Jaws 3-D (1983)

As a spoiled little brat Jaws 3-D was my favourite in the series, mostly because the underwater base felt like something out of a James Bond movie and it had a couple of cool scenes with a very rubbery shark. It also had a strong eighties feeling (remember I'm born in '77, so when this arrived on tape in Sweden it felt like it was the same time more or less, and therefore even cooler. Like I was living in a eighties-retro-fashion movie myself, except without killer sharks around the corner. A dream for a boy living in the grey Sweden.

Jaws 3-D started like parody film with Joe Dante attached to direct, "National Lampoon's Jaws 3, People 0", but when Spielberg heard of this he threatened to walk away from Universal and it quickly became a serious (well...) sequel instead. This time we follow the Brad boys, now grown-up and working at a Sea World-park. Everything is fine and everyone is happy and in love until the day that darn shark (or just another shark of course, because like Jason Voorhees he's killed in every film) decides to create havoc with crashing the capitalist-party and destroy this fine animal-torture park!

It hasn't aged that well, mostly because the visual effects - those who probably looked bad even in 3D looks terrible. And people say special effects was better in the past! Here it's like the shark is floating around in another dimension with big, black bars around him. The rubber version is funnier, but not especially realistic and somehow I feel its a missed opportunity. Why didn't they do even more disaster scenes at the park, more people being stuck down in the underwater tunnels, the shark attacking other floating devices and houses and shit like that? It's a dream come true for a shark-movie. But nooooo! It's just not enough.

Now I sound quite negative here... and I might be quite negative also, but it's still a fun film and I enjoyed a lot now when I finally gave it a spin again. The cast is fun, Dennis Quaid is cute and Louis Gossett Jr. is as cool as usual but in a very underwritten characters. So also Simon MacCorkindale, an excellent actor who probably took this job just because of the paycheck. But he's still great.

When we travelled to China four years ago we actually visited smaller Sea World-style place, but with focus on smaller sea-living creatures. One part of the place felt exactly like Jaws 3-D including a nasty, nasty shark following us on the outside of the tunnel, looking very hungry - and mean. Here's proof:

Hardly a sequeltastic masterpiece but good fun, especially on a slow Sunday and for fans and lovers of rubber sharks and cheesy helmet-haircuts. One day I might give Jaws: The Revenge a try also. Wish me luck! ;)