Les Dents de la mer 4 : La Revanche

Jaws: The Revenge is the final entry into the Jaws series, and thank God for that. Ellen Brody is now living in the Bahamas after her youngest son Sean, who has followed in the footsteps of his father and become Chief of the Amity police, is killed by another Great White Shark. In what is the most ridiculous plots of all time, we find out that one specific shark is holding a grudge against the Brody family, and after it kills Sean, it swims against the Gulf Stream down to the Bahamas so it can kill Ellen and Michael as well. Jaws: The Revenge is an embarrassment to anyone who knows anything about sharks, and is the worst of the series.

The plot is completely wrong in this movie. The whole plot is built off of bs. I can't even allow suspension of disbelief to let me ignore that the shark is hunting the Brody family. It's ridiculous! Aside from that is that the film contains any number of factual errors about sharks ranging from having the shark swim backwards, roar like a lion, stand on its tail, and devour a helicopter. The shark in the first film did unusual things, but nothing that would make a shark lover cry.

The acting in this movie is so bad that...You know what? I don't even want to discuss it. It's bad. Terrible. Loathsome. Repugnant. What else is there? Lorraine Gray played Ellen just fine in the first film, but for some reason in this film she let all of her acting skill slip away. Even Michael Caine, who is a vastly talented actor, shows absolutely no skill at all.

Every copy of Jaws: The Revenge should be swallowed by the shark from the first film.

1/10

The movie is one of the worst I've ever seen. The attack scenes are worse than what I used to do with Fisher Price Town and a stuffed seal from Marineland. The shark follows them to the Bahamas; apparently for revenge...revenge for being killed in earlier movies! Or is the shark exacting revenge for his friends who were killed? Or maybe (and here's something they could have pursued) it was the WIFE of the previous shark who decided the wife of her husband's killer should suffer. Well she did suffer, by appearing in this movie. For Jaws 5 I suggest the surviving family members of Mrs. Brodie swim back to New York and start biting sharks.

Another Great White stalks the Brody family, this time from Amity Island to The Bahamas.

This is worth watching for the entertainment value of its story and attempted visual spectacle. It also functions as a lesson to movie executives (like Sheinberg) about when to let go of a franchise.

In a movie that is so universally panned for its story and effects it would be pointless for me to put the boot in further, so I will highlight what I think are positives.

Personally, I think the actors do their best with bad material. Lorraine Gary, Lance Guest, Karen Young and Michael Caine have moments when they make their characters feel genuine as opposed to just players in a dodgy production. These for me are the scenes of interaction between characters that do not involve shark horror. I am not saying many are strong, but I think some of them work.

Gary would have been capable of carrying a better story, as her emotions and strength shine through in various moments, but overall there is very little material that showcases her ability.

You can tell the filmmakers are clutching at straws for entertainment at times by sexualising Young's character in certain scenes, but at least she does make the character alluring. In fact, I think the scene where Michael looks out of the bedroom window, with shadows of the rain cast on him, and Carla flicks an item of clothing to get his attention is quite cinematic.

Caine plays his usual persona and his charismatic presence is enough to lift certain scenes but not the overall viewing experience. You have to admire the honesty of anyone who can see the positive by focussing on the house built with the acting fee.

I think Michael Small's musical score does a good job of enhancing certain sequences and making it more tense than deserved given the premise and footage captured.

Visually, I like the location shots in The Bahamas, as it makes for a suitably tropical backdrop for the action taking place. If anything it is a reasonably good advert for the Nassau area. I am not going waste any time restating all flaws associated with roaring sharks, the infamous finale and other generally dodgy nautical horror. It appears the actors and editor had very little material to work with in a rushed production.

It made a relatively good profit at the box office so I guess the Universal executives had the last laugh.

I am completely dumbfounded. What in the world were the people behind this mess thinking? When the movie was over, Jaws: The Revenge left me with more questions than answers. Here's a laundry list of my questions:

1. How did a movie as good as Jaws spawn this junk?

2. Regardless of where the shark is in the ocean, how is it capable of knowing the moment a Brody sticks so much as a big toe into the water?

3. If you attributed your husband's and son's deaths to a great white shark, wouldn't you want to go to someplace like Oklahoma instead of the Bahamas?

4. Do all Bahamians slip in and out of their accents the way Mario Van Peebles does in Jaws: The Revenge?

5. Could they have possibly made the shark look any more fake?

6. Snails?

7. You mean that piece of welded together scrap metal was supposed to represent all that is good about the Bahamas?

8. Do sharks really jump out of the water like Shamu and roar like a lion?

9. What's more frightening - a great white shark or Ellen Brody's hair?

10. Is there a bigger acting whore on the planet than Michael Caine?

The best way to watch a movie like Jaws: The Revenge is with a group of friends. There's plenty here to make fun of.

If there ever were proof of the law of diminishing returns, the fourth entry in the Jaws series is it. The original was a taut thriller that launched the career of one of Hollywood's most celebrated directors. By comparison, Michael Caine often looks as if he is incredibly upset to be missing his award ceremony in order to appear in this piece. Lance Guest and Mario Van Peebles frequently appear to be wishing to have better things to do, while Lorraine Gary frequently looks stoned in moments when she is supposed to look frightening.

Clearly, the budget spent on this film didn't go into the research, script, or mechanical shark. Exactly why Michael Brody and his pals are putting what are apparently tracking devices on conch shells is never explained. Perhaps any explanation they thought of was so incredibly stupid that they thought it best to give up. An alternate explanation of why Michael is working in the water was never thought of, either. The true Ed Wood moment of the film comes towards the end of the piece, when the shark rises out of the water, and roars at Elaine. This is the first time I've heard of sharks having vocal cords. Given the box office draw this stinker had, I suspect it will be the last.

The shark takes a real beating here, too. The reason the shark wasn't seen often in the original was because Spielberg noticed that if one put it in front of the camera for long enough, the audience would notice that it doesn't move like a real shark. In this edition of the Jaws story, not only do they keep the camera focused upon the shark for more than enough time for the audience to notice the model's flaws, in so doing they make it crystal clear that this shark was made on the cheap. There are some shots in which the support structure of the shark is visible under the outer layer. There is even what appears to be a seam in the back of the shark's main fin.

To its credit, Jaws: The Revenge is well-photographed. While the 2.35:1 frame is often sparsely populated, depth of field is used with great effect in several shots. The fact that even frames with one character in them won't make sense when cropped to fit analogue television is a credit to the director and cinematographer. If only this kind of workmanship could have been seen in other aspects of the film.

Another area where Jaws: The Revenge deserves due credit is the score music. While the score is very much inspired by that which John Williams provided for the original, it distinguishes itself and genuinely works in its own right. In fact, one could almost say that the score music is more than the rest of the film deserves. The music is literally able to inject dramatic tension into scenes that, by all rights granted under the accepted rules of film-making, really shouldn't have any.

When all is said and done, I gave Jaws: The Revenge a one out of ten. It works as a comedy in the sense that it is a stinking pile of crap, but there are precious few moments when the people making it seem privy to the fact. As a result, the film winds up in a class all of its own. It's not just so bad its good, it is so utterly bad it is incredible.