A widowed Ellen Brody (Lorraine Gary) remains on Amity Island with her son Sean (Mitchell Anderson), while her eldest son Michael (Lance Guest) works as a marine biologist in the Bahamas. A few days before Christmas, Sean gets devoured by a shark as he goes out to remove a large log from a buoy. Devastated by the loss of Sean, Ellen becomes paranoid thinking that a shark is coming for revenge against her family. To help Ellen get over her fear, Michael takes her to the Bahamas to spend Christmas with his family where the water is too warm for sharks as they will be miles away from Amity Island. As Ellen finds love with a pilot (Michael Caine), Michael and his partner Jake (Mario Van Peebles) discover a great white during their research, forming the idea to study it for how rare it is to find a great white within these warm waters. It turns out that the shark they're trying to study was the same shark who killed Sean back at Amity, and has followed the Brody's to fulfill its revenge.
There is so much idiocy with the premise alone that leads to so many bigger problems, that I'm just going to start with the smallest problem first. As all the previous “JAWS” films took place in the Summer, this one takes place completely out of season by having it set in the winter during the holiday season. A part of what made the first "JAWS" film so appealing was for containing a good old-fashioned summertime feel that felt inviting for how well it captures the fun and beauty of the season. The only major drawback preventing anyone from feeling at ease was that there's a killer shark in the water. It was the comfort mixed with the terror that helped make "JAWS" one of the greatest horror films ever made. Christmas can suit that type of horror well too for how everyone associates the holiday of being wholesome, but having it revolve around a shark doesn't quite fit the setting. Swimming in the Northern parts of America isn't recreational at that season for how brutally cold the waters, so there's nothing to worry about keeping people out of the water. Midway through the movie as the characters are in the Bahamas, the Christmas visuals and environment that was represented strongly in Amity Island becomes an afterthought. The film pretty much treats itself more like a summer film than it does as a Christmas movie consequently making the setting more confusingly out of place.
Christmas, summer, who cares if the film is still cool to look at. Well, it certainly isn't that either. The first few noticeable errors that critics point out is how we seem to be seeing the surface from the point-of-view of the fin due to the number of times the shark is looking on top of the water as it swims. I guess it's questionable, but aren't we forgetting in the first film how the shark is occasionally shown to be swimming with its head sticking out of the water? Or that one point-of-view of shot of the shark hovering above little Mike when he's in the pond? I found this one to be a bit of a nitpick compared to the tons of other problems the film has. And frankly, I didn't think the film's opening scene was bad. It's shot effectively (if you can accept the shark gazing above water as it swims), the score sounds intensely grim indicating that there's going to be bigger things at stake, and it's nice to be back in Amity after being away from it in the previous film. As a matter of fact, the film completely ignores the third film's existence, by never mentioning the events at Sea World once. That's kind of a plus than it is a draw-back for how distant the third film felt from being a sequel. Returning to the Amity Community feels like a warm welcome after being on a horrendous vacation. The Christmas setting is puzzling, but it was still delightful to see the town covered with Christmas lights, as we watch the locals prepare for the holidays showing that it can be just as festive outside the summer. A bit later in the film some of Amity's famous locals appear sitting in a living room to comfort Ellen like Mrs.Taft (the woman on the beach who told Ellen she'll never be an Islander) and Mrs. Kitner (who also lost her boy to a shark), all played by their original actresses. The film had a promising start, until we see poor Sean get attacked.
After Sean's demise, the visuals than become incredibly boring for how gloomy it looks. I'm not against the idea of a depressing atmosphere in a "JAWS" movie that's supposed to be final the showdown. It would be an appropriate way to create tension between Ellen and the shark, but the scenes without the shark have the look of a television soap opera. It appears colorless, looks cheap, and doesn't do anything amusing with its cinematography and edits. The Bahamas that appears to have a little more life than the scenes of Amity after the attack, doesn't seem so festive for how focused we are on the drama than the shark and their surroundings. I was hoping things would look a little more exciting when the characters go out at sea, only to be disappointed for its lack of weight and size when capturing the thrill of hunting the shark as it moves at a pace as riveting as the previous sequels did. The music (the element that gave the first film its identity) doesn't provide much atmosphere either. It sounded awesome in the beginning, but after that point it sounds like the same score you've heard in the other films, with the same appeal as the score that the third film had. In other words it’s boringly generic. Though I wouldn't call it the worst score in the franchise because the opening theme did bring chills.
I can't even go as far to say that the effects are the worst in the franchise either. It's hard for the effects in the franchise to sink to a new low after looking at the laughable cheesy 3-D effects combined with a fake looking shark in the last film. All we get here is simply a shark animatronic that's so silly looking that the Universal Studios theme park wouldn't think of using it. It almost looks like that the shark in the second film somehow tried to cover his scar with make-up as it was taking a few hard jabs to the face while applying it. It looks incredibly cheap and beat-up. The way we see this thing swim doesn't help the shark's terrible design either. The shark's movements as he swims are so stiff that it's obvious that it's being pulled from underneath the frame. And seeing it chew on items makes it resemble more of a sock-puppet than a savage beast. The eels that Michael encounters when searching for the shark are far scarier than the actual monster he's searching for. On the bright side, the shark is given some special abilities, like having the power of leaving blood in the ocean whether before eating his first victim or diving in the water after chewing on nothing. The shark's most notable new skill among many is his ability to roar like a lion. Now to be fair, this isn't exactly the first time a sound was made from the shark's mouth even though it has no vocal cords. The shark growled a few times in the first film, and nobody says a word of it (and that film won the Oscar for Best Sound Mixing). Yet when the shark makes a noise here, everybody points fingers at it. So why does it get more attention here than the other film? Well knowing how the first film perfectly establishes terror and adventure, audiences became so captivated that details that wouldn't make sense are overlooked for how much these liberties add to the thrill of the experience. The ending, for example, wouldn't have left of an impact if Spielberg didn't choose to the break the logic of how air-tanks work to give us a finale that always leaves us cheering with every single viewing. So, noticing how the climax doesn't contain nearly the same kind of tension that was brought in the first film as we look at a goofy looking shark, naturally, it would be easier to spot these errors. And my oh my was watching this fake shark roar has got to be one of the top three silliest things that have ever come out of the franchise. It's not even subtle like the growls were in the first film, it's directly in your face where it looks cartoony. In fact, this sound effect was ripped right out of the Tom and Jerry cartoon "The Milky Waif" because the sound editor refused to create an original sound for the shark given its implausibility.
If you want real implausibility, let's take a closer look at the film's plot. The title and the characters suggest that this shark is out for revenge on the Brody family, however, there are so many things about the idea that doesn't make sense. There's no indication that it's any of the sharks from the first two films, and if that was somehow the case it's hard to swallow the fact that it managed to put himself back together after being blown to bits. So clearly this is a completely different shark taking revenge, but why does it want vengeance on the Brodys? Is it a relative to one of the sharks that Martin killed or a spouse, if so, how did it know who killed the other sharks? Do shark's secretly talk to one another? Was it a guppy that witnessed the murder of the last shark, hence why it took so long to take revenge? How does this shark even know about Martin's family? I'm still trying to figure out how this thing was able to track them down from Northern America to all the way to the freaking Bahamas? There are so many stretches with this ludicrous logic involving the shark, that having it under the control of a voodoo doctor (an out of place character that the original script intended to have) makes more sense than having it coming for revenge out of the blue. That's not to say the shark in the first film didn't take things personally too, but it made sense. After being hunted by three men on the boat who never wish to give him a moments peace of mind until its dead, it would seem plausible (if not realistic) for him to target the three people who are out on the middle of the ocean with the intention to kill him. Nevertheless, this isn't the first time when the series gave the shark a revenge scheme that made no sense. The shark taking revenge on Amity in the second film is as well established as the shark's reason here. It pretty much contains half of the questions that I (and many people) have about the shark in this film. If anything, a mother trying to rescue her son after being taken to Sea World in "JAWS 3-D" is more plausible than the shark's motive in the second film. The problem that this film has that makes it more distracting than it was in the second is how the shark targets a specific group of people it somehow knows all about and can track them down to the ends of the earth. That combined with the logical errors in the second film makes my head want to explode just by trying to rationalize it in a believable way.
You know what's dumber about the shark's revenge scheme, it lacks focus. It kills Sean, traces the family down like a bounty hunter, but after that, until the climax it seems to forget that it was taking revenge. Most of the time the shark focuses more on eating chum or chewing boats and subs instead figuring out ways to kill the family. There are many times when Michael would dive in the water to find the shark, and except for one occasion during a tedious underwater chase scene inside a sunken ship, it goes after people who are of no relation to the Brody's. It goes after Michael Caine as Ellen's son tries to swim across the ocean to save her. And when attacking a banana boat where Michael's daughter sits there helplessly across the shark, it attacks a random woman instead.
The absolute worst part of the shark's revenge plan is, it only kills two people! With such an intense title with a slogan indicating how personal this revenge is, it's not foolish to expect a higher body count than any of the past three films. This is supposed to be the final battle between the Brody's and the shark, things are expected to get messy and tragic. But instead, it has the lowest amount out of deaths in the entire franchise. That wouldn't be so bad if the deaths meant something. But aside from poor Sean, nobody in the family gets killed or so much as loses a limb. Not Michael, not his family, not so much as Ellen's lover for that matter. Michael's best friend Jake gets torn to shreds to the point where it seems that there's no chance that he'd still be alive. BUT GUESS WHAT?! It turns out that he somehow survived being chomped into a bloody pulp! He doesn't look that grotesque or hurt either, if anything apart from a few cuts he seems perfectly fine. Originally, Jake was supposed to die until there was a decision to shoot an alternate ending of him surviving five days after the film's release. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!
Maybe how the deaths are handled will make-up for its disappointing body count. It's a nice thought, yet not practical. Sean's demise has a good set-up that calls back to Chrissy's death in the original by having him scream for help as the carolers are too busy singing to hear him. Unfortunately, that gets ruined by terrible acting, sloppy editing, and the actor obviously using the oldest trick in the book to make it seem like he's missing his arm. The second death with the lady on the banana boat just happens with no real impact, if anything its quite laughable from the acting to the silly use of slow-mo (to be fair, it's sillier when it's used for Jake's encounter with the shark). There is one other "death" that happens in the film. Ellen for some reason is swimming in the middle ocean despite making it clear how she doesn't want her family near the water moments ago and gets attacked by the shark with the same annoying editing as Sean's death. Right from the very start, it's clear where this scene is going for how the film establishes Ellen's fear of the water. There is no way she would just go swimming without protest, and this film doesn't seem smart enough to go "Psycho" on us by killing the lead early in the movie. So, what does this scene lead up too; an annoying dream-sequence that's not scary or tells us anything different about what we already know of Ellen. And for some odd reason, the film provides another one, only this time it involves a random scene of the shark eating chum that suddenly cuts to Michael waking-up with fear.
The only memorable death the film offers is the shark's for how ridiculously stupid it is! Ellen rams the boat's broken bowsprit through the shark which causes him to spontaneously explode with no explanation. Audiences and critics were left baffled with why and how the shark would just explode from the impalement! I was too until I discovered an easy to miss detail that gives reason to this. Before the shark attacks Jake, he’s shown to be swallowing the device that fires electrical impulses. The reason why this detail is overlooked is that it isn't given much attention. In the first film, the air-tanks were built-up as being highly dangerous if they should ever roll loose on the boat. In the second film, the power cable is the source of power for the Island. Here, we get a device that Jake invented that we know little about it. We know it can stun the shark for a second, yet we never quite fully understand how lethal it is, or the dangers surrounding it for how much science mambo jumbo jargon is given to its explanation at a fast pace (it's not taking its time to sound smart). And unlike how you always saw the weapon that could kill the shark in the previous three films, we never see it again once the shark swallows it as it is shown very briefly. The scene focuses more on the shark attacking Jake than the shark swallowing the device that will kill it. I believe the reason why this wasn't given much attention was that there had already been another ending filmed. Rather than the shark exploding, he’s shown to be bleeding buckets of blood from the impalement of the boat's bowsprit before sinking to the bottom of the ocean with it. But audiences detested it so much that a new ending was filmed around the same time they re-shot the scene of Jake surviving. Now given its short amount time of changing such a big part of the movie at the last minute, it would seem likely that they missed giving Jake's Deus Ex Machina device a little more emphasis. I'm not saying the original ending was as incredible as the shark's demise in the first film, it just makes more sense when compared to the new ending as well as being way more visually appealing. Who doesn't want to see a giant shark squirt as much blood as "The Evil Dead" films do? It's better than watching an obvious miniature blow-up that's followed by shameful use of the stock footage of the shark sinking from the first movie.
Among all the dreadful things that this film has, what really kills it is the scenes involving the characters! I didn't think the characters in the series could get any worse after the third film. After all, we are spending time with at least one of the original stars from the first two films, it can't nearly be as bad as the characters we've met previously. And I really wish I was right too. The script did contain cameo appearances from characters like the Mayor, Matt Hopper, and Chief Martin Brody. But those ideas were scrapped. It's already disappointing that we don't see any of the other main characters from the franchise, however, the film's reason for why Martin isn't in the film is the poorest excuses I've ever heard in a sequel. The film states that he died from a heart attack in-between films which would've been reasonable, but to cater to Ellen's fear of shark's she claims that a shark gave him a heart attack through fear. Excuse me? You're telling me that the courageous Chief Brody who successfully killed two giant sharks lived the rest of his life in fear of sharks that caused him to croak?! If anything, he should be as fearless as Quint is towards them at that point! Why did Ellen have to make such an unbelievable claim that a shark was responsible for his death when the death of her son is traumatic enough for her to want to stay away from the water? The first death in the original script was going to happen to Martin, which would've have made for a depressing opening. But when Scheider was offered the appearance, he coldly turned it down stating "Satan himself could not get me to do Jaws part 4". I don't blame Scheider for not being in the film, given the quality of the sequels, it was a wise decision. He knew it was going to be chum from the very start, so why waste his time? It's just insultingly disrespectful to his character that the script decides to blame a shark for giving him a heart attack.
Now that Ellen is taking her late husband's place as the film's hero, she (like her husband) toughens as the film progresses. The concept of seeing a defenseless woman becoming a tough badass has been done well in other films, only Ellen will sadly not be remembered as one of them. Lorraine Gary was charmingly sweet as the caring Mother in the first two films, providing a performance so believable that her chemistry with her husband and sons feel natural. Yet as a leading character, she's a bore as Gary's performance isn't good enough for her to carry a shark film. When acting emotionally about the shark (unlike the first film at least) it feels very phoned-in, coming off as pretentious, and at times awkward for how weird and rushed her reactions can be. And when the film makes her be a badass, by giving her the sunglasses, having her acting tough when she's about to kill the shark, it's laughable for how old, sad, and amateurishly shot she is. Because of her hokey acting, as the shark does so little to her family to make her determination feel personal, there's little to no emotional connection to her character. If anything through this whole affair she spends most of the film just worrying to the point where you want the shark to just eat her, while making some rather stupid decisions. Like in the climax for instance. After finding out that the shark has finally come to the Bahamas to claim its "revenge", we get a silly shot of her looking like an old frail Terminator wearing a wig indicating that she has had enough of this. You'd think at this point she would act by getting help and gearing up to hunt and kill the shark like Martin did when he saw his son in shock from his near-death encounter. BUT NOPE! She steals Michael's boat, goes out on her own in search of the shark without any weapons, and angrily throws herself in front of the shark to be eaten! This is our strong leading lady?! Does she believe that sacrificing herself to the shark will prevent it from eating her family?! It's complete nonsense on every level! But not as nonsensical as giving her psychic powers allowing her to feel the shark's presence and having clear memories of other character's encounters with the shark that she did not witness! It's never explained why or how she got them; she just has them! And putting aside how stupidly out of place supernatural powers are for a "JAWS" film, they serve no purpose except as a lazy tool to create tension. It's no wonder why Gary retired from acting after this film (and when trying to making a comeback after an eight-year absence from doing Spielberg's comedy flop "1941").
To say that Lorraine Gary is the only person in this film who gives a bad performance would be unfair because practically everybody in this film does just as awkward of a job. Most of that has to do for how terribly paced the scenes are. These conversations feel so unnatural for how fast these scenes go, that the tension and connections you're supposed to feel for these characters feel very contrived. At times the characters themselves will go through quick mood swings by going from angry to feeling pity in almost no time. It doesn't help that the writing for these scenes is just as odd. You'll have characters talk about their sex life while a child is present on Christmas morning, Michael Caine blabbering stories for no reason, or see a serious conversation stop dead in its tracks just so Michael can randomly run. This may all sound funny, but it's just as dull as the acting was in the third film. The only real unintentional laughs come from the character's nonchalant reactions to the shark who are making it more obvious that the shark is fake. And speaking of which there is very little shark action in this movie unlike the others (as if the low body count wasn't a big give away). Most of the film is focused on the characters talking and sighing, which would be fine if the emotions were felt, except they aren't. And when the shark finally does enter the Bahamas, the film starts to get repetitive by cutting back and forth from a shark movie (that are shown brief except for an underwater chase scene) to a mellow dramatic love story, with neither one being entertaining.
The supporting characters are either too bland (Michael) or too annoying (Jake), however, I will admit that there are two performances that don't necessarily save the film nor are the characters themselves well written but are the most entertaining and charming part of the movie. Playing Michael's daughter is the late Judith Barsi who you may recognize her voice-work as Ducky in "The Land Before Time" and Anne-Marie in "All Dog's Go to Heaven". This film would be one of her last film roles before her tragic death of being murdered by her father the following year. It's delightful to see a voice actress from kids' childhoods in the 80s and 90s to be on-screen, while also heartbreaking for how devastating of loss it was. Whenever she's on-screen her wide innocence is so adorable that she never once comes across as unnaturally cute or annoying. Among all the actors in this film, she gives the most naturalistic performance. If there is one, and I mean one emotional scene in the entire movie, it's the scene when she mimics her Dad. It's a far from being a subtle rip-off of the classic scene with Martin and Sean in the first film (that this film generously features in a flashback to make it clearer), still, it's a very sweet moment none the less, that's given the right kind of direction. And what makes this moment sweeter is that Lance Guest would serve as one of Barsi's pallbearers at her funeral. Barsi's pretend Father was probably the closest to a real Father she ever had.
As Barsi manages to awe, Michael Caine provides the laughs. The character that Caine plays is as uninteresting as the characters, and his chemistry with Gary lacks any kind of emotional investment there is. The two don't develop a relationship, they just hook-up the next time they meet each other and that's it. Michael Brody suspects there to be something suspicious about him, but that goes nowhere. That's because there was originally a subplot of him smuggling drugs to the Island, which were shot and then deleted (I'm beginning to find the deleted scenes to be more interesting than the entire movie itself). But as boring as the character is, Caine shows little to no care about the film he's in that it looks that he might as well have fun with it than try to be as serious as everybody else is. He openly admitted to doing this film only for the money so he can go on holiday when filming and build a house. The only downside was that he wasn't available to accept his Oscar for "Hannah and Her Sisters", though he didn't seem upset about it. When asked about the movie his response was "I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific. Won an Oscar, built a house, and had a great holiday. Not bad for a flop movie." Now with that in mind, watching him acting in this film giving little effort with the drama is quite enjoyable where he gives a lively performance with a few funny lines (my favorite is how he tells Ellen to move on with her life). His best scenes are seeing what a maniac he is when he drives the plane, that makes him stupidly unlikable for how he's allowing to let his plane crash if Ellen doesn't drive, but I find the carefree personality of his character to be accurate to how Caine feels about making the film. Despite playing a character, Caine gives such an honest performance of how he feels about the movie that he might as well be playing himself.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
When being asked which "JAWS" sequel is the worst, the decision is greatly divided between the last two films. People hate the third film for being ridiculous with its setting and gimmick as it treats itself more like a stand-alone film than a sequel; while others hate the fourth film for being dull and slow-moving with little shark action. Though the third "JAWS" film has the worst effects and most forgettable score in the entire franchise, "The Revenge" is the worst. As silly, cheesy, and boring the third film was, it did at least manage to entertain more than the fourth film. It offered a unique location for a shark movie, colorfully tacky 3-D effects, and a few deaths that were creepy. This film doesn't have much to offer when it comes to entertainment value. It spends most of its time being a corny and bland romantic drama half of the time which drains out the fun even from a so bad its good standard. And the scenes with the shark are so far from any kind of scares or excitement as well as having little unintentional humor to make these moments funny, that they're forgettable (aside from a few moments). This film also contains writing that's worse than what any of the sequels came up with; an inconsistent tone; film-making so sloppy that it's not so much as amusing for how bad it is; a disappointing body count; awkward performances (with the exception of Barsi and Caine); and unappealing characters. The biggest offender of why I would consider it worse than "JAWS 3-D" is unlike how many people can just shrug it off as a shark movie disguised as a "JAWS" sequel for how little it has to do with the first two; this film makes it perfectly clear that it's part of the same universe, which only adds insult to injury than it does improve upon the failure of the previous movie. In that regard, I would rather have a bad sequel that had little to do with the original, than a bad sequel that acts as a continuation.
OVERALL THOUGHTS ON THE FRANCHISE
"JAWS" is a ground-breaking horror classic that hits all the right notes to such perfection. It was a B monster movie that Spielberg felt was destined to fail because of the shark hardly ever working, unknown to him that it was secretly working towards the film’s advantage by putting his skills as a director to the ultimate test. Thanks to the limitations of the shark, Speilberg was able to captivate audiences in suspense by always providing them a fearful presence of the beast by showing little of it with the aid of John Williams' iconic score. And when the shark did pop-out to attack, as faked as it looked at times, the terror involving the creature remained thanks to his superb direction. Plus having the film being backed up by characters who were likable and interesting through a strong cast when the shark's not present made the film just as entertaining as the scenes involving the shark are. It's a prime example of lightning that will never ever strike the same place twice. There had been tons of shark movies since then but not one has ever come close to recapturing the same amount of genius that the film that launched the genre brought, and its sequels are no exception.
The second film was close to being a decent sequel (despite some stupid moments) until the teenagers go out sailing in the second half where the film heads to mediocrity. The third film was worse and very outlandish for a "JAWS" film, but it's a memorable mess of a film. And the fourth film was a very uneventful experience that takes most of the problems that the sequels had to a giant leap of pure nonsense. As follow-ups to thee mother of shark movies, they're disappointingly dreadful that only get worse as they go along. But when judging these sequels as being part of a sea of shark movies, they're not the worst. There are tons of shark movies out there that are way less appealing than these films are. Many of them all happen to have the same exact problems that other shark movies have with its boring characters, god-awful acting, horrendous CGI, awkward humor, and containing no scares. They almost seem like the same films just with a different kind of shark. At least with the "JAWS" sequels, there was something to enjoy, as minor as most of the elements were. Some of the acting can be good, like Scheider and Barsi. There would be a few deaths or surprises that can be shocking if not as scary as the first film. And as laughably bad as the effects for the shark are, their more realistic when compared to the effects in so many other shark movies. The sequels are still a disgrace, yet I can't call these the worst shark movies ever made (though I would consider them to be some of the worst sequels ever made). If "JAWS" is the best shark movie ever made, then these sequels are some of the closest that a bad shark film will ever come to being close to good.
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