Jaws: The Revenge (Adventures in Atrocity)

Ever since my high school days, when someone asks me what my favorite movie of all time is, my stock answer has been Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. I do not say this because I think it is irrefutably the greatest piece of cinema ever created, but instead because it was one of the first movies I saw that made me realize just how much I really love movies. Most everyone likes seeing movies, but this was the beginning of my personal movie freakdom. On the other end of the cinematic spectrum, my choice for my least favorite movie of all time is Jaws: The Revenge. This means that over the course of four installments, the Jaws franchise provided us with one of the most important films of all time along with one of the biggest pieces of trash. This hatred is actually largely because of this film’s connection to Spielberg’s masterpiece. Jaws is a movie that means as much to my current self as the television show Barney and Friends meant to my younger self. As such, my first viewing of Jaws: The Revenge was like watching Barney get clubbed to death in slow motion.

It’s been a while since the last/first time I saw Jaws: The Revenge. It came at the end of my journey through the Jaws sequels, which was far more successful than I would have anticipated. The first sequel—Jaws 2, directed by Jeannot Swarc—is actually a pretty effective thriller in its own right. It’s a re-hash of the original through and through, but there are some genuinely effective shark attack sequences interspersed throughout the film. Then came Jaws 3, a 3-D thriller that I found to be mostly entertainingly bad, though much of the thrill comes from seeing sequences intended for bad ’80s 3-D in regular old 2-D. Example:

However, nothing could prepare me for the horror that is Jaws: The Revenge; an unpleasant experience that should offend even the most hardened Jaws fanatic. It spends the first act mostly spitting on the grave of Spielberg’s original, the second act playing out one of the most ridiculous premises in movie history, and the third act showing us an unbelievably lame final confrontation that is as inept as it is laughable. As many needless sequels as we are seeing these days, at least we can be glad that the days of movies like Jaws: The Revenge are behind us. These days, at least it seems like they’re trying to make the experience worthwhile. This film just feels like an hour and a half of the writers and executives throwing their arms up in the air and waiting for the money to roll in.

The opening credits of Jaws: The Revenge are more or less what you’d expect from any of the Jaws films: we get a point-of-view shot of the shark as he swims through the water seeking his next meal. However, this film makes the mistake of taking the camera above the water, which suggests the shark is occasionally coming up just to have a look around or take in the air. Because, you know, sharks are always peeking their heads above water to see what the moon looks like. However, perhaps this ties in to the overall plot of the film. Perhaps this shark is looking for something—or someone—in particular. Perhaps this shark is out for… REVENGE!!!

We are then introduced to the remaining Amity Island Brody clan, which consists of Ellen Brody (Lorraine Gary) and Sean Brody (Mitchell Anderson). Now, I know what you’re thinking: where’s Roy Scheider’s Chief Brody in all of this? Well, he died before the events of this movie. All this really means is that Scheider didn’t feel like doing the movie, but The Revenge makes sure to remind you of the old Chief Brody as many times as possible. For one, son Sean has followed in his father’s footsteps and taken a job with the Amity Police Department. Also, this movie flashes back to the original film as much as possible, as if to remind you that, yes, this series was good once. Lastly, there are little memorials to Chief Brody all over this film. The police department even made sure to hang up a nice Roy Scheider headshot.

Then things take a sharp turn for the downright ugly. Sean goes out to sea to fix a buoy, but in the process has a shark bite his arm off and eventually swallow him whole. This comes as quite a shock to the Brody family, except for Ellen. You see, she’s convinced that this shark specifically tracked down Sean and killed him because he was a descendant of Chief Brody. Of course, everyone else in the movie thinks she belongs in the loony bin, but the film then decides to validate her point of view for the rest of its running time. That’s right. The central premise of Jaws: The Revenge is that a friend or relative of the shark from the original Jaws has decided to track down all the remaining Brodys and kill them as… REVENGE!!! This is absurd enough when we’re simply dealing with the Amity Island scenes, but then Ellen Brody decides to travel to the Bahamas with her elder, alive son Michael (Lance Guest). All seems well enough, but then the same shark shows up there as well and begins going after all those that have Brody blood in their veins.

… Let’s review, shall we?

I’m guessing most of you have seen Spielberg’s Jaws. Let’s assume that film takes place in 1975, which is the year it came out. Spoiler alert, but that film ends with Martin Brody killing the villainous shark and then swimming back to shore. Now, let’s be generous to Jaws: The Revenge and ignore the events of the two other sequels. If we threw those into the mix, then this film would look even worse. Anyway, what this film is suggesting is that after the end of the first installment, word got back to Shark Base that Daddy was killed in action while doing some hunting off the coast of Cape Cod. Not knowing the circumstances, I’m assuming Shark Base got all the best investigators they could on the matter. They eventually came back with the information that there’s this police chief on Amity Island that killed Daddy. His name: Martin Brody. This means that a young Daddy, Jr. heard this information and decided to devote his life to avenging the death of his father. I’d imagine he hit up the shark gym and beefed up so that when he went back for revenge twelve years later, he would be able to wipe them out quickly.

Well, it turns out when he gets there that Martin Brody has already died. I’m assuming he read this in the Shark newspaper. “Well, this is unsatisfying,” he undoubtedly thought. “I come all this way to kill some Brody and he’s off and died of a heart attack? This won’t do.” As a result, he decides to take out his anger on any other Brodys that come out to sea. This would require some waiting, but as soon as Sean came out on his boat he could smell that Brody blood a mile away. He attacked, and his vengeful quest had begun.

Let’s pause from the flaws in the plot to discuss the filmmaking of director Joseph Sargent and editor Michael Brown. This first shark attack on Sean is put together so shoddily that you’d think they didn’t even watch Spielberg’s film. There is some splashing, and then several quick, incomprehensible edits that show the audience a whole lot of nothing. It is simply chaos, and that is supposed to pass for excitement. Instead, the reaction on our part is anger. More on Sargent’s questionable decisions later, but I think it’s important to note just how inept the craft of this movie is along with the story.

Anyway, after Sean is eaten, Ellen and her family decide to fly down to the Bahamas for a nice holiday vacation. The vengeful shark knows they have flown away because in his off time, I’m assuming he studies air traffic patterns. He then decides to follow them down to the Bahamas, and he does it quickly because he makes the 1500-mile journey in just a few days. This, along with the fact that the average speed of a shark is about 5 miles per hour, makes this trip an incredible feat. But his thirst for revenge will not be denied. He will not rest until every member of the Brody family has passed through his digestive system, even if that means swimming to the Bahamas at light speed.

Meanwhile, on the human side of things, Ellen meets a very nice man named Hoagie (Michael Caine) who starts to woo her and take her out to see the Bahaman sights. This is all while Michael Brody is studying the ocean alongside his friend Jake, who is played by Mario Van Peebles with the most over-the-top “yeah, mon!” accent possible. While out studying, they run into our old friend the Great White and decide that maybe they should study it instead of freaking out and running for the hills as they should. They remain silent; that is until the shark takes out an innocent woman on a banana boat.

All this leads up to the endless barrage of errors that is the final sequence, which deserves a place in some sort of inept filmmaking hall of fame. I’m not even sure where to begin. There are the special shark effects, which are laughable and consistently look fake. (This could be a result of Sargent’s decision to show the shark at every possible moment, as opposed to Spielberg’s film, which almost never shows the shark.) There’s the moment in which Michael Caine is pulled out of the water, yet appears to be completely dry outside of a sweaty forehead. There’s the fact that when the shark emerges from the water, it roars like a freaking lion. Of course, as I have recounted above, this was a pretty elaborate journey for the shark to get where he is now. Considering all he had to learn and understand, I’m surprised he hasn’t developed a capacity for speech, let alone roaring. It wouldn’t have been much more outlandish for him to come out of the water screaming “Me want Brodyyyy!!!!”

Now, at last, the coup de grace: the death of the shark. Jaws: The Revenge is infamous for its two different endings, both of which are special in their own way. I have found them both online and placed them below for your viewing pleasure. First is the original ending, which is the ending that is used for all television broadcasts. The second is the ending that they ultimately used in theaters and can be seen on most DVD and home media releases. (The first clip has all you need. For the second clip, click that random picture for the video to appear and then skip ahead to 3 minutes in for the, ahem, explosive part.)

Now, neither of these endings makes a whole lot of logical sense, but at least the first one seems to exist in a somewhat realistic universe. Yes, it assumes that sharks have the ability to essentially stand up on the surface of the ocean, and that freaking roar is still there, but at least when Ellen runs into it with the boat the result is somewhat reasonable. In the second ending, the shark simply explodes as soon as it’s touched by the boat. By this logic, our fingers would burst every time we get a splinter. Both clips also feature flashbacks to the climax of Spielberg’s original, which indicates that perhaps the filmmakers didn’t have the utmost confidence in their product. “Well, this stinks. Let’s remind them of that awesome moment from the first movie and then that will then render this moment awesome. Anyone? Bueller?”

I will admit that the central flaw in the Jaws series is that there isn’t a problem that can’t be solved simply by standing at least five feet away from the shore. Yet Spielberg’s first film was a perfect example of how to make such a conflict believable; there is genuine reason for people to go in the water. As a contrast, Jaws: The Revenge never makes a compelling argument for these people to keep going back in the water. Everyone has mush for brains, and they simply perform the tasks that the film asks of them. This is a movie that asks us to believe that Roy Scheider’s character died before the events of this movie because he was afraid of shark attacks. That’s right: apparently he would wake up in the middle of the night, turn to his wife and say “Hey, remember that shark I killed back in ’75? Well, what if it had a family? Do you think they’ll come after me? THESE ARE THE THINGS THAT KEEP ME UP AT NIGHT, ELLEN!” In real life, such a thought would never cross a sane person’s mind.

Of course, Jaws: The Revenge is not a movie about sane people. I’m not entirely sure it’s a movie made by sane people. It ignores just about every rule of good writing and filmmaking, but it also makes the vital mistake of misunderstanding what makes nature so terrifying: it has no motivation. In the original Jaws, the shark killed whatever was around to eat without thinking. In this film, the shark specifically is out for a four-course meal of Brody and nothing else. I think we can all agree that one of these scenarios is slightly scarier than the other.