Jaws The Revenge (1987)

'Jaws: The Revenge' was unfortunately released upon the world back in 1987 and stars Lorraine Gary, Michael Caine and Lance Guest. The film was directed by Joseph Sergeant which was a shock to me for sure, being that he also directed the excellent 'Taking of Pelham 1-2-3' which interestingly starred 'JAWS' alumni Robert Shaw. The fact that a director could have two completely polar opposite films under his belt is a rather unusual phenomenon indeed.

Really though, when all is said and done 'The Revenge' is not bad for the reasons a lot of people may tell you. I heard many tell me it's 'So Bad, It's Good' and that couldn't be farther from the truth. The truth is that the film is incredibly boring until the last twenty minutes when they fight the shark to the death and even then that's hardly worth sitting through the rest of the movie. For those who don't know the plot, the wife of Martin Brody from the first two films travels to the Bahamas with her son Michael (Lance Guest) after her other son, Sean was attacked and killed by another Great White Shark. The shark then somehow follows the family down to the Bahamas and stalks them.

I read that the original plot for the film was to be that the shark was supernaturally controlled by a witch-doctor living down in the Bahamas who was angry with Michael Brody and his aquatic research team, so he sent the shark after them. Somehow, as ridiculous as that explanation would have been, it still makes more sense to me than the shark just magically goes from the East Coast to the Tropics in 24 hours and senselessly just stalks the Brody family just because it feels like it. The problem with the film is as I mentioned, its boring.

The film has the shark only attack people once or twice within an almost two-hour run time and only claims two victims during this same time frame. The rest of this film is a Lifetime melodrama with Lorraine Gary and Michael Caine going through the motions and forcing a romance on each other. The other characters are equally dumb or boring, with Mario Van Peebles standing out as what I truly believe was the inspiration for 'Futurama' character Hermes (His wife in this film even looks and acts like LaBarbara from the same show). Honestly, I don't really know what to talk about with 'The Revenge'. You already know all about it I'm sure but I guess the ending is about all I can give you.

The shark not only roars like Jerry the Mouse from 'Tom & Jerry' cartoons (its the EXACT sound byte) but it also can balance upon its tail fin to munch on victims and apparently stabbing sharks make them combustible, as it explodes upon said impalement..this is making me feel stupid just explaining this garbage. I just suggest you completely skip the film, it has no cheesy value or even 'Mystery Science Theater 3000' quality material here. It's boring and wasting of its actors, your money, and your two hours of life.

((F))