Customer Reviews

Jaws 4:Revenge [VHS]

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(25)
2 star:		(31)
1 star:		(103)

 

 

I just saw the end of JAWS: THE REVENGE again on latenight cable TV--where it belongs--and I'm still stunned by the incredible lameness of every aspect of this movie. For everyone who quibbles about the unlikelihood of finding a Great White in the warm waters of the Bahamas: this shark also roars. Like a lion or something. A roaring shark. You read that right.

The filmmakers also keep cutting shots from the original JAWS into the climax. As a reminder that there was actually a good film at one time here? A distraction from how horrible this one is?

They paid Michael Caine enough to be in this stink bomb--but obviously not enough to wear a wet shirt after climbing out of the ocean. His expressions often convey that he's there but you're lucky he's at least facing the camera.
Was there something better he could have been doing? Yes. Picking up his first Oscar for HANNAH AND HER SISTERS. But he missed the Oscars to be in JAWS: THE REVENGE. At least he went on national TV to admit that he did this movie because he had a home right there in the Bahamas (he even pointed at the house during the interview).

The demise of the roaring shark is a baffling, badly-edited violation of all of our natural laws and logic. Shark rises out of the water. Boat rams shark. Shark explodes. Boat explodes. Everyone survives, even the annoying Jamaican who got chewed up several minutes before. Roll footage clearly the same of the blown-up shark sinking from the original.
Wow. It's that bad.

The tag line for this movie was "This time it's personal."
They were right.
That studio's really got it in for us!

Well, there are already 79 1 stars reviews written for this thing so I dunno how much more I have to say, but there are a few significant points.

-'Jaws: The Revenge' is knockoff of 'Orca'. You just think about that for a while. This is disturbing for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that 'Orca' was a knockoff of 'Jaws', and is also the stupidest movie ever made, with the possible exception of.... 'Jaws: The Revenge'.

-I first saw this movie when I was a little kid. I thought about it occasionally over the years reflecting on how at the end of the film the shark kinda floats on top of the water on his tail and is impaled on the mast, or whatever, of the ship. Eventually, after a number of years, I became convinced that I had imagined this. It was just too stupid to be real. No frickin' way. Then I saw this movie again a while back and sure enough the ending happened just as a remembered it. All this comes together to mean that the ending of this film is so stupid that it is literally beyond belief. That's somethin'

-The shark in this movie roars. Many others have mentioned this, but it bears repeating. This is another thing I'd forgotten. After being reminded of it today I nearly fell over laughing.

-Also, the shark is really, really amusing looking. His sides are all wiggly like he's made out of carpet or something and hasn't got a skeleton.

Grade: F

Oh I do love reading Amazon reviews!!!! People who give this film more than one star really are having a joke, they surely cannot be serious.

The story is ridiculous...shark goes round coast of the US to get its revenge. I was half expecting it to get on the subway and go looking at one stage.

The acting is diabolical.

And to those of you who said the shark was realistic...are you drunk? Look at the film again, the mechanism under the mechanical shark is CLEARLY visible in many shots. Which again tells you how bad it is.

Really, if you thought this was good, I'd reexamine what films you go see.

Contender for the worst film of all time with Gigli. In fact so bad, I dont know why I bothered reviewing it AT ALL!

I remember first seeing Jaws-The Revenge when I was around [...]. I was a big fan of sharks and luckily, my parents were cool enough to let me watch the original Jaws and sequels at such a young age. The first two movies in the series were wonderful. Maybe it was the 70's atmosphere, and the fact that no film maker had ever really covered the "killer shark" view on the big screen-but, the first two movies were scary! The third movie tried to hit it big by going 3-D which just makes the film's overall appearance look grainy and blurry. Jaws 3-D was actually even worse than the mess they created with this movie. The only slightly good thing about the movie is the character developement. We are comfortable as movie viewers watching the Brody family, who have endured numerous shark attack scenarios, and aside from Elaine Gray's lopsided hairdoo, we enjoy seeing what's left of the Brody family interact. The mechanical shark in this movie is so bad that it is actually unexplainable. It literally moves so slow that anyone who knows how to at least swim laps could outswim it in the water. There are only two scenes in this movie that are slightly scary-but the slow, OVERLY exposed shark pretty much ruins it for the moviegoer. My biggest issue with this movie though is that I am confused about why the Brody family even goes around water at all anymore?!? Mike Brody works in the water constantly-which is odd since he has been in ALL of the movies and has been attacked on numerous occasions. Why not just find a career away from the sea? I live in Ohio and have only been to the ocean a couple times but, I know that If i DID live by the ocean, and a vengeful shark seemed to want to ruin my life, I would simply MOVE. The shark can't come up on land, so it's not that big of a deal. It's so sad that they have let this series go downhill so bad. If they ever do make a sequel they should really do a LOT of research and come up a halfway decent plot that doesnt involve a shark that is seeking out revenge. One more sad fact about this movie is that the young girl who played Thea (and also provided the voice of DUCKY in THE LAND BEFORE TIME)-Mike Brody's daughter-was tragically murdered by her father shortly after this movie was made.

Cheesy schlock that, like the other sequels, buys into the horror cliches that Spielberg so brilliantly subverted for the first movie (does not the scene in the origninal Jaws where a child and a dog get eaten by the monster in broad daylight at a crowded beach right in front of the hero break every horror movie rule?).

However, it did produce one great moment. When asked by an interviewer about this movie, Michael Caine said, "I have not seen the film, but I hear it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it paid for, and it is superb."

I have the first Jaws on video, widescreen. Beautiful. Spectacular. Amazing. I saw Jaws 2 on TV a few weeks back, and I shrugged my shoulders and thought "Ah, it's a decent sequel." Then I saw Jaws 3 (aka Jaws 3-D) and scratched my head. Finally, I got a chance to see Jaws the Revenge at a friends house...and I still don't understand WHY IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT'S GOOD would someone have such a cruel heart as to defile the greatness of Speilberg's masterpiece?! This film is a gross insult to the first Jaws. I feel sorry for Bruce the shark, and it's not just because he has been blown apart, electrocuted, blown apart again, and impaled by a boat!!! It's because he had to star in this WASTE!!! Well, Bruce, I still worship you when I watch the Jaws I have on video, from the time you snack down on the naked girl to the time you bite Quint in half.

Mrs. Brody (Lorraine Gary) is still hanging 'round Amity.. And the Great white Shark(GWS) is back, sniffing around the shore for Brody meat. When Gary's younger son Mitchell Anderson, now deputy sheriff himself, answers a call to untangle a buoy Out There, he becomes caput, first the GWS rips off an arm with almost no blood. Then, there's just two Brodies to go: Mom and her oldest son Lance Guest.

Grieving Gary retreats to the Bahamas where Guest is a marine biologist. (Guess that would take him into the water a whole lot.) Guest is studying conches with business partner Mario Van Peebles,
And guess who's coming to dinner?

Well, Gary becomes convinced that the shark is following her and, in fact, wants revenge against her entire family. And while her friends pooh-pooh the notion



Recommended for children and Jaws Completists.


Gunner February, 2008

Wow. This movie is so insanely stupid that I dont know where to start. Lets take an incredibly great movie classic and destroy it with idiotic sequels. 1.Sharks cannot roar. 2.Sharks cannot stand on their tails. 3. When sharks are impaled with large sticks they do not automatically explode. 4.Mama Brody cannot reminice about things she didnt witness. 5.Sharks cannot follow people vast distances. 6.Sharks do not enjoy swimming in warm bahaman waters. 7.Michael Caine shouldnt be in this movie. 8.Sharks do not have feelings. I could really go on forever there. Do not buy or even rent this piece of cinematic garbage

After a Great White shark kills her youngest son, the widowed Ellen Brody comes to the realization that the shark is after her and her loved ones. As ridiculous of this might sound, it turns out that she's right. The vengeful, grudge-holding fish follows the grieving woman along with her son, daugther-in-law and niece to the beautiful Bahamas, I guess to seek revenge? For what, you ask? I have no idea.

The scathing reviews this film has received from those who have watched it are justified because this film is unbearably bad. The film-makers thought that in order to make a JAWS sequel, the story must involve the Brody family. In JAWS 2, chief Brody battled another over-grown Great White and in JAWS 3, the Brody sons battled an even bigger shark in Florida's seaworld. In JAWS: THE REVENGE, the homicidal fish returns to torment the Brody's yet again. Talk about an unlucky family. What I do not understand is why is this shark after them? Didn't the shark die in the original film? Didn't the second shark "cross over" during the sequel's climax? Is this shark somehow related to the previous sharks; maybe a spouse or a sibling or a cousin? Maybe it wanted to avenge the murder of it's relatives? Maybe "Bruce" was somehow resurrected in a Jason Voorhees/Mike Myers kind of way and the scene ended up in the cutting room floor? Help?

Another intriguing factor in JAW: THE REVENGE is that the shark roars. Mighty "Bruce" roars just like the T-Rex in Jurassic park and if that wasn't enough, it can also jump out of the water and stand on its tail, kinda like Flipper. I was waiting for Michael Caine to throw it a Mackerel and ask it to do a back-flip. Speaking of Michael Caine, he gives the most annoying performance of his entire career.

All kidding aside, JAWS: THE REVENGE is definitely the worst film in the series and qualifies as probably one of the worst sequels ever made. The acting is not too bad (Michael Caine being the exception) and I have to give credit where credit is due because you can tell that Lorraine Gary and Lance Guest were taking their roles very seriously and it's a testament to their talents that they were able to keep a straight face throughout this film.

The film's horrible climax only adds insult to injury. After her niece was nearly eaten up by the hungry fish, Ms. Brody decides to seek and kill it by herself without any weapons of any kind whatsoever. What was she expecting to do, run the shark over with her boat?

There are 2 endings to this film, both equally bad. The original ending had "Bruce" being impaled by the Brody's boat. After the film's release and for the Video editions the ending was changed and had the beast mysteriously explode upon impact. They also had Mario Van Peebles' character miraculously come back from the dead which mean this installment has the lowest body count in the series.

From the lame plot to the lame, plastic roaring shark to Michael Caine's utterly charmless performance, JAWS:THE REVENGE is a travesty of the highest order. Not even the gorgeous Bahamas locale can save this laughably bad film.

At least Michael Caine got a house out of it. The viewer is not as lucky. Skip it and re-watch the original instead. 1 out of 5.

It's a Jaws movie; not Braveheart, not Silence of the Lambs, but a JAWS MOVIE. Universal Studios' theme parks (both coasts) have extremely cheesy attractions based on this series (Orlando's version seems closer to "Jaws 2" than the original), and no matter how silly, people stand in line for an hour to see the big, fake-looking shark jump out at them. I live in Orlando, so I see this first hand every time I visit the park.

Subsequently, I just bought "Jaws - The Revenge" on DVD (cheaply) just for fun. It was the first time, since it's opening night in 1987, that I have watched it (13 years ago, I walked out of it before the end and sneaked into "Robocop" which opened the same day). Now that I've seen the whole thing, I feel humbled. It's really not that bad.

I have actually read all of the reviews here at Amazon, and some others (Roger Ebert's Chicago Sun-Times review and TV Guide Online's Move Database - an excellent resource) and I am ready to debunk those who had (ironically the same) jaded opinions. Let's begin, shall we?

"The shark looks fake" - well DUUUUUHHHHHHH! This was made 12 years before "Deep Blue Sea" and two years before James Cameron helped break special effects ground with "The Abyss." Yes, it looks fake, but for the first time in the series, the shark occupied a lot more screen time. Spielberg didn't show the shark early in his film because he really couldn't - the mechanical sharks made for the first "Jaws" were very difficult in the beginning of the shoot - there's still one missing out at sea from 1975. Also, CGI was almost unheard of at that time. I'm sure if the filmmakers had the technology at the time, they would have tried to utilize some of it.

"The story has continuity problems" - actually, it doesn't. There are two scenes where Ellen Brody (played for the third time by Lorraine Gary) has flashbacks to events where she wasn't present; one was from the first film (and justified later in the story) and the other was from several key points in this film. The only other way to convey these thoughts/flashbacks would be to say them out loud - guess how awkward that would've been.

"The shark roars" - OK, it did, but it was only for dramatic effect (the shark in the Orlando ride roars, too - listen in the boathouse). Remember, we're not defining Pi here.

"The shark leaps out of the water like Shamu and stays there indefinitely" - well, no; the scene in question is in extreme slow motion and probably should've been edited a little better.

Roger Ebert stated there was no "establishing shot" before the shark was killed, and it did happen pretty quickly, but if you put yourself in the same situation (I know, now I'm supporting the realistic quality of it), you don't exactly get a lot of "establishing shots" in life to perfectly set up a climax.

Please understand, I do realize this isn't a fantastic movie, but the bad reputation that it has, and the fact that a "part five" hasn't occurred in over a decade and probably never will, is unfortunate. Given the advancement in special effects technology, maybe someone will write a worthy script and another will be made (maybe on the 30th anniversary of the first film). Jamie Lee Curtis came back to Haddonfield 20 years later, so I guess anything's possible.

By the way, the DVD version is the one where Jake (Mario Van Peebles - did you know his father Melvin was in the movie, too?) lives. I saw that question a lot here, so I thought I should probably mention it. The DVD has absolutely no extras, which some may scoff at, but hey, I said I got it cheaply.

So, about "Hudson Hawk" and "The Last Action Hero"...