Tubarão 4: A Vingança

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.

It's personal because I hate this audience-insulting movie. This has got to be the stupidest horror flick of all times. The ending (all of them) alone would be enough to justify this film's place on the bottom 100 list. I mean the premise (shark is after the Brody family for revenge. It chases (and beats) the Brody's to Jamaica to harrass them and snack on a few extras).

The effects went WAY downhill for this one. The shark on the Universial Studios tram tour is more convincing then this duct-taped-at-the-seams roboshark. The acting is atrocious (especially Mario Van Peeble and his grating "hey mon" accent)

In Jaws 2 a person told sheriff Brody that sharks don't take things personally...in this one they apparently not only do, but they also will hunt you down to the ends of the earth. This focuses on the most mediocre character of the first two Jaws, Ellen Brody. It starts with one of her sons being out on a boat and being killed by a shark. Why he is out on the water is anyone's guess seeing as he was afraid of water in 3, which I do believe this one completely ignores. This attack is probably the only real good scene in the flick cause we are off to the Caribbean where Ellen goes to visit with her other son who just doesn't seem all to upset by his brother's death. What is waiting for her here, but the exact same shark that killed her other son. Michael Caine is in this and this somehow makes me wonder why couldn't they have just forgotten about the Brody's and maybe have it be about Caine in Australia or something as a shark hunter...why do we have to have the same family, you have a better chance of being struck by lightening than you do of being attacked by a shark yet this family is constantly being attacked by sharks. Maybe they all bath in fish blood before swimming? Anyway this film is quite bad and was a pretty bad way to end the franchise.

There is Montezuma's revenge and then there is Jaws: The Revenge, in either case diarrhea is produced. This is really a terrible film, as if a shark would go out and take revenge on the family that "murdered" his cousins. Nonsense! It is awful to see Michael Caine in this film, I don't know why Michael appears in films like this, he must only do it for the money because the artistic merits of this film are zilch. Poor Lorraine Gary, went into retirement and then only to come out of retirement to do this turkey, and to think she felt obliged to as well, hardly a fitting finale to the end of a career. This film should have won more Razzies than it did but then against it was up against Leonard part 6!

Ok, to sum it up. The shark roars and stands on it's tail for more than 5 seconds. It purposely hunts down members of the Brody family. Thea is annoying and should have been swallowed whole by Bruce. The shark somehow explodes when being punctured by a sharp piece of wood. ?????? A bad film, I think so!