Its bark's worse than its bite (Jaws 3-D (DVD))

Member Name: bilbob20

Product:	Jaws 3-D (DVD)
Date:	11/08/09 (26 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Dennis Quad's alright

Disadvantages: Complete dross

I wasn't even going to bother reviewing this one. I watched it recently purely as an exercise in completion, having already watched 1, 2 and preparing myself for a revisit to The Revenge. The first thing to say about Jaws 3 is that it is no longer presented in awful 3-D. Hollywood had a thing about that in the 80's, tagging the (mostly) useless effect to at least one sequel in every rubbish series. It seemed to be a gimmick that proudly announced "This film is barely worth the 90 minutes you will pay to sit through, so here's something to at least make it worthy of your entry fee". Without the effects, this film is merely an exercise in how to reduce a brilliant film to sloppy seconds whilst thrusting a huge shark and some cardboard 2 dimensional characters directly at the audience. Strange that it should be called 3-D(imensional) at any rate.

This film first found itself at the cinema in 1983, which was 5 years after the first sequel. That it took them five years to come up with something so diabolical should have told the filmmakers that it wasn't worth making. The action shifts to Florida where a now grown up Michael Brody is lauching his own deep sea world. What the hell is this families obsession with all things underwater. You would think they'd had their fill of sharks and all things watery. However, giving the film the benefit of the doubt, a shark finds its way into the vicinity of the foundation and is soon terrorising dolphins and anything else in its wake. In similar fashion to films 1 and 2 (and 4 as it happens) nobody is aware of the shark's presence until a body turns up. Then its all mayhem to the forefront as the hero of the film attempts to save himself, his cronies and his business.

The film's one memorable sequence is when the great white goes ballistic and hammers into a tunnel with people running through it. A far cry from the quality of the original, or even the not-so-great second film, its hard to pinpoint anything remotely reminiscent of a plot. Using technical gadgetry wasn't exactly genius, but it at least attempted to lend something new to a dying beast. Without that effect in presence, we are left with a rather daft looking shark glaring at the screen as things are blown up, bled to death or simply wheeled out in a calamity. Joe Alves is an ineffective director, wasting what potential there is. The film would never have been a five star offering, but is reduced to a bloated mess where something simple and enjoyable should have been. Thsi one we cant blame on sequelitis, it would have stunk like a long dead swimmer even without the number attached.

The blame no more lies with the star of the film than it does with the number attached. Dennis Quaid, an inexperienced actor at the time, is charismatic enough to carry a film of this calibre. That he gets some ridiculous lines is down to script writers, and he does his best with the material. What's a guy to do when he is playing a character that keeps getting stalked by the supposedly mindless shark. Louis Gosset Jnr waste's his talent on this rubbish, whilst Lea Thompson and Simon McCorkindale are just about on par with the quality of the work. If there is a small resolve to proceedings, its that they never bothered to phone Lorraine Gary when writing the script. That bony necked hag would be just about all i could take of this nonsense. They saved her for a slightly more bearable script, just to keep things even.

I wouldn't recommend you buy this but it is available on DVD for about £2. Its a quid more than I paid for it on amazon a while ago, but go for your life. If you really want to purchase it and want something worthwhile, go for the odd 3 film set (featuring all 3 sequels but not the original film - work that boxset out) which will at least give you two more watchable shark films than this drivel.

Summary: If you want a decent sequel to Jaws, rent Deep Blue Sea instead