Honestly, don’t think I have ever watched this one before. I literally have no idea what I am in for. Besides a terrible movie with a giant rubber fish, and some terribly obvious scenes meant to be in 3-D but definitely NOT in 3-D.
After the events of Jaws 1 & 2 in Amity Massachusetts, Mike Brody, the son of police chief Martin Brody, has taken a job as the chief engineer at SeaWorld Orlando. He and his girlfriend Kay Morgan, who is the senior biologist there work very well as a team for the part. Mike takes care of all the structural things in the tanks and water areas, and Kay takes care of the marine life around the park. The park is gearing up for a new attraction to open, “The Undersea Kingdom.” Park’s manager, Clavin, brings in Philip FitzRoyce, a somewhat celebrity in the world of hunting and general “adventure” to celebrate the opening. Things couldn’t be going better for everyone involved.
That evening, Mike is working to finish up the repairs of a gate that separates the park’s lagoon from the open ocean. His mechanic, Overman, is working to block off the gate access when he is attacked by a shark. Later that next day after Overman was reported missing by his girlfriend, Kay and Mike go into the water to look for him. They are attacked by a large-ish great white shark. Seeing as how the park now has a shark on the loose inside its waters, everyone goes on high alert. FtizRoyce wants to hunt and kill the shark live on TV as a promotion for the park but Kay would rather capture it and have it as an exhibit. After the shark is captured and put in a tank of its own, they find Overman’s body floating just outside one of the large viewing tanks. Mike goes to identify the grisly remains of his body, but Kay wants to have a look at it to see if it was, in fact, killed by a shark. She finds that unfortunately he was attacked and killed by a great white. The problem is that the shark that killed Overman is three times the size of the shark they captured, and it’s still loose in the waters of the park, somewhere.
The premise for Jaws 3(D) is as solid as I guess you can get with a giant shark as your antagonist. It traveled from Massachusetts all the way down to Florida. That’s about where any realism ends though. The problem is that SeaWorld Orlando isn’t on the coast. It’s not even near it. It is about as central Florida as you can get. Also, there aren’t any real direct routes via waterways to the lagoon located in the park FROM the ocean. (see map) Now maybe because I know this, as I have been to the area many times before, that is what broke this movie from the jump for me. However, that is not the only thing that is laughable in Jaws 3(D).
They really tried to make 3D the most amazing thing ever put to film, huh? I would venture to guess that back when 3-D movies were first coming to life, or at least the popular and accessible versions, it was kind of mind-blowing. Seeing images pop out from the screen and feeling truly like they were right in front of your face was probably awe-inducing for movie-goers back then. I just can’t say the same thing for movies made anytime after, let’s say, 1960. The gimmicky way that things are isolated and protrude into the foreground of so many shots is ridiculous. I mean, a 35ft rubber shark by itself seems silly when set against actual living people, but when that shark is then in weird lighting and clearly “blue-screened” and forced into 3-D well this just becomes a comedy. That’s coming from a guy with a pretty healthy fear of swimming or even being in water like a lake or an ocean.
Putting aside all the inaccuracies of the setting and the hilarious-looking special effects, Jaws 3(D) isn’t terrible, I guess. Had it just been another tale of the killer shark in another city it would have been boring, which is I’m sure why they decided to “spice it up a bit” and make it where they did. I didn’t realize going into it that it was filmed in Orlando FL, but as the movie started I immediately thought that the setting looked oddly familiar. After all, I had just been to SeaWorld Orlando just last Christmas. The cast is pretty decent with Dennis Quaid, Lea Thompson, Louis Gossett, Jr., and a guy I only knew as “Hatchet Harry” P.H. Moriarty. It’s written as well as it could have been for the subject matter. I like that it was originally pitched as a comedy spoof but was shot down. They tried to get John Hughes to write it up and Joe Dante to direct it as “Jaws 3 – People 0”. Reportedly Roy “Brody” Scheider said that had he been asked “Mephistopheles couldn’t have talked [him] into doing it.” and he also agreed to do another film (Blue Thunder) just so he would be unavailable to do the film. That’s dedication.
Should someone seek out this movie to see it? No. Jaws 1 and Jaws 2 are perfectly fine to be a duo and the ONLY two movies in the series anyone watches. Jaws 3 feels and looks like it was an afterthought and a cash grab. I mostly watched this one just so that I could get to arguably a worse Jaws movie, in Jaws: The Revenge. Don’t watch this movie, I mean… unless you’re just a weirdo like me.
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