Final Bite

I finally completed not "Atlas Shrugged", as I'd like to be saying, but the "Jaws" film series. The object of this was to edifying myself on the content of the aforementioned films so that I could properly enjoy the "How Did This Get Made?" episode. Well, that worked out just like I hoped, but let me have my own say on the final entry, "Jaws: The Revenge". It is not a very good movie, but it is also not an unwatchable one.

The film begins by effectively undoing the events of the previous film. Rather than being an engineer, the elder Brody son is instead a marine biologist. Instead of doing whatever it was he was doing in Colorado, the younger son is a deputy for the Amity police, following in his father's foosteps. Both are involved with different women from the ones in the earlier film. Sure, people change jobs and significant others, but they don't tend to omit any comment when it is relevant to do so, as it would be in this case.

Without getting too bogged down in the plot, let's just say that the Brody family members (such as they currently are constituted)  are motivated to spend some time in the Bahamas, with the expectation being that no sharks will bother them there. That proves not to be the case, as a shark who kills the younger brother in Amity proceeds to follow them all the way to the Caribbean. Here, of course, is where most of the criticism of the movie can be found.

Of course, animals like sharks don't get revenge on behalf of their fellow sharks (or as the movie sometimes seems to think, on their own behalf from the grave). If they did, they probably wouldn't be able to traverse thousands of miles of ocean through inhospitable temperatures in the same time as a plane flight. Still, that's what the shark does, and it seeks its revenge on Martin Brody's widow, her sons, and those around them.

Lorraine Gary, who plays Ellen Brody, is not the best. Mario Van Peebles is also not great. Other members of the cast, including the guy playing the elder son and others, aren't the worst. I enjoyed watching Michael Caine, who is free and easy here in the way that someone working strictly for the money would be. That about covers the acting in this film, which prioritized other things (if it can be said that it prioritized anything).

There are reasons to watch this movie. There is some merit in the action sequences, which are absurd. I was dumbfounded when Caine, the pilot, lands a non-amphibious plane on the water in order to rescue Ellen Brody, who has taken a boat we have no reason to assume she can operate by herself in order to carry out some undefined plan to deal with the shark. The scene that prods the whole film into action is memorable as well, and there are other moments in between. If you fancy yourself an adventurous film viewer, I would say go for it.