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Jaws: The Revenge (1987)

Episode 283, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd

Craig: and I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, we finished our month of Christmas stuff, but we would be remiss if we don’t take advantage of yet another holiday that comes around once a year and honor new year. And we have been fortunate enough to be able to find a few horror movies that are tangentially at least related to new years.

I mean, nothing’s going to be bloody new year or new year’s evil. Those are harder to come by. But, uh, this year we have a request that has been a long standing request by Chris. Chris. Our loyal listener has been reminding us constantly that Jaws: The Revenge is a film that he would like us to do. Craig, of course immediately got excited about doing jaws to revenge because apparently you’ve got quite a history with this one and because it has a, some new years aspect to it, it does take place actually a little bit over Christmas, a little bit over new year’s as well.

So it’s a good bridge movie. Uh, so yeah, here we are. We’re doing 1987, PG 13 rated horror film, Jaws: The Revenge. It is the fourth movie in the Jaws franchise and it is so interesting. We’ve done jaws, 3d. I still enjoy that one better. It was just totally wackadoodle. And it took place at SeaWorld. And how can you really beat that?

But this film it’s arguably even less plausible, also has some big names in it. And, uh, it has an interesting story, production history. So, uh, I mean, any sequel to jaws is going to have an interesting production history because by the time you’ve hit the fourth one, you do kind of start to wonder if it’s really such a good idea.

Right. But here we are. And it’s the last one actually that we’ve gotten. Right. I don’t think there’s been a jaws movie since 

Craig: this. Well, And official one, there, there is a movie called Cruel Jaws that some people consider a fifth jaws movie, but it doesn’t, there, there are no real connections, 

Todd: some Italian production by, uh, yeah.

Berta Lindsay or something like that. 

Craig: Yeah. I’ve never seen it, but, uh, yeah, no, this is the last one and it’s kind of a big deal because you know, the, the original Jaws, if I’m remembering correctly was kind of the first like big summer blockbuster, like kind of defined. The summer blockbuster movie. I 

Todd: mean, it established the whole concept basically.

Yeah. That studios could have one movie that would be so hyped and so big and have such a mass appeal and be so thrilling that, you know, you do one or two of these in a summer, and then you can bank roll. You know, you can take a risk on all the other films in your catalog because this is what brings your studio the most money.

And obviously one could argue, this has been taken a little too far nowadays, but nonetheless love it or hate it really for this reason before this movie studios had a much wider variety. The films that they would do subjects they would do, um, experimental stuff, things for various audiences, but this sort of solidified the concept that, you know, what we’re playing it safer.

If we can go for a huge hits that are going to appeal to a mass audience, be in that PG/PG-13 realm and just make tons of money all over the world. 

Craig: And it did. And it was a good movie. I mean, it had, there’s lots of interesting stories about it too. I mean, we’ve never done the first one. There are all kinds of stories about how, you know, it’s Steven Spielberg, you know, when he was young.

And, uh, I mean, Steven Spielberg is, is still a fine filmmaker, but I think that, uh, this was. You know, early in his career, arguably, he was climbing the peak to his prime 

Todd: Dwayne. And, but hadn’t really proven himself a hundred percent. 

Craig: Right. But this was huge. I mean, this put him on the map and there were all kinds of problems with the animatronic shark and he had to do creative things about that.

And lots of good stories there. There’s lots of good stories here. What’s what’s I was excited to do this movie because. Um, this is a movie that my sister and I watched regularly, like all the time we watched part three all the time, too, when we were a kid and part three is goofy, but it’s, it’s fun, goofy, like you said, like it’s Jaws at SeaWorld.

Like, come on. Like, that’s not fun about that. 

Todd: Oh God, it’s fun. Goofy. And it’s got hilarious. Special effects was when they were first doing video compositing and it looks terrible, terribly silly, but they’re cheap 3d gags in there. It’s it’s a blast. Yeah. 

Craig: And so we watched that. I watched that a lot when I was little.

And then when jaws four came out, I remember being very excited about it and I wanted my dad to take me to see it in the theater. This was 87. So I would have been about eight. He had taken me to horror movies before. So that wasn’t a huge issue. The issue was right when it came out, we were preparing to take a trip to Florida.

And my mom was scared that if my dad took me to see this movie, that I wouldn’t get in the ocean. So I had to assure them that that wasn’t the case that I knew it was just a movie, whatever. So he did, he took me to see it in the theater. I don’t remember what my thoughts were about it then, but we continued watching it.

It played on cable quite a bit. And I just remember liking it. My sister liked it, but I, of course I hadn’t seen it in God, 15 years, at least. I don’t know. And so I was excited to go back, but this movie also has a terrible, terrible reputation. People just trash. It, it was trashed by the critics. If you read, you know, fan stuff online, I mean, they just talk about how this is just absolutely the worst and it totally killed the franchise.

It’s awful, awful, 

Todd: awful. People sometimes call it one of the worst movies ever, ever. I don’t think it deserves that, but no. 

Craig: Yeah. I went back and watched it yesterday. I don’t get it. I still like this movie, like, well, it’s not that 

Todd: bad. It’s not, but you know, here’s the thing. And this is the thing that I think makes this different from the, well, it doesn’t make it different from the other ones.

I mean, the point of Jaws is kind of like the point of Moby Dick. It’s really not about the shark, right? It’s about the people dealing with the shark and their various obsessions and, and their, their conflict and their issues. Right? Like, I mean, if you don’t want to mess with a shark, you just don’t get.

Right. You know, and I think when this movie was proposed, I believe there was a new studio head at MCA, universal Sydney. Shineberg famous, famous producer, CEO there, um, and thought that if they made another sequel to Jaws, they could make a profit and follow off of like Jaws 3D, even though it’s goofy. And it got panned as well.

It was a commercial success, even though it got, you know, negative reviews. And I think also, uh, universal studios, theme park had a Jaws ride that they thought they could promote as well. Um, and so, you know, he came up with the idea. And not only put it together, but like put it together in super record time.

There are people involved in the productions movie that said in all of their years of working on a movie, they’ve never seen a project come together so fast and be done so quickly. So he really pushed it through. But anyway, the point of Jaws right, is, is the people. And I think to his credit, he sort of recognized that.

And it seems to be when you read the interviews and I did, I went through and read a whole bunch of contemporary interviews of the people involved in the production, doing promotion for this movie, Michael Kane, all these folks who were in it, they all kind of said the same thing. They said, we got involved with it, even though it’s quite silly to do a fourth Jaws movie.

And nobody’s quite sure it’s a good idea because we liked the script because we saw the humanity of the characters. Ellen Brody comes back. They tried to get more people to come back, but, but they wouldn’t. But you know, like Ellen Brody was played by a. Lorraine Gary. Yeah. And she saw a really interesting part here.

And you know what? She does have an interesting part in this movie. She does her characters and she does a good job. Yeah. I think though, by now, your fourth jaws movie, people were maybe expecting a little more. Yeah, I think that’s it. You know, we saw Jaws 3D is full of action. It’s quite gratuitous. And that’s part of what makes it fun and Orca, which, you know, is not made by the same people.

But, uh, we quite liked it because it was goofy and ridiculous, but it had a ton of action. Yeah. It had great set pieces. This movie is surprisingly lacking. I think in that they took what they thought was the key to the original jaws, which one could say is true is, you know, focusing on the characters, but they almost did so much of that, that the frickin shark barely makes an appearance and things don’t really start happening significantly until we’re two thirds of the way through the movie.

So I think that’s, I think that’s the only send this movie commits, you know, I really do. I 

Craig: mean, it definitely. It’s flaws. I mean, the, the premise that, well, that 

Todd: that’s a bigger 

Craig: set. I’ll just put it that way. Yeah. The premise that this shark is, you know, seeking revenge and targeting this one family, I mean, that’s kind of stupid.

I mean, uh, really, if you get into the weeds of what the plot was supposed to be, they really toned down the stupid. Um, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know. That’s that’s I mean, well, I mean, okay, so the whole revenge thing is kind of stupid the effects. Aren’t great, but you have to take into consideration.

This is 1987. And so the shark looks like a giant bath toy, right? It’s it’s ridiculous. It doesn’t, it has very little motion, very little mobility at all. Like when it comes up out of the water and submerges into the water, it’s it just like floats to the top and then like descends, like that’s not how sharks move.

It doesn’t look real at all. Frankly, I think that I would take this over bad. CGI, at least it’s a real, tangible thing that you can see in that looks not like a real shark, but like an actual real thing, um, that people can react to. Um, so I’ll somewhat forgive it for that, but honestly, I think tonally this.

Takes it back to the tone of the first movie. Yes, it does. It’s it’s, it’s serious. It’s based very much in family and relationships. It’s 

Todd: trying to get us very sympathetic to these characters and people before they start having to face the shark. 

Craig: Yeah. And in that regard, it is not bad. The performances are fine.

These are perfectly fine actors. And I actually am investing. And they’re characters. I care about these people, so so-so okay. Jaws one great movie. You know what I mean? It’s classic. It’s a great movie. I’m going to skip Josh two for now and say jaws three, highly entertaining. Cheesy popcorn, flick goofy, knew what it was doing.

Fun. I enjoyed it. The reason I skipped just two is because Jaws 2, I think is still people hold it in pretty high regard. I find it boring as shit. Like I can’t bring myself to watch it when it’s on. It’s just a retread of the first one. It’s super boring. I like this one better than jaws two. And in some ways I think it’s a better movie than Jaws 3D.

I just don’t really get all the hate. Cause it’s it’s, it’s not that bad. And, and well, and like you said, I think that the most interesting things that we’ll talk about are some of the behind the scenes things. Cause there are some really interesting things going on, but this movie takes us right back in the beginning, um, to Amity island, the setting of the first one, and you get this classic shark POV where they sample, you know, the, the original jaws theme is just kind of that classic, you know, jaws opening, the underwater shots, the surfacing shots.

You don’t see the shark, it’s all POV, which was established in the first one, primarily because the animatronic didn’t work. So they had to work with, uh, POV type stuff. And then we cut back to Ellen Brody, the wife of. Martin Brody, the main character from the first movie played by Lorraine, Gary, who I don’t know a whole lot about.

I know that she was an actress, but I also know that her boyfriend was a studio head and a lot of people think. Got maybe her role in jaws for that reason, but whatever, she’s fine. She’s back. And she’s making dinner with her youngest son, Sean, 

Todd: who is super annoying. 

Craig: He’s really annoying. We’re getting a big tree and we’re getting out all the old ornaments and we’re going to do it right.

And we’re putting out cookies in a bottle of beer for sale. All right, we’ll do it. All right, Tiffany, do you have any idea what a madman you’re marrying. I got to go check in. Okay. See you later. Bye. You too, Sean. And his brother, Michael, their children. In the first movie, uh, Michael is a teenager in the second movie and they’re adults in the third movie.

And in the third movie, Michael is played by Dennis Quaid and they tried to get him to come back for this movie. And he wasn’t interested, uh, which is fine, but kind of too bad. No, I wouldn’t have mind seeing him come back. Bess Armstrong who played his girlfriend in, in part three, they wanted to get them both back, um, and both declined.

So they recast them. But the actors that they recast are perfectly fine. Anyway, Ellen is making dinner and she gets a phone call from her granddaughter Thea who ends up being one of the main characters in this movie. She’s very, she’s absolutely adorable. And I think. Uh, great child actress. She, I feel like she’s just one of those kids that gets acting that gets that acting is just pretending.

And so it comes up, she comes across as very natural, very childlike. 

Todd: Well, she didn’t do much except, um, I mean she did ducky in the land before time. And Marie and all dogs go to heaven. Those are the last two things she did. And I, I love both of those movies. I loved them as a 

Craig: kid. Yeah. And her story is absolutely tragic.

I mean, uh, it, it must have been, uh, an abusive relationship. Her family was in, because I think just her dad was crazy. And when she was cast in this movie, she and her mother were going to The Bahamas. Uh, most of this movie was shot in Hawaii. Uh, but I think that they did some of it in The Bahamas. And, you know, as she and her mother were getting ready to leave, the father held a knife to her.

I mean, this is, we’re talking like an eight year old girl, you know, held a knife to her throat and threatened to kill her and said, if they didn’t come back from the shoot, he would kill them both. And, um, so they, I mean, they did go back, unfortunately, because then just a little over a year later, he did kill them both and then himself and, and that’s terrible.

I mean, I think that she probably had a very promising career ahead of her and tragically that was taken from her super sad and makes, you know, kind of makes watching the movie sad. Cause she’s so cute. But anyway, you know, it it’s, it’s family stuff just reintroducing us to the family. Sean’s got a fiance.

They’re getting married soon. It’s Christmas, it’s Christmas Eve. But Sean, uh, gets, uh, I guess he has followed in his father’s footsteps, which is out of keeping with part three. But apparently the writers of this movie didn’t watch part two or three. So there are some inconsistencies in part three, it’s established that Sean was so traumatized by the events of his childhood, that he moved to Colorado and wanted to be as far away from the water as he possibly could be in this movie.

Either living again, an Amity or never left Amity and he’s followed in his father’s footsteps and he is, uh, an officer, uh, on the island and there’s a last minute call and he’s the only one available. And apparently a, uh, a stray old dock piling is stuck on a buoy and they need to get it out before the fishermen come back in or go back out or something.

I don’t know, there’s a prominent photograph of his dad in the precinct. And, uh, he goes out that, you know, we could have done this for Christmas, just as easily as new year’s there a big Christmas celebration going on a big festival. You know, people choir’s singing skits going on. It’s very festive. He goes out on the boat and he’s trying to dislodge this log from this buoy.

And I have in my notes, the shark jumps out of The Bahamas and by this horrible, okay.

Uh, they use so much footage in this movie, like the same shots of the shark jumping out of the water over and over again. And seriously, when this shark you don’t even see him and the shark in the same frame, the shark shark just jumps out of the crystal clear day. Lit blue water. 

Todd: Hilariously bad. Yeah. I mean, it’s stuff like this that gets you the worst movie of all time thing.

Like, come on guys, get us some continuity here. You had a shark. You could control wait till nighttime and do it again and just get a shot of that. And 

Craig: I’m sure that they didn’t even have the animatronic in that location was probably part of it. You know, they only had it in Hawaii. That’s where they shot at whatever, but it jumps out of the water.

It bites his arm off. He, he leans over the side to call for help where he’s attacked again. And it’s pretty brutal. You know, he’s floating like holding onto a log screaming for help, but this festival is going on. So nobody hears him. And, uh, he, uh, eventually is pulled underwater and doesn’t come back up.

And the next morning his mom has to ID his body, which, uh, is sad. Uh, this is the first death in the movie. That happens within the first five to 10 minutes. And then there’s only one more death in the whole movie and it doesn’t happen for another hour. 

Todd: At least that’s one of the big flaws. I think I, you know, I, I mean, there’s some close calls and whatnot, but no, the biggest.

Is that his death immediately starts upsetting Ellen, his mom, because, well, obviously it’s upsetting to her, but her main contention is it 

Craig: came to him.

It’s waited all this time and it came to 

Todd: him. Ah, so the whole point, and as you said earlier, the conceit of the movie is that this shark has come for them. It can hunt them down no matter where they are. And they never stray too far from the water. No matter how upset she is about the water, especially now that her son is 

Craig: dead well, it now is like a, a Marine biologist researcher.

Yeah. Like he’s, uh, working towards his PhD and he’s living in The Bahamas and doing these, not experiments, but he’s like tracking, uh, sea snails, con conch, whatever they’re called. 

Todd: And Michael is played by Lance guest who you don’t see much of him anymore. I, I think, I don’t think you see much of him anymore.

He’s still working. He’s still working constantly, but he doesn’t look the same. He was just know a beautiful pretty boy. And I remember when. 

Craig: So handsome. What do you remember him from the last star fighter? Yeah, God, I remember that too. It’s funny because I, he so handsome in this movie and, um, I clicked on his IMDV page and I’m not going to say anything mean because we’re 

Todd: all older hits us all.

We’re 

Craig: all older. So, you know, he looks appropriately his age and you, and I know very well what happens to men as we get older and it happened to him too, but I saw his picture. I was like, oh my God, he was so cute. 

Todd: All that’s left are the eyes now, 

Craig: whatever, I’m sure he’s a lovely person. 

Todd: I’m sure he’s 

Craig: doing well.

But they, they come for the, his whole family. He has a wife named Carla played by Karen Young, who I recognized very much, but really just from this movie. But I like her she’s spunky. She’s real. They have this great relationship where I feel like a real couple. They love each other very much and they’re hot for each other, but they fight and stuff.

Like I just, I really like. They’re great. And they’ve got this little girl at the 

Todd: end. I mean, kind of like you said, all the people in this movie feel real, and then this is distract of the script. I think that, I think this was the appealing thing of the script that everybody liked and that Sid Sheinberg was really pushing for and, you know, make these people real, make us care about these folks before bad things start happening.

Craig: And, and because they’re, I mean, they’re real and because they’re real, they’re flawed. And because they’re flawed, I think that they’re relatable and you can get on board with them. There’s I don’t know, 10 minutes that they spend on the funeral. And like people gathering people from the original movie, the woman who played Mrs.

Kentner leafy arrow. She was the mother of the first boy who was attacked in the first movie she’s there sitting with with Ellen and. Some of her friends, Ellen, uh, kind of breaks down and yells at Michael that she wants him to quit his job. She wants him to get out of the water. She doesn’t want anybody in her family anywhere near the water.

She says, cause the, you know, the shark waited it. She says it killed your father. And he says, dad had a heart attack. And she said, well, it was the fear. It was the fear of it that killed it. 

Todd: That’s pretty dumb though. You gotta admit. That’s pretty 

Craig: silly. It’s funny though. And he says, mom, you can’t believe that voodoo sharks don’t have vendettas against people.

And I had never noticed that line before, but it’s ironic because originally in the script and in the novelization of the movie, this is. In fact, a voodoo shark 

Todd: controlled by a witch doctor 

Craig: controlled 

Todd: by a which doc, but kind of going off of what I, what I contended earlier. It makes a little more sense that, that this, this shark is actually magical than this shark has the brains and the capacity to track somebody from the water all the way down to the bombers, wherever they are.

Buddha makes more sense. 

Craig: It does. I have not read the novelization, but I’m actually kind of curious, right? Because I guess in the novelization, Michael, somehow pisses off a witch doctor in The Bahamas and the witch doctor summons the shark to attack his family. And I guess that some of the book is told from the perspective of the shark, which I have read Joel.

Which was a novel first and most, if not, all of it is from the perspective of the shark, but in this novelization, some of it’s from the perspective of the shark and the shark doesn’t even understand why it’s doing what it’s doing. Like it’s just controlled 

Todd: by the witchdoctor. Oh my God. I’m getting these strange feelings.

Craig: Uh, Michael assures her. He’s like, look, we’re in The Bahamas. There is never been a great white where we live. It’s warm water. They don’t like it. They decide to go back to the island and she, she agrees to go with them. 

Todd: Yeah. They end up flying to The Bahamas. Now, is this the point at which Mario van Peebles pops in here?

Cause I was really surprised to see him and I hadn’t seen this before. You hadn’t seen this, believe it or not. No, I’d never ever seen this before, 

Craig: actually before Mario van people shows up, uh, Michael Kane shows up he’s the pilot of the plane and Michael Caine is a great actor, very famous Oscar winning actor.

But apparently I knew this about this movie, but I didn’t know it was a thing like apparently every once in a while he just does a movie for the money. He knows they’re not great movies, but they’re going to pay him a lot of money and he does it. And that, that was this movie. And apparently, I guess he agreed to do the movie after reading the first line of the script, which was like, Fade in Hawaii.

And he had wanted to film a movie in Hawaii for a while. So he was like, all right, no. 

Todd: Well, he ended up, I mean, the movie filmed in like seven days down there, uh, and the schedule was really tight and it overlapped with the academy awards and he was nominated and won. It turns out for Hannah and her sisters.

Yeah. An academy award during this time. And he really wanted to get out of the filming so that he could actually attend the award ceremony and it was just wasn’t working out. So he wasn’t able to collect his academy award because he was down filming this movie. You’d think that would piss a guy off a little bit.

But I think the quote from him later was something like, uh, I got an Oscar, I got a new house and I got a nice little vacation. So to me that’s all basically a win. 

Craig: Yeah. Right. Yeah. And being asked specifically about. The movie, I’m not reading it. So forgive me if I misquote, but he said something like, well, I’ve never seen it by all accounts.

It’s horrible, but I have seen the house that it paid for. And it’s fantastic.

That sounds like a guy that I would want to be friends with, you know? And what I, you know, I made, he made a bunch of money. He made a million plus dollars to shoot for seven days in a tropical paradise. My God win-win right. They never even watched the movie. So you know, who can, 

Todd: and you need to learn things like this, about your famous actor, friends, you know what I mean?

Everybody holds Michael Kane up in highest esteem. You know, it was like, you know, this like really come on. This guy did blame it on Rio. He did a lot of schlock as well. And then you hear him talk about it. Like, dude, I’m just, I need a paycheck as much as

it’s, it’s great. It’s grounding. It’s as grounding as his character is in this film. And 

Craig: he’s funny and he’s good. He’s, he’s a nice light element in this movie. And he establishes a relationship with Ellen that is sweet. You know, they’re older and they’re not ancient, but they’re, they’re older people, but they spark this flirty.

Cute romantic relationship and it’s believable. And I was rooting for them. So cute because Michael. Sees this relationship budding. And he’s concerned about it because he doesn’t know who hoagie is. He knows he he’s a big gambler. He flies a charter plane and Michael like, seems like suspicious about this.

It’s not brought up in the movie. Apparently they did film the scenes hoagie in fact, is a drug smuggler. Like I don’t think that he himself, but he’s well, he’s a. Uh, a mule 

Todd: or there’s like a throwaway line in the movie that that’s that’s I can’t remember where it was or exactly who said it. I don’t think it was him himself, but somebody brings up something in the, in the middle of their, like, what do you fly anyway?

And he gives some kind of coy remark that laundry. Yeah. Laundry. Yeah. I deliver a laundry. Okay. We get it. 

Craig: It’s hinted at, but you know, again, well, the guy just needs, he’s just making it, just it a paycheck, 

Todd: just like the actor behind him and, and, you know, I think you said, this is just a sweet, cute, and utterly natural, older couple relationship.

It’s not over the top dramatic and romantic. It’s like, Hey, these two people enjoy each other. And, and I think this is something actually that I read attracted both him and, um, Ellen Brody’s character back to the table. They liked the idea that you don’t often see an older couple romance in a movie. It’s always young people get together.

And this was nice. This was another nice 

Craig: touch. Yeah, I thought so too. I really like that element of it. Ellen is still nervous about the water. She kind of freaks out when they get back to Michael and Carla’s house and Thea’s like swinging from a dock and she kind of freaks out or whatever. I should also mention.

Carla, apparently is an artist. She is in making a C she’s been commissioned to make a sculpture for the island, and it’s called tourists on the losers. And it’s very reminiscent of a sharp 

Todd: attacking a person. Like what the 

Craig: hell looks like. Yeah. I mean, it’s abstract that it’s very reminiscent of 

Todd: Azure.

Are you trying to rub this family’s tragedy in its nose even more? And we got to mention Mario van Peebles character, Jake, who is also, he’s doing the research with Michael. And as soon as he comes on, I’m hearing is Jamaican accent. And I’m like, oh God, that it’s an awful Jamaican accent. And then like about two or three shots later.

Okay. That’s settled into something, not so terrible. And then like two or three shots later, it completely disappears.

Craig: Jake. The, my chops. I remember what they look like, the hot on the outside chewy on the inside. Sometimes they come with a little grant attached to them, move tag it a downtown, not a separate the lace and the gentlemen. Oh man. No, do that can move too slow. You got to speed. Flow is slower and you’re moving it down slow.

You’re going to go wrong. 

Todd: Like there is a very inconsistent, uh, sometimes over the top Jamaican accent coming out of this man’s mouth. 

Craig: Yeah, it is. I mean, he’s a likable guy too, but again, Michael and Jake, his name is Jake. They’re PhD students. They’re working together, they’re partners, but they’re obviously very good friends and you know, their, their wives are friends.

Like, you know, they’re, they’re good friends, but. Just like Michael and Carla, Michael and Jake have a very real relationship. They get on each other’s nerves and bicker sometimes, but ultimately they always, they have each other’s backs. They care about each other. They’re invested in one another and just, just real characters.

And Mario van Peebles looks great in this movie to a very handsome, they have Christmas Jake and his wife Louisa who’s gorgeous. Um, come over for Christmas. And this is when we get the first full shot of the shark and it’s swimming around. Um, in these Baja Manian waters. And so it’s very bright and very blue, but I also got the sense that the ocean and The Bahamas is never more than like seven or eight feet.

If that, regardless of how far out into the sea you go, you could basically see the swim to the bottom and touch it and come back out. No walk along there. 

Todd: Yeah. It, even when Michael Kane comes up, uh, paddling in a boat onto the shore, I’m thinking, God, how does that boat keep moving? It’s clearly scraping the sand 

Craig: and that, that happens here.

But Ellen is making a sandcastle with FIA on the beach. When all of a sudden she gets a strange feeling and looks. Over the sea. And I don’t think I’d ever noticed this before, but you hear the roar of the shark as she hears it too. Like, like the shark is a net. Like I am here shark, 

Todd: literally roars it’s.

Uh, it’s interesting. I 

Craig: don’t think it’s, I, you know, people make fun of that and at the end it’s even more obvious, but paying attention this time, I was like, holy shit. That shark just roared, like that’s crazy. I 

Todd: mean, I did get a little tired of her little premonitions. It was just constant. There was something here’s an issue I have with the movie.

We’re not quite there yet, but I’m just going to foreshadow it. I’m just going to talk about it right now is that this film spends a ton of time setting us up for her conflict with just the whole idea that they’re even by the water. Now, she doesn’t want her son working in the water. She wants them to change jobs.

They have arguments over it. She, every time she gets steps in the water, she’s getting premonitions and she’s, can’t sleep at night, all this stuff having nightmares. Yeah. And as soon as this relationship with, um, with hoagie, BA blossoms, it’s like next scene she’s explaining to her son, you know what, actually, I’m cool.

I’m totally fine. Um, I’ve gotten over 

Craig: it. Not fair. She it’s bothering her. and he takes, he takes her to like, it’s an actual, uh, festival. I can’t remember what the name of it is, but it’s like carny vol, you know, it’s like a parade, lots of dancing celebration. And she, you know, she tells him, like, I know it’s coming, it’s coming to get us.

And he tells her, yeah. Have to come and tell him I even got nothing to do with it. I drank with an umbrella in it, give it up, give it a kick in the ups, get on me 

Todd: alone. And that’s it. That’s all it takes. I mean, that’s true. That’s 

Craig: come on. Meanwhile, at the exact same moment, Jake is down in the sub, you know, checking on the snails or whatever and, and the shark.

Bumps right up against this little. And when I say submarine, I mean like a one-person submerse, 

Todd: like it’s a tiny little thing, not even water tight, it’s just something to tootle around in while you’re 

Craig: right. It bumps right up against him, but it doesn’t bother him at all. And then it jumps up and attacks the boat where Michael is standing.

So Michael knows that there knows it’s there. Jake is super excited. Cause he’s like, now we don’t have to study these stupid snails anymore. There’s a great week in The Bahamas. It shouldn’t be here. We won’t tell anybody we’ll study it. We’ll, you know, watch its patterns, blah, blah, blah, whatever. And, and, uh, he’s all excited, but of course Michael’s like, uh, maybe you don’t say anything to my mom.

He was like, oh yeah. Okay. Sorry. But you’re right then, uh, it’s new years happy new year, 

Todd: everybody. Yeah.

Craig: Oh God, may it please be better than the last couple of years. But they, there, there’s a big new year’s Eve party and everybody’s dressed up and it’s at a casino and it’s Jake and his wife are there. And, um, Michael and Carla are there 

Todd: and Ellen are out dancing 

Craig: Helge and Ellen, like, it seems pretty established.

It’s not like it’s just very natural of like, they’re like, oh, we’re married now, but they’re hanging out. They’re having a good time. Cool. And, uh, there’s, you know, a sweet moment where hoagie asks, uh, Ellen to dance and they dance for a few seconds, but then Michael goes and cuts in and Ellen tells him that she has decided.

To stop believing that Shawn’s death was intentional and she really seems better, which is great for her. But Michael is conflicted because he knows that the shark is there and it has no business being there. And so now he’s 

Todd: questioning, was she right? It’s a total flip and to its credit, that’s a cool aspect of the movie.

It really, you do see Michael’s conflict. Like he’s holding the secret. Um, and he’s even had some, you know, ends up having a couple encounters with the shark that he has to hide from her. And it’s, it’s obviously weighing on. And in fact, I think it’s at this party that, um, Jake almost spills the beans about it.

Yeah. 

Craig: But, uh, Kim’s really close. Um, but he doesn’t, it ultimately, it probably would have been better if he did, but Jake convinces Michael to take a break from the snails for just a few days to study the shark. And so they chum around the boat. The shark shows up and surfaces 

Todd: leaps out of the water as it always 

Craig: leaps out of the water.

It keeps doing this over and over again. It looks terrible. It doesn’t look natural at all. Um, But Jake has made like this electronic pulse. Oh no. That’s later. What he’s got right now is a tracker that also doesn’t, it’s some rackets locations heartbeat. It monitors its heartbeat, but when it’s within range, they can hear its heart beating.

If it’s out of range, they can’t anyway. So they know that they know when it’s closed. You know, I actually 

Todd: liked this bit of the movie. I thought it was very clever how they had this thing. You know, it’s sort of like in aliens when they’re tracking the alien through the ship and they have that little device.

Right. And it pulses, and it sounds almost like a heartbeat, but as the alien gets closer, that gets faster and faster and faster. Well, it’s not like that with the shark, it just gets louder and more obvious when it gets closer, but it’s there and it’s just, it’s very reminiscent right. Of the whole jaws theme.

It’s not a done, not done. There’s nothing musical about it. Right. What made that original musical cue so effective in the first movie and building that tension, they’ve just replaced that it’s the same idea, but they’ve made it, this, this sort of sonar heartbeat kind of thing that I think the sound design is great.

And it’s really a fact of it letting you know, the shark is close and building tension. It’s it’s 

Craig: nice. And I wanted to say, you know, after that, the very opening scene samples, the original theme, um, and, and to good effect. But after that, the. Unique or original. And I really like it. I really like the score it’s it was reminiscent to me of, um, the Goonies a little bit, um, troll a little bit, anytime you’re overlooking the water, it’s kind of just this twinkly kind of music and it’s.

I don’t know. I really liked the score. There are a lot of things about this movie that I like, but eventually there are acute moments. Like there’s a moment where a hoagie invites Ellen to stay on the island for a little extra while. And he says, you know, and we can hop on over to this other island for a few days or late.

He’s basically asking her to go away with him for a few days and she’s considering it. And it’s cute. She’s like a school girl. She’s like talking about it with Carla. She’s like it, he can’t see, and I didn’t know what to do. It’s it’s really cute. And Elaine, Gary is that Lorraine Gary plays it really well.

She’s sweet. There’s another sweet moment where, um, Thea and Michael share a moment that. Recreates a moment from the first movie where little teeny Sean. I was sitting next to his dad at the dinner table and, and mimicking everything that his dad was doing. The same thing happens here and Ellen sees it.

And so, you know, you’re flashing back and forth between what’s going on in real time and the flashback, and, but eventually. Michael gets attacked by the shark. Uh, he’s down in the sub and they’re listening for it on the thing. And they’re like, oh yeah, this has got a three mile radius. If we hear it, you’ll have plenty of time to get up.

Well, then right away they hear it. And uh, Jake’s like, uh, it’s coming fast, get up, but he doesn’t get up there in time. And the shark attacks the sub and he has to get out. And he, he swims to a wreck shipwreck 

Todd: under convenient. Yeah. Under, yeah, like seven feet of water. And the shark gets in there. It follows 

Craig: him through, oh, wreck, like so bad.

It doesn’t even fit in there really. And we know in real life that sharks can’t swim backwards. So that shark probably would’ve just been stuck in there and drown. It almost gets him, but he uses his. Air tank to propel himself to the top and low luckily surfaces right next to the boat. So 

Todd: good thing. I mean, by the way, as a diver myself, I’ll tell you that he’s going to have even bigger problems surfacing that fast.

It’s only seven feet tall.

Okay. Fair enough. Yeah, he’s not, I 

Craig: don’t think he’s going to get a Benz from 

Todd: seven feet. Well, you’d be surprised, but you’re right. It’s supposed to be more than seven feet, but yeah, it’s clearly not. 

Craig: And still Michael doesn’t tell anybody, like, I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s out of loyalty to Jake or if, uh, he doesn’t want to scare them, but he shouldn’t scare them.

You know, that shark is clearly out to get them. Um, but the very next day he wants to go back down. Cause he’s like, you know, if you fall off the horse, you got to get right back on and he tells Jake, look, I’m scared to death. And if I don’t go back down there, um, I may never get back in the water again.

And so he goes down and there’s an ELL scare, which was kind of funny. But then we cut to Carla’s unveiling of her sculpture. And this is the best scene of the moon. I would say, this is one of the best attack scenes of the series. They’re on a very crowded beach for this, uh, dedication of her statue. And Thea sees that her friend.

Are going to ride on a banana boat, which is just this, you know, literally a big inflatable banana polled by a boat I’ve written one of these. They’re great.

Todd: It’s sort of like inner tubing, right? Except on a long banana shaped thing. Yeah. Oh, 

Craig: they’re and they’re, they’re, you know, they’re really big, you know, these are little kids writing it. They’re in life jackets, totally safe. And so she asks her mom, she can go and she’s like, know Margaret’s going and she’s with her mom.

And Carla’s like, okay, fine. And, um, Ellen seems a little bit nervous, but remember she’s decided she’s not going to be scared anymore. So Carla reassures her and she’s basically okay. But Thea gets on the boat and Ellen gets her psychic feelings. And she looks out and she sees the shark fin chasing behind the banana boat.

And so she screams and everybody looks out and everybody sees it. And everybody’s running down to the water, this shark attacks, the inflated 

Todd: banana targets, her specifically, it 

Craig: targets her specifically, 

Todd: right. And this whole beach full of people right 

Craig: there, her, her friend’s mother who, you know, must’ve been just a wonderful woman, picks the up and moves her, like, like pushes her forward on the boat.

And then she gets. Um, and everybody is on the beach, watching and screaming as this woman is riding around in the sharks mouth above water. And that’s it. That’s the second death, but this marks the beginning of the third act because Ellen sees this and she gets the serious look on her face and she turns around and she starts running.

She runs. And I guess that Jake and Michael have come back because she takes their boat and Michael eventually finds, they don’t even know what’s happened. Michael comes in to find Carla consoling, Thea, who’s in shock. And he’s like, oh my God, I’m so sorry. I should’ve told you. And Carlos furious. That he knew that there was a shark there.

And didn’t tell that he runs away and realizes that his mom must have taken the boat. So he grabs Jake and they’re going to take out like a little fishing boat to look for her, but they come across hoagie and hoagies, like that’s stupid. You’ll never find her. So he takes them out in the plane. And the plan is, we’ll find her, we’ll see where she is.

We’ll call for the rescue boats and they’ll go out and get. But when they do find her shocker is maybe 50 yards. Behind her trade 

Todd: knows what boat she’s on. She’s out there. And she’s what is she planning on doing? I just don’t understand. No, but she does stand, I think, on the boat and go, come and get me you son of a bitch.

Yeah. 

Craig: And then the shark is coming and she’s just standing there. So hoagie. So hoagie 

Todd: rashes his plane into the water. Well, first, 

Craig: first he buzzes the shark. Like, as it’s jumping out to attacker, he like buzzes it and it goes back in the water and then he swings back around and he does lands his plane. I know.

And he’s like, hold on guys. And Jake’s like, do you know how to land? Do you know how to land this in the water? And he’s like, no, what kind of pilot do you 

Todd: fuck?

Craig: But he does. He lands this. Water plane on the water and Jake and, uh, Michael dive off and swim to the boat. And they’re fine. 

Todd: Everybody’s in the freaking water when the shark is right there, apparently targeting them. Yeah. It’s a really stupid 

Craig: idea. Except for Michael Kane, he stands in the door of the plane and is cracking wise.

He does throughout the whole movie and the shark attacks the plane and presumably gets him. But doesn’t because, you know, after, uh, Ellen has a minute to like mourn him, he shows up crawling onto the boat and he’s fine. And this leads up to the very end where first of all, Jake real quick puts together this other device that sends out like an electric impulse.

I don’t know if it’s a shock or what it’s meant to be, but he thinks that if he can get it inside the shark and they can trigger it, it’ll drive this. Crazy and it’ll die or something. I don’t know. And so, uh, he does, he gets on the mask. Is it the mask? I don’t know the part that sticks out the front of the ship and the shark jumps out and he does like spirit into the shark’s mouth, but then.

He gingerly lowers himself into the shark’s mouth. I 

Todd: know,

I, at first I thought it was like slow motion or something, but no, he just looked worse himself. It’s it’s bad. Like he doesn’t even slip or anything. He just, no. 

Craig: And, and then, and you see, okay, so then he’s in the shark’s mouth, he’s all bloody. And he like, he’s beating the shark and you see him take, you, see it, take him down, crashing him around 

Todd: way.

Right. There’s 

Craig: no way. Oh, it’s, it’s crazy. And then, so the mom is driving the boat and they see where the shark is and she turns the boat right towards it. Michael has this triggering device and he’s, he’s pushing it. And every time he pushes it, there’s like an electric, like. And, uh, the sharks screams literally and jumps out of the water and it becomes evident that she is headed straight for it.

And so right, as she’s getting close to it and it’s jumping out of the water, she has flashbacks. To the death of all of the members of her family that she did not ask. 

Todd: That’s my notes. Grandma’s having visions of stuff. She never saw.

Craig: Arguably she saw, you know, Thea be attacked, but not from that perspective. And, and she did not see Sean or Martineau getting attacked, but she has flashbacks to it. None of, or the movie 

Todd: versions 

Craig: it to be fair, to be fair. It is fun to see the flashback department one with, with Martin Brody on what is it, the proud that’s what it is right on the prowl of the ship, holding the gun.

And, you know, Ellen is pointing the, the front of the. Both at the shark. And just as the shark rears out of the water and you see that the front of the boat is going to impale it. Um, in the flashback, you see Martin say smile, you son of a bitch, which is one of the greatest lines in cinematic history. And he fires the gun in the flashback.

I saw this movie in the theater. So let me tell you about my ex. When I saw this movie in the theater, what happened was the stick, the big post that sticks out of the front of the boat. Impales the shark and it screams and blood flies, everybody everywhere. And you see it in and you see blood flowing out of its mouth and the weight of the shark breaks off the entire front part of the ship.

And everybody on the ship falls down to the ground. And then you see the shark bleeding profusely sinking with the whole front of the boat down to the bottom. And that’s basically the end. There is a scene after that, where you see Ellen flyaway. That’s it. Now I remember seeing this on television years later and the ending was totally different and I was like, what the fuck?

Like, this is not how the movie is. And it turns out that what I saw in the theater. Was the theatrical release after the, it had already been released into theaters in the United States, I guess it didn’t the ending wasn’t received well. So while the film was running in the United States, they went back and did reshoots.

They reshot the end and when they released it in Europe, they released it with the new ending and then every DVD release home video, every home video release since then has used the European release apparently for a little while on AMC the cable now. They were still occasionally showing the American one, but nobody does anymore.

And the, the new ending doesn’t make 

Todd: any God, I, this is what I saw. So this is my first time seeing it. She pokes it with the sticky thing and the shark explodes. I was like, oh, did I miss something somewhere in here? Was there an explosive involved in any of this? It explodes quite violently. And uh, everybody kind of leaps off the boat and who just sort of surfaces up in the water.

Who’s just sort of bleeding a little bit from his shoulder. It’s like, are you kidding me? This guy was halfway in that thing’s mouth thrashing around just as bad as the girl earlier who died. Um, there’s no way. There’s no way. Where did he come from? 

Craig: No, it doesn’t make, it doesn’t make any sense. And I feel like with that new ending with them all popping back up in the water, they were trying to do a throwback to part one where Richard Dreyfus and the main guy Martin, you know, are left swimming in the water.

I think it was kind of a callback to that, but the exploding shark makes no sense and they just reuse the footage from part one with this shark sinking. I just don’t get it. I much prefer the original ending. Did you watch it on YouTube? You can watch it. 

Todd: I forgot. I forgot to look it up, but it just hearing you describe it.

It makes 10 times more sense than what they ended up. 

Craig: It makes a lot more sense and you can watch it on YouTube apparently. I know that AMC does this because I’ve seen it with other movies, they will, they will take movies and they will air versions of them with additional footage that never played in theaters or in any, uh, video cut.

And they’ve done that with this movie, so you can go online and you can watch the original ending and you can watch like almost 15 minutes of cut footage. Um, it’s nothing exciting. It’s not even particularly interesting, but if you’re interested in this movie, if this is a movie that you enjoyed and you’re curious, um, it’s there.

I watched them, you know, it’s 15 minutes. I had 15 minutes, no big deal. And like I said, then there’s a last, you know, two minute scene where you see Ellen’s going home and everybody’s happy. Everybody says goodbye. And, um, and they, they fly away and hoagies telling one of those goofy stories. The end, I will say again.

And without embarrassment that I still like this movie, I enjoyed watching it. It was a, you know, it’s an hour and a half. We have seen movies that have been so much worse. This is not, it’s not like it’s not even like so bad. It’s good. It’s just like, it’s fine. I think that it’s a perfectly appropriate sequel is.

In quality as good as part one. No. Are sequels ever as good as the first one? Very, very rarely, very rarely. And I would say that this, I like this. I like it better than part two. And I would say in terms, even though they’re very different tonally in terms of entertainment value, I would say w say it’s on par with part three.

It’s not as exciting, but it makes up for. With characterization and relationships and, and that kind of stuff. I just think it’s a perfectly fine movie. I don’t understand why it’s so much, it’s not great, but it’s not that bad. 

Todd: I mean, yeah. I mean, going back and looking at it, knowing that it’s really old and we’re just talking about the fourth and final sequel and over history of jaws films.

One thing if I had paid to go to the movie theater, when this came out in 1987, like you did, but you were younger. If I had paid to go to the movie theater to see this, when it came out. I would have been disappointed. It was kind of boring if it hadn’t been titled jaws, you know, I don’t know, man, just like when, when there hardly any shark attacks, eh, w one person dies, uh, maybe two, depending on the ending you’ve seen and the shark doesn’t really, there’s no real showdown with the shark until three quarters of the way through the movie.

How much family drama did you, did you pay to come to the theater to see, you know what I mean? So I can understand that. Plus it’s true. Some of the dialogue is pretty ridiculous. The whole COVID. It is preposterous, which apparently they all knew going into production. The director, the director admitted it.

He said we were all just sort of burned out creatively, going through so many pitches that we figured. Well, we could probably, we knew it was stupid, but maybe we could make it work on screen. So there’s that, there’s again, silliness. We talked about with the production where like some of the shots don’t match up.

The shark looks goofy, this true used footage and everything looks like it’s about seven feet under water. Cause it is all of that kind of combined. It’s not a good movie. It’s not like the epitome of craftsmanship that you would expect with from the most expensive movie to be one of the most expensive movies to be released in 1987 with a ton of hype on behind it and on a built on a franchise that has.

Respect and I mean, the third one may be, but you know, still like it’s jaws, it’s supposed to be jaws, the revenge and you get kind of a lot of silliness that you’re being expected to take seriously. So, 

Craig: and family drama that’s fair. It is a lot of family drama. I don’t know. I kind of felt like that was intentional and so really 

Todd: good family drama, you know, it’s just, it’s 

Craig: a jaws.

It is. I think the only reason that I’m so defensive of it is just because it’s so. Widely and adamantly criticized. And it’s fair to say, it’s not a good movie. It’s fair to say. It’s not a great movie, but to say that it’s the worst movie ever. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. It is 

Todd: not that even in 1987. No, for 

Craig: sure.

Anyway, there’s a new year’s Eve party.

Happy new year, everybody. Yeah. And I just want to say, uh, you know, gosh, another year comes and goes, uh it’s. It’s crazy. It seems honestly, it seems like we were just. Doing this wishing you a happy new year, time goes by so quickly. And, uh, I’ll probably repeat myself, but just once again, another year down, thank you for sticking with us through all of this.

I know that some of you have been with us for years. Some of you, you know, are only recently discovering us and we welcome you with open arms and are glad to have you to have as much support and to get as much engagement as we get from you. All, this was a request. We get requests regularly. We try to fulfill as many of those as we can.

It’s really fulfilling. And, uh, it’s, it’s a bright spot in what has been a really tough couple of years and hopefully. This new year will bring some relief, but one way or another we’re in it together. And we’re here for ya. And we’ll be, we’ll be bringing you occur. Happy mood.

Todd: nothing yet.

Uh, well, uh, we got to thank Chris again for the request, and that was great to be able to review this movie and thank you all to your listeners. I’ll just echo exactly what Craig said. Find us online, share us with a friend sometime this year would be great for us. We love to get more listeners and to spread the love a little bit, like Craig said, let us know what you think of this film and give us requests for the times coming up.

Haven’t done a theme month in a while, unless. Our Christmas month is at the month. So it’s probably what, what could be coming at you next? Uh, early in the year until next time, I’m Todd

Craig: and I’m Craig 

Todd: with Two Guys and a Chainsaw. .