Jaws: The Revenge, the fourth and presumably final cinematic installment in the franchise, begins with the premise of a shark holding a personal vendetta against its human prey, in this case, the surviving members of the Brody family. While the concept of a creature systematically plotting revenge against humanity may seem outrageous, it has been a source of great adventure throughout history, beginning with Herman Melville’s classic 1851 novel, Moby-Dick.
Indeed, revenge is a central theme of the first Jaws film, in which the great shark hunter Quint, played by Robert Shaw, stares out at the ocean with the grim realization that the film’s great white shark represents the embodiment of all the fish that Quint previously slaughtered. However, Jaws: The Revenge, which serves as a direct sequel to Jaws 2 while ignoring the events of the 1983 installment Jaws 3-D, takes this notion to such an illogical extreme that it becomes unintentionally hilarious.
Jaws: The Revenge suggests that a shark possesses the psychic ability to continually terrorize its human targets, both on land and in the water, by haunting their dreams and thoughts. This is the belief of the film’s central character, Ellen Brody, the widow of Roy Scheider’s Martin Brody from the first two films, who is convinced that a shark is hunting her family as revenge for Martin’s previous shark killings. Of course, since the sharks in Jaws and Jaws 2 were indeed killed by Martin, first with an exploding scuba tank and then through electrocution, this raises the question as to where the shark in Jaws: The Revenge came from and why it has such a personal sense of hatred for the Brody family.
A Reincarnated Shark Stalks the Brody Family in ‘Jaws: The Revenge’
Release Date
July 17, 1987
Runtime
89 minutes
Director
Joseph Sargent
Jaws: The Revenge is so nonsensical and poorly made that it feels completely disconnected from Steven Spielberg’s great Jaws in terms of character, story, and certainly technical competence. Indeed, while Jaws is grounded by the presence of three iconic characters, with Richard Dreyfuss’s Matt Hooper, Roy Scheider’s Martin Brody, and Robert Shaw’s Quint, the only returning cast member in Jaws: The Revenge is Lorraine Gary, who plays Martin’s widow, Ellen Brody, who has become convinced that a shark has marked her and her entire family for death.
While Martin ostensibly died of a heart attack 18 months before the start of Jaws: The Revenge, Ellen believes that Martin died from his fear of sharks. Of course, Martin’s absence from Jaws: The Revenge is most attributable to Scheider’s refusal to reprise the role for the sequel, though he appears as Martin in several awkwardly placed flashback scenes.
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Jaws: The Revenge seemingly presents its great white shark as the reincarnation of the sharks from the first two Jaws films while suggesting that the new shark has the ability to manipulate events on both land and water. This is established in the sequel’s baffling opening scene. The youngest Brody son, Sean, now a sheriff’s deputy in the fictional New England community of Amity Island, is lured, ostensibly by the shark, into attempting to clear a log from a buoy in the ocean. He is then attacked and killed as the singing of a Christmas choir most inconveniently drowns out Sean’s dying screams.
Throughout the film, Ellen is haunted by dreams and nightmares of Martin’s killing of the sharks in the first two Jaws films and Sean’s death, even though she wasn’t present for either event. After Sean’s death, Ellen goes to live with her oldest son, marine biologist Michael, in the Bahamas, where shark attacks are supposedly very rare. Not this time. For poor Ellen, there’s seemingly no escape from this shark, which soon arrives in the Bahamas to terrorize her and her family. This raises the question as to how this seemingly omniscient shark would torment Ellen if she had wisely decided to abandon seaside living and move to the Midwest.
Michael Caine Looks Embarrassed in ‘Jaws: The Revenge’
Universal Pictures
Lorraine Gary’s top billing in Jaws: The Revenge, which was directed by Joseph Sargent, clearly attests to the influence of her husband, longtime Universal Pictures executive Sid Sheinberg, who famously shepherded a young Steven Spielberg’s career in the early 1970s. However, the most impressive name attached to Jaws: The Revenge is Michael Caine, who plays Hoagie, a charter plane pilot. After transporting Gary’s Ellen Brody from Amity Island to the Bahamas, he becomes romantically involved with her while helping her and Michael battle the film’s unrelenting shark. While the now-retired Caine has appeared in numerous flops throughout his storied career, he has expressed embarrassment over his participation in Jaws: The Revenge, for which he was paid $1 million for 10 days of work.
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Caine’s condensed filming schedule for Jaws: The Revenge precluded Caine from attending the 1987 Academy Awards ceremony, where he won the Best Supporting Actor award for his excellent performance in the 1986 comedy-drama film Hannah and Her Sisters, after three previous nominations. However, Caine was happily present at the 2000 ceremony, where he won his second Best Supporting Actor award for his performance in the 1999 drama film The Cider House Rules.
‘Jaws: The Revenge’ Destroyed the Credibility of the ‘Jaws’ Franchise
Universal Pictures
As was the case with the filming of Jaws, Jaws: The Revenge was plagued by problems with operating a mechanical shark. However, while the malfunctioning shark benefited Jaws in terms of forcing director Steven Spielberg to enhance his focus on character and suspense, the unconvincing shark in Jaws: The Revenge is emblematic of the sequel’s overall stupidity. This is especially evident throughout the film’s climactic boat scene, in which the shark leaps out of the water and attacks Jake, a marine biologist who is devoured and then dragged underwater, only to miraculously resurface with relatively minor injuries. Additionally, Michael Caine’s character, Hoagie, after crashing his plane into the ocean, emerges from the water with dry clothes and hair.
Jaws: The Revenge was released theatrically on July 17, 1987, one week before the disastrous fourth installment in the Superman film series, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Just as the failure of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace essentially killed the Superman franchise for nearly 20 years, Jaws: The Revenge, which presently holds a 2% Rotten Tomatoes rating, made the Jaws franchise into a source of mockery while also serving to deepen appreciation for Spielberg’s 50-year-old classic. Jaws: The Revenge is streaming on Peacock.
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