Released: July 1987

Rated PG-13

Run Time: 89 Minutes

Director: Joseph Sargent

Distributor: Universal Pictures

Genre: Horror/Thriller

Cast:
Lorraine Gary: Ellen Brody
Lance Guest: Michael Brody
Mario Van Peebles: Jake
Karen Young: Carla Brody
Michael Caine: Hoagie
Judith Barsi: Thea
Mitchell Anderson: Sean Brody

Back in 1975, then up-and-comer Steven Spielberg unleashed one of the greatest thrillers of all time: Jaws.  It scared the hell out of everybody.  Anybody you talked to back then and even today can tell you that Jaws is the reason why they didn’t go into the water, whether it was a lake or the ocean.  Funny thing is, is that you didn’t even see the shark until towards the end of the movie.  Spielberg was forced to take a “less is more” approach, due to the fact that the mechanical shark was not working.  As a result, we have an absolutely phenomenal and intense thriller.  Apparently somewhere along the way, some genius saw the immense success of Jaws and thought, “what about a sequel?”  Sequels were not really the thing during the 70s, with the exception of the Planet of the Apes franchise.  So, it was still a relatively new idea.  Jaws 2, directed by Jeannot Szwarc, hit audiences in the summer of 1978.  It was okay for a sequel, but without the deft hand of Steven Spielberg at the helm, it didn’t even come close.  In 1983, Jaws 3-D, the first 3D entry in the series, hit theaters to very mixed reactions.  As far as I’m concerned, Jaws 3 is the very definition of a B-movie.  It embraces that title and runs with it.  In 1987, we get our final film in the franchise:  Jaws: The Revenge.  Oooh…sounds dramatic doesn’t it?  “The Revenge!”  It’s widely considered by many to be one of the worst movies ever made and easily the worst film in the franchise.  Well, I’m here to tell you why Jaws: The Revenge is the GREATEST worst movie EVER!!!

The film opens on the week before Christmas and Deputy Sean Brody is tasked with removing a piece of wood from some piece of equipment in the harbor of Amity.  As he attempts to free the piece of wood, he’s attacked and eaten by a Great White shark.  Afterwards, Michael Brody, the older brother of Sean and Ellen Brody’s eldest, flies in from Jamaica to attend the funeral.  During a dinner scene, Ellen seems to get it in her head that her family is being deliberately targeted by a Great White.  What is it?  The Shark Mafia?  Anyway, the rest of the family flies down to Jamaica with Hoagie, the pilot.  Ellen still seems to think that the shark is after her.  I can’t help but wonder who approved the script for this thing.  I thought Jaws 3 was silly.  This is just plain bonkers!  Do you mean to tell me that a Great White shark had deliberately followed the Brody family from Amity Island all the way to Jamaica?  I’m at a loss for words at how ridiculous the script is.  This got made and released into theaters!  Not only that, there are moments in the film where Ellen has flashbacks….to events she did not witness.  Oh, and we can’t forget the dream sequences.  You know, the things that every other fucking horror movie has done in the past.  Not just one, but TWO.  There is also a moment when Ellen is talking to Hoagie at the same time Michael and Jake’s boat is attacked by the shark.  She immediately seems to sense the attack.  Does she have some sort of psychic connection to the shark?  Is her Shark Sense tingling?  The writing in this film is awful.

Let’s talk about the acting.  Surprisingly, it’s not awful.  Everybody does a surprisingly decent job considering the material they were given.  Mario Van Peebles is pretty entertaining as Jake, even though he really butchers the Jamaican accent.  Lance Guest is not a terrible actor.  He was actually pretty good in The Last Starfighter.  Lea Thompson, who was in the Back to the Future films is pretty likable as Carla, Michael’s wife.  The real standout of the film is Michael Caine.  He plays Hoagie, the pilot with a sandwich for a name.  God, I can’t even write his name with a straight face.  Every is mostly disposable.  There’s a reason why Lorraine Gary quit acting for good, and the movie is Jaws: The Revenge.  I don’t why she decided to come out of retirement for this movie, but she quickly went back into retirement after the film was released and I don’t blame her.  Her performance was scatterbrained, but it was mostly over-the-top hysterics.

Since this is a Jaws film, let’s discuss the shark.  Half the reason the original film worked, was because we couldn’t see the shark.  That made things a lot more intense.  Here, they show the shark in all it’s “glory.”  Where’s the suspense?  We know what the shark looks like now, so we have an idea of how it attacks.  Let’s not forget the fact that the shark spends a great deal of time OUT of the water.  Really?  Oh, you wanna know the best part?  During the final battle with the shark Jake and Mike use these little electronic devices to give the shark electro-shocks.  This apparently has the effect of having the shark jump out of the water…..and it roars….like a lion.  Last time I checked, sharks couldn’t roar because they have no vocal cords or lungs for that matter.  They’re fish, they have gills.  Oh and let’s discuss the ending as well.  Both of them.  You know, I generally don’t like spoiling the end of movies, but this is a very special case.  See, there were two endings that were filmed for the movie.  Both had Jake getting nabbed by the shark, but in one the releases, when Ellen rams the shark with the boat, the shark EXPLODES.  The filmmakers also had the audacity to literally rip the exploding shark from the original film.  Rather than continue to explain, I’m going to show you both endings.  One was for the international release, the other one was for the theatrical and was actually the better ending, oh and this clip will show you the shark roaring:

Aside from all that, there a lot of continuity issues.  The most famous of which is when Hoagie is attacked by the shark in his plane, which he crash-landed, he climbs into the boat and his shirt is completely dry.  There’s a lot of issues like that throughout the entire film.  One of the few things that the film manages to get right is the music.  It reworks John Williams’ signature theme and makes it a bit more grand.  We can thank Michael Small for that.  I actually really like the music for Jaws: The Revenge.

I’ll be honest:  I loved this movie when I was a kid.  That was back before I knew anything about screenplays and scripts and having things make sense.  While the film still doesn’t make any sense, I still have a soft spot for it, despite how bad it is.  It really is bad.  There’s only a small handful of things that are good about it.  The rest of it is just plain terrible.  Of the sequels, I chose to review this one first, because its awfulness was the stuff of legends.  There aren’t a whole lot of movies that manage to get nearly everything wrong, but The Revenge does an admirable job of getting almost everything wrong.  This is a movie that is most fun when you can poke fun at it.  It deserves a Riff Trax/Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment, for sure.  I loved Jaws: The Revenge as a kid, but as an adult, I find it completely fascinating.  It is something to behold, that’s for sure.

Final Recommendation: Grab some alcohol, grab some friends and point and laugh.  4/10.

Released: June 2017

Director: Michael Bay

Rated PG-13

Run Time: 149 Minutes

Distributor: Paramount Pictures

Genre: Science Fiction/Action

Cast:
Mark Wahlburg: Cade Yeager
Anthony Hopkins: Sir Edmund Burton
Josh Duhamel: Colonel William Lennox
Laura Haddock: Vivian Wembley
Peter Cullen: Optimus Prime(Voice)
Frank Welker: Megatron(Voice)
Erik Aadahl: Bumblebee)Voice

It seems as though 2017 will be known as the year of the number 5.  Why?  Because of the amount of movies that are in their 5th iteration.  In January we had our 5th Underworld film: Blood Wars, then last month we had Pirates of the Caribbean 5, and now we have a 5th Transformers movie.  Why?  Because of this: $.  Don’t get me wrong, I get why sequels are made; it’s a business.  If you have movie that performs extraordinarily well, why wouldn’t you try to duplicate that success?  I absolutely would.  I’m going to discuss this particular point in another post, but one of the reasons why certain franchises shouldn’t be extended past a certain point is that they stop being fresh.  They stop being original and keep rehashing older ideas.  Certain franchises like Star Wars have a lot to draw from, so I don’t see that ending any time soon.  It’s becoming increasingly clear that Transformers and Pirates of the Caribbean are swiftly running out of ideas.  I guess it comes down to the writers who end up not having a lot to offer.  So, what does Transformers 5 have to offer?

In the Dark Ages, King Arthur and his Knights are losing a battle against the invading Saxons.  Struggling to hold on while Merlin searches for an ancient weapon that will help them win the war.  It turns out that this ancient weapon is a group of Transformer “knights” who lend Merlin their staff so that Arthur can win the war.  1600 Years later, Transformers are on the run from the planet’s governments, except Cuba, and more keep arriving day by day.  It appears that this staff is the key to reviving the Transformers’ home planet of Cybertron.  Seeking to destroy his creator, Optimus Prime lands on Cybertron and is captured and brainwashed by Quintessa, the creator of the Transformers.  If you think that doesn’t make any sense, whatsoever, you’re not alone.  This movie’s story is so convoluted, I can’t make heads or tails of it.  It’s not the good kind of convoluted, either.  They’re re-writing Earth’s history in a far more blatant fashion than in the previous films.  There is far too much going on than what is needed for a Transformers movie.  It never needed to be complicated.  It’s Autobots vs. Decepticons.  What more do you need?  Apparently, the writers decided it would be cool to draw on the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, as well as bringing Unicron into the mix.  Unicron, I get.  Absolutely.  I’ve been wanting for this to happen for years.  But we won’t see Unicron in full until the next movie, if there’s a next movie.  But bringing King Arthur into the mix?  There was no need for that.  It didn’t really add anything new.  It’s just best not to go into a movie like this expecting a decent story.

Since this is a Michael Bay movie, you really can’t expect Oscar-worthy performances.  You won’t get them.  It would have been one thing if these characters were people that you cared about, but the way they are written, kinda makes them…..there.  Honestly, I had no emotional connection to any of the characters on the screen.  Most of them were irritating.  Mark Wahlburg and Josh Duhamel were the only actors that actually managed to be somewhat convincing.  Anthony Hopkins was a hoot to watch however.  Everyone else was forgettable.  As for the robots?  That’s a much better situation.  Frank Welker returns to voice Megatron, and that is totally awesome.  Peter Cullen is and always has been Optimus Prime.  Nobody else has that kind of a commanding voice.  If there was an issue with the voice acting, it’s with the casting of Omar Sy as Hot Rod.  Giving Hot Rod a French accent was a bad idea.  I’m not knocking Omar Sy for that, he did pretty well, but Hot Rod is NOT French.

If there’s one thing that Michael Bay is truly known for, is action.  This guy knows how to blow shit up.  He’s had over twenty years to perfect the art of destruction and it is truly on display here.  Transformers is a fairly action-packed movie, but thankfully, it’s action that you can see.  Bay has thankfully moved away from the whole hyper-active editing that he’s usually known for.  For these enormous set-pieces, you can’t really do that kind of editing.  The opening battle sequence between the Britons and the Saxons is truly epic.  It’s explosive and you have two massive armies colliding.  Awesome.  I mean that, it was pretty cool.  In fact, most of the action in the film is pretty damn good.  There’s a lot of it, so you’re never bored.  If you can ignore the nonsensical story-line and just come for the action, there’s plenty to love here.  The CGI and effects are simply astounding.  The last act of the movie is absolutely bonkers.  I will say this for Michael Bay:  When he wants to go big, he goes BIG!  He’s always been about large-scale action, and he delivers in spades with this one.

Unfortunately, all the action in the world can’t really hold up a movie that’s bogged down by an needlessly complex story with substandard characters and fairly lousy writing.  Yeah, the action’s fantastic and the movie’s not boring, but there’s nothing here that we haven’t seen before.  After seeing movies like Logan and Wonder Woman that have fantastic stories, characters AND action, it’s a bit of a let-down to see a big movie that’s overly reliant on action.  Now, to be fair, Michael Bay is no idiot; he knows that his movies make money, and he’s got fans.  Truth be told, I’m one of them.  I love how he directs big action sequences.  But until he can learn to hire writers that can deliver compelling story-lines and characters, all that he’s going to deliver is an action movie that’s big, loud and messy.  Most of the time, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but today’s audiences are a wee bit more complex than that.  What worked ten years ago, doesn’t necessarily work today.  I enjoyed it, personally, but the all the negatives bog down what could have been a truly stellar movie.

Final Recommendation:  Sticky-shoe theater.  7/10.

Released: June 1975

Director: Steven Spielberg

Rated PG

Run Time: 124 Minutes

Distributor: Universal Pictures

Genre: Horror/Thriller

Cast:
Roy Scheider: Chieft Martin Brody
Robert Shaw: Quint
Richard Dreyfuss: Matt Hooper
Lorraine Gary: Ellen Brody
Murray Hamilton: Mayor Larry Vaughan

There have been many landmark movies released since the invention of the motion picture; far too many for me to list here.  However, the 1970s was one of the biggest decades ever for the medium.  It had some of the most spectacular ever made.  It also saw the advancement of cinematic technology:  Stuff that people had never seen before in movies.  Some of the biggest movies ever made were released during this period.  Movies like Alien, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Patton, Apocalypse Now!, The Godfather, Rocky, and the biggest event of them all, Star Wars.  These movies ushered in a new golden age of film-making.  They inspired film-makers and film-goers alike across the globe to pursue careers in the industry, or to write about the industry or just go see movies.  Considering that the Vietnam War was a very sore spot for most people during that time, movies were a way for a lot of people to temporarily forget the war for two hours.  While the movies that I just listed are fantastic, one of the movies that came out in 1975 was one of the most influential and terrifying movies ever released:  Jaws.

This is not going to be one of my typical reviews where I discuss the story first and start from there.  This is going to be more of a celebratory look at one of cinema’s greatest achievements in film and the film that basically launched Steven Spielberg’s career as a director.  There’s a number of reasons why this movie works so well.  For one: The story is minimal.  It’s basically about a shark terrorizing people.  That’s about as simple as a plot as you can get, but it works.  It works because it’s not necessarily about the animal itself, but rather the people who are forced to deal with the shark, which is a Great White.  The best films are often character-driven.  It worked for Star Wars, Alien, and Rocky.  That’s the best way to get people invested in a film, to make them care about the characters.  If you care about the characters, you want them to survive, even if they actually don’t.  The characters in Jaws are some of the most memorable characters in cinema history.  Why?  They’re well-written, well-rounded and handled realistically.  However, it’s the actors that really give them life.  Roy Scheider plays Chief Brody, a former New York cop who has basically retired to the island of Amity.  He’s the every-man, he has a fear of the ocean, which makes his situation very…unusual.  Richard Dreyfuss plays the affable Matt Hooper, who has been brought in to investigate a possible shark attack.  I love the way Mr. Dreyfuss portrays hooper.  The character is very earnest, slightly arrogant, but a decent person.  Dreyfuss portrays that very well, while also giving the character a very nihilistic sense of humor.  The real standout of the film, and most people will agree, is Robert Shaw as Quint.  If there was a character and performance that helped define a movie, it’s Quint.  This guy is a very colorful shark hunter that’s not afraid to put people in their place.  The relationship between the three characters seems antagonistic at first, but over the course of the movie, they learn to work together to bring the shark down.  Even the side characters like Ellen Brody and Mayor Vaughan are very memorable for different reasons.

The acting is fantastic, but let’s talk about how the film starts.  The opening to Jaws is one of the most iconic and terrifying scenes that you will see in any movie.  Seeing poor Chrissy get thrashed around by a shark that you don’t see, by the way, is one of the most blood-curdling scenes ever made.  That scene alone made people think twice about going into the water.  That also brings me to one of the most effective things about Jaws.  You don’t see the shark until towards the end of the movie.  That wasn’t necessarily the intention, but the shark that they had built for the movie was malfunctioning, so Steven Spielberg had to find a way to film around that issue.  However, because the shark malfunctioned, Spielberg managed to create an experience unlike any other.  You know the saying, “less is more?”  I think the film would have been far less effective had the shark prop been working as intended.  Jaws proved that you didn’t need to actually see the shark to scare the hell out of you.  People’s imaginations did that for the film-makers.  That’s the mark of a great film and great film-maker.  Also, for a movie that was rated PG, it pulled no punches.  Nobody was safe, and the scene were the young boy was killed by the shark was horrific.  The body count wasn’t particularly high, but it didn’t need to be.

If there was ever a movie where music was important, it would be Jaws.  John Williams’ theme for the film is easily one of the most iconic movie themes in cinema and music.  Even if you had never seen Jaws before, you know that theme like the back of your hand.  The way the music was used was extremely unique.  Because the shark wasn’t working the way it was supposed to, they used a combination of music and camera-work to get the audience on the edge of their seats.  It was used to make it seem as if the shark was coming after you.  The theme has been used and parodied in so many movies, yet it doesn’t dampen the effect that it has on audiences.  Kids across the world would imitate the them while they were playing in the pool, chasing their siblings and friends around.  It’s so memorable and yet it’s so simple.

Jaws is one of those rare movies that I can’t really find a problem with.  I guess if I had to find one negative about the film is the fact that the film got sequels.  Three in particular, and none of them were particularly great.  Jaws was lightening captured in a bottle.  It has certainly inspired film-makers to try and attempt their own unique spin on the kind of movie that Jaws was.  Every great movie has its knock-offs and Jaws is no different.  Aside from the sequels, we got Piranha, Up From the Depths, and Alligator.  People have been making shark movies for nearly 40 years, trying to duplicate the success of Jaws.  Sadly, very few came close.  The best shark movie since Jaws was The Shallows from 2016.  But that film took a very different spin on the genre, and it worked well enough.  That being said, Jaws is still the king of shark movies and it always will be.  42 years after the film’s release, it still has power.  I have a co-worker who refuses to see the movie, because she’s scared of sharks and Jaws is responsible for that.  It’s remarkable how effective the film still is after all this time.  The characters, the acting, the direction, music and everything else in between has helped Jaws become one of the greatest movies ever made.  I daresay, that despite production issues, Steven Spielberg has crafted a perfect movie.  Spielberg has since gone on to make some of the greatest movies ever like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., Indiana Jones, and Saving Private Ryan, and it all hinged on the fact that the shark wasn’t working.  It’s funny how small quirks like that can make a world of difference.

Jaws paved the way for film-makers like George Lucas, Eli Roth, Steven Soderburgh, and many others to make their own mark on the film industry.  I’m not entirely sure that we would have had the movies that we have without it.  42 years later, Jaws is still scaring people out of the water.  It’s great, but it’s also bringing attention to the natural world, and making people more curious about sharks.  The film has done so much for movies and everything, that I can’t give it a score.  It’s that damned good.  If you haven’t seen the film, do yourself a favor and go see it right now.  If you have seen it, go see it again.

Final Recommendation:  What’re you waiting for? Go see the movie!