Movie Review – Jaws: The Revenge (1987)

“This time it’s personal.”

Everybody’s favorite giant killer shark returned for a fourth film in 1987 entitled, Jaws: The Revenge.  Although this is the fourth film of the Jaws movie franchise, Jaws: The Revenge skips over the material from Jaws 3-D and basically continues the story from Jaws 2.

Can Jaws: The Revenge live up to its predecessors and scare the audience out of the water?

Set about 15 or so years after the events in Jaws 2, Jaws: The Revenge begins on Amity Island.  Sean Brody is killed by the shark while trying to remove some debris in the water.  Traumatized at the loss of her son, Ellen Brody travels down to the Bahamas to spend time with Michael Brody along with his wife and daughter.  The shark follows her down to the tropical waters and stalks Michael Brody and his young daughter, Thea.  Ellen decides enough is enough and takes her fight to the shark, ending the battle with the beast once and for all.

Directed by Joseph Sargent, Jaws: The Revenge stars Lorraine Gary as Ellen Brody, the only main actor to reprise her role from the first two Jaws films.  Supporting her are Lance Guest as Michael Brody, Mario Van Peebles as Jake, Karen Young as Michael’s wife, Carla, and Michael Caine in the role of Hoagie Newcombe, a pilot who tries to romance Ellen Brody.

Jaws: The Revenge (1987) – (c) Universal Pictures

Jaws: The Revenge begins on Amity Island a few days before Christmas.  Police Chief Martin Brody died from a heart attack a while back (Ellen claimed it was from the stress and fear of the shark attacks), and Ellen Brody (Lorraine Gary) now lives with Sean Brody (Mitchell Anderson) and his fiancée Tiffany.

Sean Brody is a deputy sheriff and following in his father’s footsteps.  One night he has to go out on the water and clear some debris in the harbor.  While leaning into the water, Sean is suddenly attacked by a giant great white shark.  The shark rips off Sean’s arm and leaves him bloody and in shock.  Then the shark returns and finishes Sean, killing him and sinking the small boat.  Ellen Brody later goes to the morgue to identify her son’s body.

Michael Brody (Lance Guest) and his wife Carla (Karen Young) and their young daughter, Thea, fly up to Amity to attend Sean’s funeral.  Ellen is convinced that the shark targeted Sean on purpose and that Michael needs to quit his job as a marine biologist.  It’s a tearful process as the family and town says goodbye to the deputy sheriff.  After the funeral, Michael and Carla talk Ellen into joining them down in the Bahamas for a few days.

Jaws: The Revenge (1987) – (c) Universal Pictures

On the short flight from Florida to the Bahamas (there’s no way that small airplane flew between Amity and the Bahamas), Ellen, Michael, Carla and Thea meet Hoagie Newcombe (Michael Caine), the airplane’s pilot.  Hoagie has some fun and shows Thea how to fly the aircraft.  We also see that he has his eyes on Ellen Brody.

Just after arriving in the Bahamas, Ellen begins having nightmares of being attacked by a giant shark.  It’s as if she’s becoming psychic and able to connect her mind with that of the sharks.  Oh well.  Michael told her not to worry because the water in the Bahamas is warm and great white sharks like cold water.  It’s not like the shark is actually going to follow her to the Bahamas, swimming about 1,500 miles in a couple of days, right?  It would have to continuously swim about 21 mph to reach the Bahamas in only three days.

Jaws: The Revenge (1987) – (c) Universal Pictures

Life gets back to normal for Michael Brody.  He’s out in the ocean collecting data on sea snails with his partner, Jake (Mario Van Peebles), and their co-workers William and Clarence.  It’s not the most exciting of work, but the government is paying for their research and what information they do collect will help Michael in his pursuit for a doctorate degree.

Jaws: The Revenge (1987) – (c) Universal Pictures

Ellen Brody helps Thea build a sand castle on the beach when she suddenly stops and looks out towards the water.  It’s as if she’s detecting a strange presence.  There’s something out there, but what?  She resumes helping Thea with the sand castle when Hoagie rows ashore with a row boat.  He and Ellen start to get to know each other on the beach.  Meanwhile, Michael and Jake return to shore and Michael spies his mother with Hoagie.  He’s not happy about this mysterious man suddenly in his mother’s wife, especially with her current emotions following the loss of Sean.

Jaws: The Revenge (1987) – (c) Universal Pictures

Hoagie’s fling with Ellen continues and he takes her for a flight around the islands.  Like with Thea, Hoagie teaches Ellen how to fly the small aircraft.  She’s reluctant but quickly grasps the general concept of flying the aircraft.  Hoagie later takes Ellen to a street party to help her relax.

Jaws: The Revenge (1987) – (c) Universal Pictures

Out at sea, the massive great white shark startles Jake as he’s traveling underwater in a small submersible.  The shark eyes Jake but doesn’t attack him.  Instead, the shark tries to attack Michael up on the research platform.  It bites into the platform but fails in causing any serious damage.  Disgruntled, the shark swims away.  Michael convinces Jake not to mention the shark to his wife or mother, or Ellen will panic.  Even though they don’t tell Ellen, she had a psychic vision of the shark while it was trying to attack the research platform.

Jaws: The Revenge (1987) – (c) Universal Pictures

After the islands ring in the New Year, Jake helps Michael track the shark by building an electronic tracker that monitors the shark’s heart rate.  They bait the water with chum and attract only the great white as apparently no other sharks are in the Bahamas at that time.  The bait works and Jake is able to successfully attach the tracker to the shark’s skin.  It works and now they’ll know if the great white shark is in the area.

Jaws: The Revenge (1987) – (c) Universal Pictures

Back on the island, Hoagie continues romancing Ellen and she’s thrilled with his attention.  As life improves for her, Michael starts having nightmares about the massive shark.  He spends time thinking about it at the kitchen table with his daughter.  In a scene updated from Jaws, we see Thea imitate her father’s mannerisms like young Sean did with his dad.  Ellen sees this and it reminds her that both Sean and her husband are no longer alive.  She again asks Michael to quit his job and stay out of the water, but he refuses.

Jaws: The Revenge (1987) – (c) Universal Pictures

Michael is scuba diving again when Jake receives warning that the great white shark is back in the area.  It’s heading straight for Michael Brody.  Michael leaves the submersible and quickly swims along the ocean floor, trying to get away from the beast.  He slips into a shipwreck, but the shark somehow follows him into the sunken vessel.  The shark almost gets him but Michael makes it through a hatch and then quickly surfaces and climbs onto the research platform.

Jaws: The Revenge (1987) – (c) Universal Pictures

The next day, Carla’s sculpture is being dedicated by the mayor on one of the beaches.  She let’s Thea ride with one of her friends and her mother on an inflatable banana boat.  Carla and Ellen watch in horror as the shark suddenly attacks the banana boat, trying to grab Thea.  It misses and snatches a woman at the end of the boat instead, raising the death count in the Jaws movie to two victims.

Ellen is convinced that the shark wants to kill all the Brodys.  She steals Michael and Jake’s sailboat, Neptune’s Folly, and heads out into the water, intending to sacrifice herself to the shark and hope to end its rampage.  Maybe she forgot that the shark had yet to attack her and it would still continue to seek out Michael and Thea, and probably Carla, too.  But she heads out to sea and the shark finds her and follows her boat.

Michael returns home to find an angry wife and a daughter still in shock from the attack.  Carla becomes angrier when Michael reveals that he’s known about the shark for a couple of days and it’s also attacked him.  He and Jake head out in a small boat to find Ellen, but they run into Hoagie instead.  Hoagie has them join them in his small aircraft, and the three of them take to the skies to find Ellen Brody.

Jaws: The Revenge (1987) – (c) Universal Pictures

They spot Ellen as the shark is about to attack her on the boat.  Hoagie makes a low pass, distracting the shark and letting Ellen know that they’re there.  He then brings the aircraft around and makes a water landing by Neptune’s Folly.  Michael and Jake swim to shore as then the shark attacks the aircraft, presumably killing Hoagie.

Ellen is devastated at Hoagie’s death while his airplane sinks beneath the waves.  But he’s not dead.  There’s much joy as Hoagie climbs onto the sail boat and tells about how he swam away from the shark.  Jake and Michael head down to the cabin to quickly construct an electronic weapon to kill the shark.  While they do that, Hoagie and Ellen try to start the boat’s engine, but it’s having problems.  Why they didn’t use those massive sails to propel the boat is still a mystery.

Jaws: The Revenge (1987) – (c) Universal Pictures

Jake finishes and climbs onto the bowsprit of Neptune’s Folly.  The shark suddenly decides to attack Jake, making him the first targeted victim other than a member of the Brody family, and it makes a massive jump out of the water to snatch the man standing on the bowsprit.  Jake is able to jam the electronic explosive into the shark’s mouth before it grabs him and breaks off the tip of the bowsprit.  We see Jake struggling in the shark’s mouth as it swims underwater.

Now it’s time to kill the shark.

Michael uses the remote and starts attacking the shark with impulses, driving the shark wild with aggression.  Each electronic attack makes the shark jump out of the water and roar like Godzilla.  He continues attacking the shark as the boat closes the distance.  On the final attack, the shark leaps out of the water and Ellen rams the jagged tip of the bowsprit into the shark’s abdomen.  A split second later the electronic charge finally detonates, killing the shark.

Jaws: The Revenge (1987) – (c) Universal Pictures

Unfortunately, Neptune’s Folly is damaged during the final attack and everybody is knocked into the water.  The sail boat sinks instantly, making the survivors grab a hold of whatever floating debris they can find.  Ellen, Hoagie and Michael are all safe and sound.  And so is Jake.  Somehow he survived being caught in the shark’s mouth and razor sharp teeth, although he appears to be heavily wounded.  It’s hard to tell though because there’s no expression of pain on his face or in his voice.

They all survive the encounter with the shark and make it back to civilization.  Maybe they were rescued.  Hoagie did radio the boat’s position before he sacrificed his aircraft with the water landing.  Maybe they floated to shore.  Who knows?  It’s not important enough to be explained in the film.  Jaws: The Revenge ends with Hoagie flying Ellen Brody back to Amity.

FINAL THOUGHTS

So is Jaws: The Revenge any good?

Nope.  This film fails by a long shot.

For starters, we’re told by a marine biologist in Jaws 2 that these creatures do not seek revenge.  They don’t talk to each other, they don’t pass down memories of past events.  They just swim around, hunt and reproduce.

Forget about that logic and have a killer shark seeking its revenge against the Brody family in Jaws: The Revenge.  Let’s start with the shark and how it failed in this film.

The Shark

While the shark itself looked good in Jaws: The Revenge, the shark’s motions were completely unrealistic.  The swimming looked bad, the way the shark “sank” beneath the waves was terrible, the air bubbles rising from beneath the shark was just sloppy, and the shark magically rising and “flying” out of the water during jumping attacks looked absolutely horrible.  Don’t get me started about the shark “roaring” during its final scene!

The scene with the great big shark trying to follow Brody through the shipwreck was hilariously bad.  Not only could this great big and powerful shark not catch Brody while he was swimming with all his scuba gear, but the shark could somehow follow Brody through the shipwreck and squeeze through tiny passages.  Yeah, right.  How could the shark even follow Brody through the shipwreck?  Brody wasn’t cut or leaving behind a scent for the shark to follow.  If he was leaving behind any clues, those would have been absorbed by the numerous passages and the metal structure of the shipwreck.  Sharks have poor eyesight, anyway.  There’s no way it would have been able to track or follow a scuba diver through the maze of passageways.

In reality, the shark would have circled the shipwreck for a little while until, A) it got bored and left the area, or B) it found a new scent to follow.  All Michael had to do was sit and wait in the shipwreck until Jake could radio him that the shark had left the area.

The Plot

The concept of this shark seeking revenge against the Brody family was a terrible idea from the beginning.  For starters, this means that the shark is only targeting a few people, so that right there is going to keep the body count low in this film.  Officially, only two people were killed by the shark though you can argue that both Hoagie and Jake should have also been killed.

So if the shark is only interested in killing the Brody family, why did it attack and nearly kill Jake near the end of the film?  The shark did not attack Jake when he was underwater earlier in the movie.  Why did it change his mind and attack him later?

The beginning of the film was fine until we reached the point of Sean Brody’s death and his funeral.  Once Ellen Brody left for the Bahamas this movie sank faster than Neptune’s Folly.

First of all, the “psychic connection” between Ellen Brody and the shark was ridiculous.  Being traumatized and haunted by sharks does not give you a mind link to a new killer shark that wants to kill your family.  Something like that is known as poor story telling.

The same goes true for Ellen being haunted and having memories of incidents that her character never witnessed, such as Chief Brody killing the shark in Jaws or Sean Brody’s death in Jaws: The Revenge.

Special Effects & The Rest of the Film

The main theme for Jaws: The Revenge seemed to be the first three minutes of John Williams’s theme for Jaws and then repeated over and over again.  We hear a lot of the same music repeated during the introduction and end credits.

The “repeated” material was also quite evident in the scene with Thea repeating Michael’s mannerisms (in Jaws it was Sean repeating his father, not Michael) along with all of Ellen Brody’s flashbacks.  Between the repeated music and the scenes, perhaps we were given glimpses of what a quality film looks like versus this waste of time known as Jaws: The Revenge.

While the special effects were bad with the shark’s movements, the effects were really bad in the final scene with the shark’s death.  The impalement was interesting, but the explosion was not only confusing but also really messy on camera.  Without bothering to explain the event to the audience, all we see is a slow-motion clip of chunks of blood and water flying towards the camera.

We don’t actually see the shark’s body explode.  It’s just a mess of blood and water, like something you’d see in a low-budget film.

Jaws: The Revenge (1987) – the original ending

The original ending to Jaws: The Revenge just had the boat impale the shark as it jumped out of the water.  There was no explosion.  The broken bowsprit kills the shark, but the force of the attack rips the bow off Neptune’s Folly, resulting in its sinking.

The producers went back and changed the ending to that of the current one with the explosion.  But when they added in the explosion, they removed the scenes showing the bow breaking on the ship.  Not only was this newer ending extremely sloppy and bad on camera, but it also removed part of the plot and failed to explain how the ship sunk.  It’s no wonder audiences have been confused when you take away a critical plot element like that one!

The sloppy editing and shortcuts continue during the final scene when apparently Neptune’s Folly breaks open and sinks into the ocean.  One moment the passengers are being knocked into the ocean (off what looks like a tilted but stable sail boat), and the next (literally a few seconds in real time) the boat is already completely submerged.  There’s no shot of the ship actually sinking.  One moment it’s there and the next it’s gone, leaving only a few pieces of floating debris as a reminder.

The scene with the survivors in the water was clearly done in a Hollywood water effects tank.  All of a sudden there’s a noticeable change in the water style, the medium-sized waves are missing, and the horizon where the sky meets the water looks incredibly fake.  I read that the crew went back and filmed a new ending to the film, but they could have at least put a little bit of effort into making it look decent.

Speaking of the sail boat Neptune’s Folly, the actual movie prop used to be displayed in the Amity section of Universal Studios Florida.  This prop was removed when the Amity section of the park was closed for good on January 2, 2012 and later demolished.

Jaws: The Revenge (1987) – teaser movie trailer

As a whole, Jaws: The Revenge is clearly a movie sequel that should have never been created by this production team.  The plot is bad, the plot holes are numerous, the special effects are lousy, only two people are killed by the shark, and this film is one giant waste of time.  Yes, it does give a little more insight to the Brody characters since the main storyline left off at the ending of Jaws 2, but this movie fails as a whole.  Watch this film only if you want to see everything in the Jaws franchise.

Michael Brody – “Dad died of a heart attack!”
Ellen Brody – “No. He died from fear. Fear of that shark.”

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Ellen Brody – [to the shark] “Come and get me, you son of a bitch!”