrate how small a threat the great white poses to humankind…?
Anyway, apparently as bored with the water-skiers as I am, Brucette cruises over to the bumper boat area, where Sean and Kelly just happen to be. (Sean back on the water after a shark has been found in the lagoon!? You’ll pardon my scepticism….) The shark bumps into one of the boats (well, what are you supposed to do with a bumper boat?), which just happens to have Sean and Kelly into it. She (uh, Brucette, that is) briefly lifts her head out of the water, instigating another panic, which again ends with people thrashing around in the water. This time, Brucette actually gets hold of someone – and surprise, it’s Kelly. And then – Brucette lets go of her!! And once again, everyone makes it safely to shore. Kelly is carried to where her wound can be treated (not a drop of blood falling on the trip), and we see that she has a straight vertical gash on her thigh that looks considerably more like a knife wound than a shark bite.
And round about now, I started to get an attack of sexual paranoia. This wasn’t a film featuring some pro-shark propaganda; this was, on the contrary, a film featuring the single most incompetent shark in the history of the world! And then I began to wonder whether the shark’s sex was meant to be significant? Brucette is, after all, the only shark in the Jaws series explicitly identified as being female. She is also a screw-up to end all screw-ups. Perhaps the film was trying to make an insulting gender-related point here? – you know, the way some people claim that The Blair Witch Project is really all about how you should never put a woman in charge? (Don’t laugh. I’ve also had people try to tell me that the moral of Night Of The Living Dead is that you should never put a black person in charge!)
Anyway, Brucette wanders over to a floating platform, and the people on it obligingly panic and plunge into the water. And wonder of wonders, a small cloud of blood becomes visible! – although actually, there’s no evidence that Brucette is responsible for it. The way this thing is shaping, someone probably cut their foot on a broken bottle. (That’s right, folks: it’s a killer shark film sans shark attacks!)
Meanwhile, it turns out that Kay has nothing better to do than worry about her dolphins. (I mean, I’m as pro-animal as anyone could be, but really - ! Or maybe, to be fair, she’s already made an accurate assessment of the exact degree of danger posed by Brucette.) Nevertheless, she decides that they can’t open the gates between the lagoon (where the dolphins are) and the training pool, because they can’t risk the shark getting in, too. Which is pretty freaking stupid, since the linking tunnel is only about four feet across! (Mind you, given Brucette’s strike rate, soon she’ll probably have wasted away to the point where she could fit through. Heyyy, wait a minute! I’ve got it! Of course! Brucette’s female – so, naturally – she’s on a diet!! Oh, that explains everything!)
(It was probably Baby Bruce who ate the two coral poachers.)
Now, even though Bouchard ordered the Undersea Kingdom closed some time ago, people are still wandering through its glass-enclosed tunnels. All of a sudden (ohh, that bluescreen!), Brucette appears. Now – correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t people go to aquaria and such to, you know, observe sea creatures? Not these people, apparently. As Brucette cruises up, they en masse scream and run! (For Pete’s sake! Okay, a few squeals and shrieks at first glimpse, but then noses to the glass, surely!?) Well – as it turns out, it’s just as well they did. Brucette chooses to crash into the tunnel (which, given the sensitivity of a shark’s snout, would really hurt), and the surprisingly flimsy structure springs a leak. The people flee the damaged section as the water starts to pour in. In the control room, Bouchard orders the watertight doors shut (shouldn’t that be automatic?), and the terrified group finds itself trapped, up to its collective waist in water. Remarkably, it turns out there is no facility for pumping the water out, or even for opening the doors at one end of the section but not the other. The people are stuck until the damaged section is repaired. Great design, Mikey!
(By the way, a quick thumbs-up to the girl who plays the guide with the job of handling the frightened, trapped people. She does a nice job of conveying someone who’s in over their head – if you’ll pardon the expression – but doing their very best to look confident and in control. Actually – my suspicion is that a number of minor roles in this film were filled by real Sea World employees – those of Kay’s assistants, for instance – and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that this girl is another of them.)
Mike and his team work frantically to build a “patch” for the damaged tunnel section. And, believe it or not, Kay chooses this of all moments to announce that – surprise! – she’s decided to turn down that job at the Scripps Institute and go with Mike to South America – adding lamely, “Maybe they could use some trained whales in Venezuela, huh?” Oh, yes, I’m sure they can, Kay; just as I’m sure that you’ll have no trouble in the future getting yourself a job just as good as the one you’re turning down; or that when you are in Venezuela, spending much time alone while Mike’s out on site, and feeling your career slipping away from you, the words “Scripps Institute” will never once pass your lips in an angry or a resentful manner….
A brief cutaway to Leonard, who’s stalling the press (hilariously, a question refers to a rumour about a shark!), another to the trapped visitors, and then we meet up with FitzRoyce and Bouchard, the former outlining his plan for luring Brucette back into the filtration pipe and trapping her there, in order to allow Mike a chance to fix the tunnel. The pipe, fortunately, has a gate that can be closed once the shark is inside. And FitzRoyce being the devil-may-care adventurer that he is, he’s going to use himself as live bait. Temporarily live, anyway. FitzRoyce and Jack enter the water. FitzRoyce takes up his position in the pipe, securing himself against the current with a life-line, and with a combination of banging noises and chum, Brucette is drawn into the pipe, with Jack closing the gate after her. FitzRoyce then begins using the life-line to haul himself up and away from the dangerous [sic.] animal, until – ooh, shock of shocks! – the rope breaks. For no reason. Even though we saw him and Jack testing it before they started. And so, after a lo-oo-ng wait, FitzRoyce becomes the film’s second onscreen victim – eventually. First, he uses a [bang-stick!] on the shark, which seems kind of counter-intuitive: she can’t go anywhere, after all; that kind of treatment will just get her mad. Regardless, FitzRoyce then whomps Brucette on the nose with his camera (ditto). However--- Determined, apparently, to keep her record intact, Brucette still doesn’t attack FitzRoyce: rather, the water current carries him passively into her mouth! And then he just, uh, jams there! – because so very committed to her Weightwatchers program is Brucette, she refuses to eat him even though he’s in her mouth. Oh, she does kind of work her jaw a bit, but personally I think she’s trying to dislodge him. (After all, it’s not like a bulimic shark can stick a finger down its throat, is it?) Anyway, although he manages to get a grenade out of his belt, Brucette’s throat convulsions squish FitzRoyce before he can use it. We get a squirt of blood out of Brucette’s gill-covers, and learn that the stories aren’t true: aristocratic blood isn’t blue at all; it’s pink! (The 16th Earl of Haddonfield is dead, long live the 17th Earl of Haddonfield!)
Meanwhile, Mike is off fixing the tunnel, and Kay suddenly decides to join him, because “he needs eyes in the back of his head!” Uh, why? The shark’s trapped, isn’t it? (I guess Kay really is psychic.) Up on land, a grief-stricken Jack has learned of FitzRoyce’s death. When Bouchard hears, he commits his first sensible act of the whole film, ordering the pipe shut down so that Brucette suffocates. Brucette reacts to this not just by swimming backwards, but by making repeated backwards charges! – which at length force the gate open. (Again, the question of how long she would have to do this is moot – even were it physically possible.) Bouchard sees the escape on his monitors, and sends out a warning to Mike and Kay. Mike sticks with his job, however. Sure enough, Brucette knows when there’s a Brody in the water – and as she bears down upon this one – she roars!! (As with most of the more questionable aspects of this film series, this random piece of idiocy would later be taken to the nth level of absurdity by the seriously deranged Jaws: The Revenge.) Nevertheless, it takes a warning signal from Kay to alert Mike to the shark’s presence. (Well, fair enough. I guess you wouldn’t automatically associate “roaring sound” with “shark”, would you?) Mike has, of course, succeeded in fixing the tunnel, so he and Kay are free to flee; but yet again, they require assistance from – Cindy and Sandy, our heroic dolphins! (Which is why the script needed them left in the lagoon, of course. You know – the longer this stuff goes on, the harder I’m having to struggle to suppress memories of those dolphins in The Simpsons, whose chattering was subtitled as a gleeful, “You’re all going to die!”)
Brucette makes a typically feeble attempt to chomp on Mike and Kay, before Cindy and Sandy rush in to the rescue. They chatter, and Brucette – who’s hovering again! – roars some more. Then, in an unexpected moment, it seems that one of the dolphins – Sandy, if you care – actually does give its life for humanity. That, or it just decided to rub itself across Brucette’s front teeth for some reason. Mike and Kay make a dash for an underwater entrance to the control area. They make it in, but Brucette catches up with them, and somehow manages to get a portion of her jaw inside (?), preventing the door being closed – briefly. Mike and Kay scramble up into the control room itself. There, it turns out that the others are waiting for Mike’s orders before rescuing the trapped visitors! This taken care of, we then get the kind of dismal effects sequence that can make someone a Bad Movie fan for life. Picture this if you can: Brucette approaches the huge window of the control room; she somehow manages to do this without moving a single muscle. Inside, the observing humans are so terrified, they are compelled to start moving in slow motion. Then, as the people begin – slowly – to run away (putting Jaws 3-D one up on Deep Blue Sea, which not only shamelessly ripped off this sequence, but managed to make it stupider), Brucette – still playing statues – somehow contacts the window, which explodes into – crappily animated fragments!
Ohh….my heart, my heart!
The fleeing humans are trapped and submerged. Mike and Kay still have their air-tanks on, so they’re okay. Bouchard helps a female employee, who has been knocked out. A male employee is not so lucky. I know you’re gunna find this hard to believe, but – Brucette kills someone!! Honest! I swear!! (The guy in question, who also seems to be “playing statues”, if you get my drift, somehow manages to cry out, “NOOO!!!!”, despite being under ten feet of water, and in the process of being crunched by a gigantic shark!) Emboldened by her success, Brucette then tries to reach Mike and Kay, but becomes jammed in the window frame (which, yes, does mean she should drown). And then we get yet another highlight of a sequence just chock-full of them! As Brucette struggles to reach Our Heroes, we see that FitzRoyce is still stuck in her throat!! (I guess Brucette couldn’t swallow Simon MacCorkindale’s performance either.) And what’s more, he’s still clutching a grenade!
(Of course, this does rather raise the question of how Brucette managed to swallow her recent kill. Probably she didn’t. She spat out most of Shelby Overman, after all. Bulimic, I’m telling you!)
Mike snatches up a long hook and starts trying to pull the pin on the grenade, with Brucette thrashing about, and the humans dodging her, and everyone generally trying to make things “exciting”. (At one point, Kay swims over the snout of the shark, which hasn’t got room to grab her – rather making you wonder why FitzRoyce didn’t try that in the pipe.) Anyway, Mike does finally hook the pin. He and Kay take cover, the grenade goes off, and Brucette explodes in a huge welter of blood. And then the film kindly gives us one more – just one more – dreadful 3-D effect, as [assorted shark innards!] come hurtling towards the camera.
Mike and Kay make it to the surface of the lagoon, where the sun is rising. Ooh – purty! Kay, remarkably, inquires about the other humans first (Mike assures her they’re fine, although how the heck would he know?), and is rewarded by having her real concerns answered: Cindy the dolphin suddenly appears. Kay celebrates, but then begins to call for Sandy, who is ominously absent. And then, just at the very last moment – Sandy explodes out of the water in a joyous leap! Kay and Mike both wave their arms and cry out with excitement; and Jaws 3-D concludes in the most appropriate manner imaginable, with the leaping Cindy and Sandy being crappily superimposed over a shot of Kay and Mike. Whoo-hoo!!