Jaws 3 review pt.1

I have always wanted to write a bad movie review. “Always” being short for “since I read some on Jabootu.com and agonybooth.com.” But what movie…

Battlefield Earth? Nah, too painful. Sgt.Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band? Hmmm…maybe when I’m feeling more ambitious.

Random Factoid: Sgt. Pepper’s is a movie so bad, so unbelievable that years after seeing if on TV I wondered if I had in fact imagined it. “A movie with the Bee-Gees, Peter Frampton, and Steve Martin singing Beatles’ songs? Surely that was a fever dream!”


No, I decided to go with a movie that, I’m embarrassed to say, I know by heart. A movie that, whenever it comes on cable, I stop and watch. A movie I have a certain childhood nostalgia for. I give you….


Jaws 3

Ok, originally it was Jaws 3-D, but that was a loooong time ago and my DVD did not come with 3-D glasses, so…bummer.

Random Factoid: Jaws 3 came out in 1983 so I would have been about 7. I remember going to Sea World Orlando at that time and seeing that the park, where some of the movie was filmed, had proudly displayed some props from the movie. I’m guessing this was before the movie came out and before any of the suits saw the movie.

I’m going to do this review in parts…small sections of the movie so that I can give each frame the amount of loving scrutiny it deserves.

So…


DVD chapter 1:

We open under the ocean (In a Jaws movie? I know!) Happy little fish swimming around – oh look, I think I see Nemo! We zoom in to what could be a grouper. Or a catfish. Nah, I think it’s a grouper…whatever, a fish, ok?

Nice little fish who maybe could be my entrée some day. But, alas, no, for we hear a loud crunch and what once was a fish is now merely a fish head (eat them up, yum!) What’s more, the fish head, though deceased, is slowly rotating in a cloud of blood…opening and closing its mouth! Undead Zombie Fish!

Undead Zombie Fish might have been a better movie, actually…

Ok, a couple of things about this scene. I understand opening the movie with “a scare” might seem like a good idea, but is a shark (a 35ft. great white we come to find out later) really going to take the time to bite off only 3/4ths of a fish? Does it just not like fish heads like I just don’t like the stem of broccoli (flowery part is acceptable, stem is gross!) And is a floating 3-D fish head really scary? Did the audience say, “Well, I don’t know. It’s on the third sequel and how many times can they FLOATING 3-D FISH HEAD! AHHHHHHHH!!!!! MY HEART!”

Plus, although some of this scene is accompanied by Jaws theme, there is a distinct music clue that sounds like…umm, how to describe it? I guess it sounded most like:

HEE HAWWWW HE HAW HEE HAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWW!
Sigh

Tbc…next, our stellar cast and why you should never put Lea Thompson on the top of a pyramid.