Jaws 3-D (1983)

We seem to have hit a bit of a trend recently in the Worst Movie Ever Made quest with there being a slew of films; Exorcist II, Staying Alive, and now Jaws 3-D that all found themselves forever etched into the annuls of history as being one of "the worst movies ever made" largely owing to the fact that they were purely sequels of their much better, much more well known prior instalments. For me, Exorcist II still sadly tops that list as being the "worst sequel" as Staying Alive was maybe just marginally better, although Exorcist II in of itself was not objectively awful. It just... wasn't very good really. However there is a new contender that today enters the party in Jaws 3-D. The 3rd instalment with a gimmicky title intending to capitalise on the prevailing 3D 'technology' that was sweeping the planet at the time. To be honest with you, I've never quite understood the Jaws hype train. It's err... yeah... a fairly good movie to be fair. But it somehow retains this status as a franchise mega player and I don't quite get why? I guess it did kickstart the shark attack sub-genre of horror movies which has since become the bread and butter staple of mediocre movie house: The Asylum. So err... thanks Spielberg... but I sort of feel it gets a hell of lot more credit and recognition really that it kind of deserves? Especially for having x2 movies that *mild spoiler alert* both ended up regarded as the worst movie ever made... So as a result I'm kind of half interested, but not stupidly over-excited about finally getting round to watch this cos I'm not really brought in by the whole Jaws franchise thing. And not really massively into shark movies either if I'm being honest with you. But prepared to go into this with a bit of objective openness, and at least this time am a bit more familiar with the prior source material so can maybe judge it more fairly... or harshly... depending on how you look at it... than I maybe did Staying Alive.

Set some years after the events of the first 2 movies, Mike Brody (Denis Quaid) is currently Chief Engineer at Seaworld Orlando with his girlfriend and Senior Biologist Kay Morgan (Bess Armstrong). Fresh from launching the hotly anticipated "Undersea Kingdom" attraction within the park, during dress rehearsal a great white shark appears to find it's way into the central lagoon whilst pursuing some water skiers and immediately goes about unsettling the marine life within the park. Meanwhile, fresh from a break from college, Mike's brother Sean (John Putch) arrives at the park along with Adventurer and Filmmaker Philip FitzRoyce (Simon MacCorkindale), the latter being greeted at the park entry by owner Calvin Bouchard (Louis Gossett Jr.). Taking some much needed time off in anticipation of the big opening day coming up soon, Mike and Kay let their hair down in a bar which leads to Sean becoming much better acquainted with one of the water skier girls; Kelly (Lea Thompson) who asks Sean if he fancies a swim (as in in the ocean) to which Sean replies, "Nah I hate the ocean" in reference to the trauma he faced in earlier movies. Mike and Kay also share a moment referencing the prequel movies when in conversation Mike eludes to "the shark attack in Amity". And also announces to Kay that he's going to work in Venezuela pretty soon although it isn't revealed here how or why... The shark meanwhile begins chowing down on it's first victims! First a diver sent down to do some repair work, followed by 2 guys who break in to the resort to try and steal some coral. The following morning, when Shelby, the diver from earlier, doesn't show up at work or at home, Mike gets suspicious and he and Kay descend in a submersible to search beneath the surface of the lagoon. Whilst down there, they leave the sub to search a mock sunken sailing ship when they are attacked by the shark, but whisked away and lead to safety by 2 of the parks resident dolphins. No really. Learning that they now have a great white shark in their waters, Calvin is summoned back to the park, with his movie pal Philip FitzRoyce in tow. As the gang debate on what to do next with Philip suggesting they film the whole event of luring it out into the open and killing it and Kay suggesting they try to capture it and keep it in captivity. Calvin decides the latter is potentially the most profitable and the team set about capturing the shark, which after a bit of a hairy moment with Kay goes mostly according to plan and they snag the first and only great white shark in captivity. The launch of the Undersea Kingdom, by most accounts appears to be a great success, but Calvin makes the decision that he wants to put the shark out on display straight away, despite it not being ready yet. And owing to it being far too soon the shark ups and dies right in front a big crowd of people, despite Kay and staff's best efforts. To make matters worse, Shelby's corpse chooses the worst possible time to surface and in doing so terrifies a bunch of guests checking out the undersea tunnels. Mike and Kay take one look at the corpse and quickly realise that whatever killed Shelby is far larger than the shark they held in captivity... As Mike and Kay rush to Calvin and explain to him that a 35 foot long shark is likely loose inside their park, we see a incredibly large, and incredibly pissed off mother shark making it's way out of one of the filtration pipes and into the lagoon, terrifying diners in the submersed 'Neptune' diner! Realising they have a massive, unstoppable killing machine inside their waters, Calvin makes the call to close the park whilst Mike and Philip panicky and desperately race around the park trying get everybody out of the water. In the ensuing panic, the shark attacks various people, taking a nip at Kelly and injuring her leg with Sean making the decision to travel with her to the hospital. The shark meanwhile begins to wreak havoc on the underwater exhibitions, terrorising the guests trapped in the tube tunnels below the surface. With a big group of people temporarily trapped inside the tube network, Mike and the others quickly make plans to rescue them whilst luring the shark away from the trapped guests, with Mike's mystery transfer to Venezuela now apparently off the cards! Philip and his buddy Jack (P.H. Moriarty) dive into the water planning to lure the shark back into the filtration tube, which all seems to go to plan giving Mike and Kay the opportunity to dive into the water and fix the tunnel system so the trapped guests can be set free. However inside the pipe, Philip's guide rope snaps and unable to escape he is swallowed whole by the shark and crushed to death inside it's mouth. Not one to be contained by a simple metal gate, the shark busts it's way out before Mike and Kay have finished their work, and it immediately makes a bee-line for the pair. Managing to get out of the way just in time, Mike and Kay begin to evacuate as the dolphins make a return and distract the shark by attacking it. With the repairs seemingly complete enough, the trapped people are set free, but not content to rest on it's fins, the shark instead launches an attack on the underwater control centre, smashing the viewing window and flooding the room as Mike, Kay, Calvin and the others watch on paralysed with fear. With the shark trying to ram it's way into the room, Mike spots the corpse of Philip inside it's jaws, clutching a grenade in his hand, and after fashioning a hook, manages to pull the pin from the grenade and cause it to violently explode, spraying shark debris all over the screen and into the camera. 

Yeah... I can understand the reception for this one. I mean, it wasn't terrible but no, it wasn't very good either to be honest. I don't really find these shark attack genre films to really be that interesting anyway but it just felt like it was dragging and padding for time to lead up to the inevitable carnage that comes in the closing 3rd act of the movie. And unfortunately all of the bits that fill the gaps in between were just sort of average. Or below average really.

There was good few portions of the movie that were obviously produced in a fashion so as to cater to the 3D gimmick, which at the time I sure was fresh and cutting edge experience but it has aged poorly and all of those 3D visuals had this weird, surreal effect to them, like they were hyper-real and just looked hugely out of place with the rest of the movie. And anything not intended to form part of the 3d constructed scene just had this really blurry and really fuzzy outline that destroyed any detail. It looked like the movie had been processed incorrectly in post and these were chemistry defects as a result of the processing... but it was intentional? And it looked terrible really.

Compounding that, good portions of the movie just seemed to be produced really poorly? There was alot of blurry, out of focus shots, a couple of shots poorly framed or poorly constructed, alot of moments when the computer aided special effects were so glaringly obvious that it looked horribly unrealistic. There was moments when it looked fairly decent so it's not like it was a time or technology thing? It just seemed like there was a heavy degree of corner cutting going on?

It didn't really get much better with the acting. To be honest, I thought Dennis Quaid as Mike Brody was quite a poor fit for this role and he just didn't really come across very comfortably in his role at all. I felt like he wasn't quite sure in what he was doing with some of scenes and it seems to translate in his performance. Equally some of the other cast didn't fare any better. I thought Louis Gossett Jr. did a decent job as Calvin the park owner, and was one of the few people on screen that managed to maintain some kind of character but everybody else just sort of felt like they were there to fill a gap and nobody really had any distinguishing individualities. There is a bit of a developing romance between Sean and Kelly that is built up throughout the movie but then they both disappear in an ambulance and are never seen again! Even Philip FitzRoyce who from what I can tell was just "English." in this movie and nothing much really beyond that!

Despite these issues though the movie was fairly entertaining and it was... ok... to watch. Again, I'm not hugely into these kind of films and I felt it did seem to drag on quite a bit but it at least put together some semblance of a story: sharks find their way into a Seaworld exhibit, wreck havoc. And to the movies credit, it did build up the reveals fairly well with it being centred around the discovery of Shelby the divers corpse. But it did feel largely undercooked really and relied alot on a 'get out of jail free' card in order to advance the plot. Especially the stuff with the dolphins which just felt silly and completely un-necessary. There is the trapped people development kind of sandwiched in at the end to build that final last bit of a tension, and to a degree that is entertaining to watch but I largely felt like the story needed a bit more development before being put to tape.

I do have some praise for the movie though! I felt like the scenes were all soundtracked fairly decently and the trademark Jaws music is utilised again and again every time there is a shark fin on screen. But it was all mostly done well and gave the movie a bit of a boost when it needed it. Equally I thought the underwater scenes were all shot fairly well and you could understand what was going on and what was happening. Which is often not easy to convey. I've seen it done badly in other movies, but here it was mostly all just fine.

And to be honest, although I thought the acting was a bit sub-par, the movie was a bit roughly produced and the storyline was a bit too basic. It was at least captivating enough that I didn't feel bored watching it and I didn't really get half way through and just want it to be over. It was, I hesitate to say enjoyable... but it was fine. Just fine. And it did enough to hold my attention and make me at least want to stick around long enough to find out how things come to an end.

I think it again circles back to a point that I made in Staying Alive; is it really fair to measure a movie against it's prequel and should it not be appreciated for it's own merits. And I still really don't have an answer for that despite me turning it around in my brain again. Unfortunately for this one though I feel even if you take it for it's own merits and not measure it with the standards set by the prior 2 movies it still does feel like a bit of a sub-par shark attack movie. It just felt like there wasn't really enough of a commitment and enough of an effort put in to make this anything other than a cheap snatch of a cash grab to capitalise on the frontier 3D technology that was new to the scene. And watching it retrospectively without that edge to it boils the movie down to just a fairly standard, average shark attack movie. It wasn't awful, and I don't think really in leagues with some of the other tripe I've watched as part of the Worst Movie project, but equally no it wasn't that good of a movie either. I could watch it again I suppose but I don't think I have any real reason to. 2 out of 5.