Under the lens takes a deep look at films by focusing in on one or two particular areas of the picture that helped to define it for better or for worse.
Jaws: The Revenge is a 1987 horror film directed by Joseph Sargent and starring Lorraine Gary, Lance Guest, and Michael Caine. The story follows Ellen Brody, who believes that a great white shark is deliberately targeting her family for revenge after her youngest son is killed in Amity waters. She flees to the Bahamas to be with her other son, only to find that the shark has apparently followed her there.
UNDER THE LENS: PLOT LOGIC AND MICHAEL CAINE
Plot Logic: In what might be one of the most baffling scripts ever greenlit, Jaws: The Revenge presents us with a psychic shark that not only holds a grudge against one specific family but can somehow track them across 1,100 miles of ocean in just a few days. The film never bothers to explain how this is possible, nor does it attempt to justify its existence beyond cashing in on the franchise name. The shark roars (yes, roars) and stands on its tail like a trained dolphin, destroying any semblance of natural threat that made the original Jaws so terrifying.
Michael Caine: Even the talented Michael Caine, who famously said of this film “I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific,” seems lost at sea here. His character, Hoagie, an airplane pilot who romances Ellen Brody, appears to have wandered in from a different movie entirely. Caine delivers his lines with all the enthusiasm of someone reading a phone book, though given the quality of the dialogue, this might have been the kindest approach.
HIGHLIGHTS
- The shark explodes for no apparent reason at the end
- Michael Caine emerges from an underwater plane crash with completely dry clothes
- The continuity errors are so numerous they become almost entertaining
QUOTABLE QUOTE
Ellen Brody: “It came for him. It waited all this time and it came for him.”
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
How many shark attacks does it take for a family to consider moving inland?
CONCLUSION
Jaws: The Revenge is the kind of film that makes you question everything: the state of Hollywood, the nature of sequels, and your own decision to watch it. The production values swing wildly between barely acceptable and outright embarrassing. The shark, which changes size from scene to scene, looks less convincing than its predecessor from over a decade earlier. The editing is so choppy that entire plot points seem to vanish into the ether, much like the logic behind the shark’s vendetta.
Perhaps the most unforgivable aspect is how the film manages to take a primal fear – that of being hunted by a perfect predator – and turn it into something so absurd that it becomes unintentionally comedic. The attempt to add a supernatural element to what was originally a very grounded thriller series shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what made the original Jaws work.
This is a film so bad that it makes Jaws 3 look like a masterpiece in comparison. It stands as a testament to how far a once-great franchise can fall when profit becomes more important than storytelling. Even the beautiful Bahamas locations can’t save this waterlogged mess from being anything other than a cautionary tale about the perils of unnecessary sequels.