Jaws 3-D

There is something that is just laughably bad about Jaws 3-D. I mean, just look at the GIF above. This is from the climax of the film and is not altered in any way. This is what passed for special effects in the movie as the shark charges the glass window of the control room of the Undersea Kingdom attraction at Sea World in Florida. It's actually Sea World too, not some fictional movie facsimile. They looked at the script and had no problem with their park being portrayed as irresponsible, reckless and greedy (umm...wait, nevermind). Yes, the plot of this movie concerns a man-eating monster causing havoc at a theme park. Consider it a prototype for Jurassic Park. A very over the top and at times very dull prototype. 

With this entry, the action moves away from Amity Island completely, catching up with a now adult Mike Brody (played by Dennis Quaid) working at Sea World in Florida with his Marine Biologist girlfriend Kay (played by Bess Armstrong). He is working as an Engineer and is the man responsible for the park's new Undersea Kingdom attraction that is having it's grand opening. The attraction is a large group of underwater tunnels allowing people to walk around and experience undersea life. The park's owner, Calvin Bouchard (played by Louis Gossett Jr), is understandably nervous and wants the launch to go off without a hitch. Also hanging around is famed nature photographer Phillip Fitzroyce (played by Simon MacCorkindale), who is there to photograph the new park. 

Mike's brother Sean (played by John Putch) has also just arrived for a visit while on break from college. While on a night out with his brother and girlfriend, Sean has a meet cute with a one of the park's water skiers, Kelly (played by Lea Thompson). But not all is well as the park has a couple of unexpected intruders into the lagoon that houses the massive Undersea Kingdom attraction, a large 35 foot Great White Shark and her baby. It's not long before one of the park technicians becomes shark chow, leading our two affable heroes to search the Lagoon for him and in the process discover the baby Great White. They manage capture the shark and try to maintain the shark in captivity. Calvin gets greedy though and insists the shark be put on display before it's ready, leading to the death of the baby shark. With her baby missing, Mama shark rampages throughout the lagoon, damaging and causing the underwater kingdom to flood, going after water skiers and assorted other disappointingly tame escapades. The film picks up towards the end with some exciting shark action, including a character getting swallowed whole and then getting crushed and lodged in the sharks mouth, which we see from the inside and is easily the niftiest part of the movie. 

The problem with Jaws 3 is that it's actually kind of boring. Not as boring as the fourth movie was at times, but there are long stretches of film where not much is happening and all the action feels like we're just watching promotional footage for Sea World (oh wait, now I get it.). On top of this, there are a ton of gimmicky shots that were shot solely to highlight the 3-D effects. Without said effect, it just seems weird especially since the camera seems to hold on these shots for longer than it should. The film was directed by Joe Alves and we can easily see why he has not directed another film since.

Somehow Dennis Quaid, Bess Armstrong and Lea Thompson got out of this with their careers intact and to be fair all three give perfectly fine performances. Quaid in particular does well as the grown up Mike Brody, giving a nice, chilled performance and showing off his natural charisma, except of course for when his character has his epic meltdown while running around the park, trying to warn everyone to get out of the water. That scene alone is worth watching the movie for. Louis Gossett Jr is less fortunate, giving an over the top and animated performance that while not particularly great is at least entertaining, with some of the best line readings of bad dialogue ever. You partner this with Bess Armstrong's over-articulated speech to Gossett about what is going on and you have some unintentional camp hilarity. 

I never saw the film in 3-D so I can't comment on how it looked in that format, but in 2-D it looks pretty awful. Some of this may have to do with how they converted the film to a 2-D format, but at the same time I can't imagine that shot of the shark charging the control booth (see above) ever looked good. I can't look at that without busting a gut laughing. It's so wonderfully unintentionally funny. It also doesn't seemed too concerned with actual shark facts, considering the shark in this film actually growls and swims backwards, two things real sharks can't do. I don't think they're really all that maternal either.

Overall, Jaws 3-D is unfortunately low on the thrills but does have it's share of campy moments to make it a movie that is so bad it's good. It's worth checking out only if you're a fan of the series or a fan of hilariously bad movies.