Who would have guessed that the first movie that I would be reviewing in 2011 would be Jaws 3D (also known as Jaws 3)?
I must start this review revealing that I’m not too familiar with the Jaws range of movies. I happen to remember that I really liked Steven Spielburg’s original Jaws movie a lot (unlike most of his recent movies! But that is another story). I think I’ve even seen the first sequel many years ago, but I can’t remember anything about it. I don’t think I ever saw the fourth, and to date last, Jaws movie – “Jaws The Revenge” – which apparently pretended all events in Jaws 3 never happened.
From what I understand Jaws 3 was released as Jaws 3D in the theaters back in the early ’80s, which I think required the use of cheap 3D glasses to see some special effects, but to this day it has only been broadcast and released in the normal “flat” 2D version, at least in the US and Europe… thanks goodness (as I am not a big supporter of 3D movies at the time of this writing).
It’s quite apparent the budget of this movie is not even near the one of the original one. Lots of times I’m sure we are looking at stock recordings of fish and other animals swimming in the sea, as we almost never see actors and fishes together in the same shots. I’m also quite sure some of the animals the actors are playing with or petting are clearly made out of plastic. There are some funky CGI-alike 3D effects in the movie… as the movie was made in 1983, it’s fascinating to see how much special effects improved the last twenty-seven years. Those scenes are charming in a way though and I don’t see it as a negative point.
I am reviewing an European region 2/4 DVD release by Universal, which was released in 2001. The disc does not contain any interesting bonus content, only trailers of the various Jaws sequels (it does not even have the trailer of the first Jaws movie!). I found the image quality quite bad, images simply don’t look sharp. I saw someone on a site suggesting that this could be because the original transfer was made for 3D, I don’t have a clue whether this is the exact reason, but Wikipedia’s article seems to suggest this could be the case indeed. Whatever the truth, the quality could (and should) be a lot better, even on the good old DVD format. Sound quality is also not of the best quality, but as the soundtrack is a bit boring anyway, this is not a huge loss.
The movie has a VERY troubled production past, lots of directors left the project early, and also many writers were hired to rewrite the story. Also apparently the Universal studios forced the writers to let the movie feature the kids (now grown up) of the main characters of the previous Jaws films, so that there was a bit of continuity with the other Jaws movies (which does not make sense, really… The poor family must have been cursed or something, as every member of the family is probably attacked by sharks at one point in their lives!). None of the original actors of either Jaws 1 or 2 were willing to reprise their roles for this one. The movie was directed by Joe Alves, a production designer of Jaws 1/2. To date this is the only movie he directed.
Unlike a lot of other reviewers, I thought the main story has potential. Somehow a shark has entered the waters that belong to a sea park called SeaWorld. This theme-park (that actually really exists in the United States, at this time they own six parks) have orca’s, dolphins, etc. In this movie they also have some under-water tubes, made of glass. Gee, I wonder whether this could be used as a plot-device in the story to let dozens of innocent SeaWorld visitors get trapped there somehow, while an intelligent big shark attacks the glass tubes, knowing exactly how to attack it… 
Although I found the movie generally quite amusing, I can point out a lot of problems with it. I think the biggest criticism that I have is that it takes a lot of time before the movie gets really exciting. The viewer knows for a long time there’s a shark, but it takes ages for the main characters to realize this. When they capture a (little) shark after all, they are sure all problems are solved. So it takes some time again for them to realize they were wrong and it takes again a lot of time for them to convince everyone to leave the water. Once people see the shark things finally get a bit exciting, but still could have been handled better. I love how one of the main characters is getting bit by the shark, we see lots of blood, but we quickly find out her injuries are very minor… some people really have luck on their sides I guess Don’t want to reveal too much, but some visitors aren’t so lucky!
Generally I thought the performance of most of the main cast was OK, though sometimes the quality of their performance varies from scene from scene. I think I liked the character of the main owner of the park, Calvin Bouchard (played by Louis Gossett Jr.) the most, he seems to be having fun playing a somewhat greedy entrepreneur, but still taking responsibility at difficult times. In the ending-scenes it’s almost if the director forgot about him and let some other main characters say a few brief lines referencing him when someone found out, so they could still finish the movie on time.
This is a difficult movie to summarize: the story has potential, but it takes way too long time before a little part of that potential is reached. Some of the special effects are cheap to the ridiculous cheap. Oh and we have a roaring shark (and the famous sound-effect of a baby suddenly crying exactly while a baby shark dies). Well.. I think we still have some ingredients for B-movies lovers to admire about this movie a bit after all