Steven Spielberg’s Jaws is a tough act to follow. Not only has it come to define the entire shark horror subgenre, but this aquatic adventure movie also revolutionized the concept of the summer blockbuster as we know it today. It’s difficult to understate the film’s legacy. From archetypal characterization, iconic kills, ubiquitous catch phrases, and an incredible score, Jaws is a nearly flawless film that continues to terrify new audiences to this day. The same cannot be said for its sequels, however.
The underrated Jaws 2 feels a bit more like a slasher with its cadre of teens stranded in deadly water. The fourth installment, Jaws: The Revenge, is known for its implausible plot and Michael Caine’s hilarious yet dismissive comments. While the aforementioned sequels have their merits–and fair share of ardent supporters–when it comes time to defend Jaws 3D, few rise to the occasion. Widely considered the low point of the franchise, the story of a great white shark at SeaWorld features pointless 3-D effects and a nearly bloodless plot. However, despite these glaring flaws, Jaws 3D is a mostly joyful and progressive approach to the shark film that deserves more than a watery death in the scrap pile of cinematic history.
Years after surviving infamous shark attacks in the waters off of Amity Island, Mike Brody (Dennis Quaid) has grown up to be an aquatic engineer completing the design for now controversial SeaWorld Orlando. His girlfriend Dr. Kathryn “Kay” Morgan (Bess Armstrong) is a marine biologist for the park, responsible for overseeing the training and care of the facility’s oceanic mammals. Visiting for the grand opening, Mike’s brother Sean (John Putch) attempts to overcome his fear of the water in order to woo a professional water-skier named Kelly Ann Bukowski (Lea Thompson). When plans for the opening day celebrations are disrupted by a 10-foot great white, Kay lobbies to capture the fish and study it in captivity. However, corporate greed leads to the poor animal’s untimely death and the baby shark’s 35-foot mother emerges to seek revenge on the humans who took her baby.
While Jaws 3D has moments of unintentional humor, the original concept was a National Lampoons-style comedy. Jaws 3, People 0 would have been a spoof of the original film, reportedly beginning with Peter Benchley (author of Jaws) becoming shark food in his own swimming pool. These plans were eventually scrapped and the film sifted through several hands before finally making it to the big screen. With original star Roy Scheider adamantly opposed to reprising his role as Chief Brody, the film follows his two adult sons who coincidentally cross paths with yet another gigantic great white. Joe Alves directed the film after serving as a production designer on the first two sets. Credited with designing the infamous special effects shark, nicknamed Bruce, Alves took his one and only turn in the director’s chair, helming a production that had been troubled from the start.
Part of the fun of Jaws 3D is watching nostalgic performances by an up-and-coming cast. A young Dennis Quaid leads the ensemble as the charming Mike, demonstrating the affable wit and rugged good looks that would make him an A-list star. Bess Armstrong, known to 90s audiences as Claire Danes’s long-suffering TV mom, co-stars along with veteran actor Louis Gossett Jr. as the park’s opportunistic owner. Jaws 3D also happens to be the feature film debut of Lea Thompson just two years before she would star in the beloved action adventure Back to the Future. Playing a British version of Amity’s capitalist mayor, Falcon Crest alum Simon MacCorkindale is an aristocratic photographer named Phillip FitzRoyce with P.H. Moriarty tagging along as his faithful man-servant. Despite featuring all new faces, watching this talented cast play off each other adds excitement to the lackluster action.
Many elements of the third Jaws installment fall flat, but its 3-D effects prove to be the weakest link. Part of a stereoscopic boom in early 80s horror, this visual technique does little to pull us deeper into the story and quickly becomes an annoying distraction. We get an obligatory scene in which Mike shoots a harpoon directly towards the camera along with various other fish parts appearing to fly out of the screen, but the most effective use of 3-D filming comes from the dramatic decorations on the park’s underwater caves. The submersible vehicles look cartoonishly fake gliding through the lagoon and the infamous scene in which the shark smashes the control room window has become a laughable meme. Viewed through a modern lens, these blatant gimmicks have a certain nostalgic charm, however the style creates a fuzzy quality to the film as a whole, especially around the edges of the screen.
I wouldn’t necessarily classify Jaws 3D as so bad it’s good, but the theme park location energizes the rather dour script. Alves opens with exciting footage of a water-skiing team slowly building a three level pyramid and the entire film is filled with exciting aquatic stunts. Trained dolphins Cindy and Sandy are endearing co-stars though their tendency to show up and whisk our heroes away from harm stretches the limits of plausibility. We also get an incredible “get out of the water” sequence; the true test of any shark horror film. Moriarty nearly gets into a fistfight with a comically beachified tourist while Mike makes a breakneck dash through the park on a hijacked popcorn cart. When bags of the treat cascade off the back of this miniature vehicle, kids swarm the pile of buttery kernels hoping for a free snack. Rushing to the stage of a crowded amphitheater, we watch Quaid interrupt an Old West-style water show to flag down the lagoon performers. Along the way, he capsizes the cart by running over a bush then tumbles down a hill spilling into a couple of passing orca-shaped strollers. Quaid has since admitted to aggressively using cocaine throughout the shoot, likely contributing to this scene’s frenetic energy.
Jaws 3D makes up for the lack of original franchise characters by doubling up on sharks. The only film in the series to feature two great whites, Alves’s cinematic SeaWorld becomes the birthplace of a new apex predator. The science here is a little thin. Some shark species are more likely to eat their offspring than parent them and they certainly don’t embark on revenge killing sprees to avenge their deaths. However, this twist does allow for a nice albeit predictable bait and switch. Like Spielberg before him, Alves builds tension by filming from the shark’s point of view, but we see entirely too much of these massive fish. When the sharks do appear, they move with a robotic stiffness that rarely feels real. Attack scenes lack clarity and it’s often difficult to track which swimmers are actually in danger.
It’s this lack of blood in the water that proves to be the movie’s fatal flaw. Many of the aforementioned shortcomings could be forgiven by exciting attack sequences akin to the first two movies. Several scenes feature water skiers chased by a menacing dorsal fin, but the athletes always manage to escape the water unharmed. How much more thrilling would Jaws 3D be with a high speed chase in which the shark picks apart the pyramid one by one? Kelly suffers a vague leg injury after the mother shark knocks her out of a bumper boat, but she disappears after the incident along with Sean. In a strange scene midway through the story, two thieves fall victim to the shark, but they simply vanish under the water as their raft pops. With no connection to the main cast, these deaths feel like a missed opportunity for brutal aquatic carnage. The final scene should be a horrific slaughter, but it’s nearly impossible to tell who in the control room has been eaten and who escapes. The only true moments of horror center on FitzRoyce’s death as he’s swallowed alive by the mother shark, not to mention a later scene in which his body peers out of the angry fish’s throat.
With little great white action to speak of, it’s Kay and the dolphins who prove to be the film’s saving grace. Jaws and Jaws 2 treat sharks as monstrous killing machines and sparked a world-wide wave of galeophobia that proved disastrous for ocean wildlife. To be fair, Speilberg’s film (not to mention Benchley’s original novel) premiered at a time when little was known about Carcharodon carcharias. Released eight years later, Alves’ film definitely benefits from additional research in the field of marine biology. Kay fights to save the baby shark, mirroring Benchley’s later work for shark conservation. Though she does want to keep it in captivity, an ethically dubious practice by today’s standards, she seems to honestly care about the animal’s well-being. She jumps fully clothed into the tank to save the baby’s life, jeopardizing her own safety by helping to move oxygen through its gills. Kay only agrees to kill the shark when it threatens to destroy the park and anyone trapped inside.
Jaws 3D ends on a joyful, if abrupt note. Having blown up the massive fish with one of FitzRoyce’s grenades–still clutched in his dead hand no less–Mike and Kay emerge on the lagoon’s surface and frantically begin calling for the dolphins. Having located Cindy, the missing Sandy signals his safety by executing an impressive jump-spin in the air and Alves closes on an exuberant, but painfully 80s freeze frame. As a child, I watched this movie over and over again on syndicated cable, mesmerized by these dolphin heroes. It’s this final scene that encapsulates the film’s sunny tone, a happy ending that outweighs the many clumsy attempts at horror.
While Jaws 3D may not be a very good movie, it’s far from the worst shark film to follow in the wake of Jaws and well worth a place on every summer watch list.
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