Jaws 3-D (1983) Review

Jaws 3-D (1983) Review

Jaws 3-D tried to distance itself from Jaws 2 with a fresh setting and new batch of victims—I mean, new cast of characters—but it resulted in what I think is actually the worst of the four Jaws movies. While Jaws 2 is genuinely entertaining at points, and Jaws: The Revenge is so-bad-it’s-good, Jaws 3-D is mostly just bad.  

First off, the 3-D gimmick. It reeked of desperation then, and it reeks of desperation now. The opening moments feature the shark (unseen, just like the opening of every Jaws movie) kill a large fish, and its severed head floats toward the camera. This visual trick is just the first of many truly terrible optical effects. Then the credits begin, done in exaggerated 3-D lettering. There are numerous lame 3-D shots, and the cinematography from beginning to end is poor. I suspect this was a result of being filmed in 3-D.  

SeaWorld has a new underwater attraction: a great white shark, which kills several people before being captured. The shark is pretty small, though, so they keep it, hoping it will be the first great white to be kept in captivity. But, as it turns out, there’s another, much larger (and hungrier) great white stalking the waters of the aquatic theme park, which was the real threat all along. It’s a pretty bogus plot. 

The characters are incredibly dull, and so are the actors. Dennis Quaid plays adult Mike Brody and Bess Armstrong plays his girlfriend, a marine biologist, and they are not good. Allegedly, Dennis Quaid was high on cocaine in every frame of the movie; maybe that explains some of it. I’d also lay a lot of the blame on the director, Joe Alves, who previously was the production designer on Jaws and Jaws 2. While the direction isn’t incompetent by any stretch, I still don’t think he was deserving of the promotion. 

The bigger, killer shark is said to be 35 feet, making it the biggest of the Jaws sharks. It also happens to be the slowest-swimming. Most of the time it’s on screen, it’s either cruising along, or just kind of floating there (note: real sharks can’t float). Perhaps the only scene I actually enjoy in this movie is when a guy gets eaten and it’s shown from inside the shark’s mouth, which is pretty cool and horrific. The shark doesn’t make any other impressive kills, and actually has the lowest body count of the four movies. The mechanical shark effects are even worse than the previous movie (in one shot, it’s even done in Claymation), and there is arguably the worst shot in the entire franchise, in which the shark slowly torpedoes into an underwater glass window. 

Jaws 3-D is short on thrills, looks bad in multiple ways, and is all-around pitiful. They even end it with the shark blowing up just like the original, which is annoying, but the added effect of it being in 3-D makes it even more annoying. In spite of all its flaws, it’s still worth watching at least once, just for all the meme-worthy moments that happen throughout. 

Jaws 2 (1978) Review

Jaws 2 (1978) Review

Jaws is one of the best movies ever made, no question, but what about the sequels? I rarely think of Jaws as a franchise, because the sequels are leagues below the original in nearly every regard. To me, the sequels are an unofficial three-part narrative—the Jaws sequel trilogy, if you will—because all of them try to forge an ongoing storyline for a film that was too perfect to try following up in the first place. Jaws was a film that ended with such finality it left seemingly few options to further the story in a way that wasn’t lame. Each sequel tried to be bigger and better than the original, but it only proved more impossible to accomplish with every subsequent attempt. 

Jaws 2 is not actually that bad. In comparison to the original, it’s much less thrilling and much more of a typical B-movie, but I think it gets misremembered as being worse than it is because of how bad the third and fourth are. Chief Brody suspects another great white is terrorizing Amity Island, but no one believes him. The paranoia Chief Brody experiences is compelling, and Roy Schieder gives another great performance. A major highlight of the movie that happens pretty early on is when the shark eats a water skier, then attacks the boat she was skiing behind, resulting in the boat exploding in a great fire ball, which leaves the shark with a burnt face, looking comically monstrous. 

Many of the actors from the first Jaws returned, including some small parts like Bad Hat Harry. Another welcome return was John Williams doing the score. He won an Academy Award for his work on the original film, but delivered another great score that not only brings back the famous “Dun Dun…” but plenty of new tracks that are just as good as you would expect. And of course, because the shark was such a star in the first movie, we see even more of it here, though its screen time is still relatively limited. Another moment I love is when Brody discovers a dead killer whale on the beach: a victim of the new shark. In the first movie, the shark took down the Orca boat, and this time, it takes down an actual Orca. 

While I like the stuff with Brody, the rest of the plot follows his kids, now more grown up, and a bunch of other annoying teens, the worst of which is this chubby curly-haired kid. The second half of the movie mostly focuses on the kids getting stranded in their sailboats and needing rescue from the shark, and it feels like the conventional horror film Spielberg managed to avoid making with the first one. The finale tries to switch things up by having the shark die from biting into an underwater power line. It’s not nearly as satisfying as the original’s ending, but at least they tried, and that’s the most I can say about the whole movie, really. They were never going to top the original, but it was an honest effort.  

With the exception of the water skiing attack and the finale, there aren’t that many memorable scenes with the shark, and whereas Spielberg knew how often to invoke the shark’s presence, there are longer stretches without any shark sightings, which makes the movie drag, and when you do see it, it’s less impactful. Ultimately, though, Jaws 2 is one of those sequels that tries to copy the original, and as a result, is a lot like the first Jaws, only not as good.  

Son of Kong (1933) Review

Son of Kong (1933) Review

Many of the great movie monsters have had sequels with “Son of” in the title. Son of Godzilla, Son of Frankenstein, and this one, the offspring of the greatest American giant monster, King Kong. I’m always amazed how the follow-up to one of the most well-known and beloved classics of cinema is so unknown today. Even more amazing, it came out the same year as the original!

Taking place about a month after the tragic conclusion to King Kong, Carl Denham is a wanted man. He mopes around until embarking on a voyage with Captain Englehorn on the same ship that brought Kong to New York. While at a Dutch port, Denham meets the daughter of a showman, and a shady captain named Helstrom who gave Denham the original map to Skull Island. Helstrom says there’s a lost treasure on the island, so they go back there to look for it. After a mutiny takes place, Denham and company go ashore and encounter an albino, twelve-foot-tall ape—a “little Kong”—stuck in quicksand. He helps him out, and Little Kong repays the debt by helping them obtain the treasure and saving them from some of Skull Island’s dangerous creatures. 

Son of Kong retains some of what made the original great, but it’s quite a different film. It trades in the epic scope and harrowing drama for a more light-hearted, smaller scale adventure. Despite clocking in at only an hour and nine minutes, it takes much longer for the characters to get to Skull Island, and even longer for the creatures to appear on screen. There’s a random part when Denham and Englehorn are watching a show at the Dutch port where a bunch of dressed up monkeys are playing instruments. The filmmakers clearly weren’t taking the material as serious this time around. 

  

There are less creatures, less locations, and less epic moments in comparison to King Kong, but still enough to make it worthwhile. A fight between Little Kong and a prehistoric bear is the highlight of the film. A few other dinosaurs—namely a Styracosaurus, Nothosaurus, and Elasmosaurus—make brief appearances, as well. The stop motion effects are good, but feel slightly less refined compared to before, and less ambitious. 

Little Kong is played for comedic effect, but still conveys emotion. At the end, a massive earthquake makes the island sink into the ocean, and Little Kong actually sacrifices his own life to save Carl Denham, holding him up above the waves while he goes down with the island, his foot stuck in a crevice. It’s actually a pretty sad end to Kong’s lineage, even if it’s a far cry from the iconic finale at the Empire State Building.    

Son of Kong has failed to attain the classic status like the original for valid reasons. It simply isn’t as impressive as King Kong, but doesn’t come across like it’s trying to be anything more than it is. It’s a fun little epilogue to the original, and for huge fans of the 1933 original King Kong, it’s a must-see.