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! ;)