Review of Jaws 3-D (1983) by Kenny L — 30 Jul 2012

And thus, ladies and gentlemen, we continue the saga of "The History of the Blockbuster, as Told by a Shark". The "Jaws" series pretty much did establish the stereotypical course of blockbuster filmmaking as we now know it, because the first was just you're regular old good blockbuster, the second was an inferior yet reasonably decent obligatory-feeling follow-up, and now we have the third installment, a follow-up as forced as its 3D that didn't make the final product any better. Actually, I say that, but I saw this film in 2D, so for all I know, the 3D version of this film was sensational. Yeah, maybe if it was actually tangible and had a scene where they handed back my money, even though my seeing this film didn't really cost me anything, except maybe my precious time. Well, I suppose that's what happens when your director isn't even a director, but the production designer on the first two films, and I only mention the first two films because I'm dubious that Joe Alves also provided production design effort on this film, seeing as how most everything seemed to be CG. Actually, scratch that, because the sets looked real, and every other effect, whoah boy, were anything but. It all goes into creating the ridiculous cheesiness that ruined this film and, well, actually made it rather amusing, definately not to where it made it as good as decent, but decidedly to where it made the film laughable enough to only be passable , which isn't to say that the camp isn't the only thing to undeniably enjoy in this film, to a certain degree.

I don't really want to call the film tense, because "Jaws 2", as well-done and chilling as it was, was still considerably less tense than "Jaws", and you better believe that with this cornball film with bad effects and the occasional limp action sequence, scares fall to the point of just about collapsing clean out of sight (That little bit with the bloated corpse they find in a water tank was pretty messed up though). However, whether it be because they were really forcing the in-your-face 3D or whatever, there is a degree of inspiration put into the action sequences, quite a few of which have their moments of play with the steadily-rising-intensity action methods found in the predecessors, and while this film is certainly not competent enough to absorb a whole lot of tension from that, there is an undeniable degree of engaging thrill in beholding some of these action sequences. Still, in between that, you get more than your fair share of cheesiness, though, quite honestly, not quite as much as I expecting. Don't get me wrong, this film is a mess and as dumb as a stump, but inspiration as palpable, as the film isn't totally inept, and while that typically means that a film of this type isn't even bad enough to be enjoyable, here, that moderate degree of inspiration in Joe Alves' direction, married with amusing ambitious misfire, gives the film a certain aura of charm, and certainly entertainment value. Certain spots are livlier than others, but on the whole, the film rarely limps out, keeping consistent with events made entertaining by Alves' livliness and charm, made all the stronger by some of our leads' pretty unexpectedly decent chemistry, which gives the film a bit more of a human touch. I went into this film expecting a disastrous display of inexcusably uninspired filmmaking, and while the screenwriters and producer seemed to go in with that type of sensibility, Joe Alves' directorial execution, while also more tremendously disastrous than not, has enough charming ambition and occasional inspiration at its back to carry this film past contempt. Still, make no mistake, this film is more disastrous than not, maybe not on the level I was expecting, and definately not on the level where it's beyond redemption through ambitious charm and mild inspiration, yet most certainly to where the film could never be anything more than mediocre, with flaws that fall well beneath mediocre.

As I said, the film does get surprisingly rather thrilling here and there, yet on the whole, not much in the way of consequence can be felt, and for numerous reasons, one of which being this film's decision to experiment with more effects than just those of a 3D nature. Now, this is 1983 for goodness' sakes, so I'm not asking for Michael Bay here, people, but really, many of these digital effects can not at all be excused for the cheesiness of their concepts and poorness of their rendering, and it doesn't help that the film will sometimes linger too long on the abysmal CG, as well as use CG in places where they could have very easily used immensely more convincing practical effects, and on a few occasions the practical special effects fail to be all that special. The film is a technical mess, yet don't go thinking that things slips all over the place only during the handful of points where they play up the technical value, because the real scariest thing in this film is the script, such as it is. Guerdon Trueblood's story concept is underwhelming enough, but in the story's structure and execution at the hands of Carl Gottlieb and Richard Matheson, it's a disaster, because as if "Jaws 2" was conventional enough, this film relentlessly collapses into embarassing cliche into embarassing cliche, with uninspired plotting and overlong, uninteresting filler, and it's made all the worse by paper-thin and sometimes exaggerated characters, as well as absolutely dreadful dialogue, two aspects that are, in and of themeselves, made worse by the acting, or at least most of it. As I said, no matter how messy the acting gets, there is undeniable chemistry throughout the lead cast, with the strongest chemistry resting between Dennis Quaid and John Putch, largely because they're both actually pretty decent in their roles, yet outside of them and, well, quite a couple of passables (Ooh, Simon MacCorkindale was so charmingly British), there a few performance that lack - pardon the choice of words - "bite", with Bess Armstrong particularly making her lack of presence all the more stinging with plenty of cheesiness in the line delivery. Still, when you get down to it, one of the most key culprits behind this film's failure is the very man who helped the film in transcending total dismissal, for although director Joe Alves graces the film with some ambition and some inspiration, he just can't hold things together on the whole, and crafts a film that may not be bad, though certainly isn't good, just plain bland. Yes people, with all of its couple of high spots and many low spots, one of biggest the definitive reflections of this film's is simply blandness, as the film is with no real rewarding value, but plenty of missteps, and at the end of the day, it's the latter that you'll notice more, no matter how much the few strengths keep the missteps from really destroying this film, thus leaving the final product to dance pretty close to the waters of all-out terrible.

Overall, the film doesn't quite "bite" the dust (Speaking of cheesy), being saved largely with the help of inspired moments in Joe Alves' direction, which provides unexpected engagement value during the action sequences, as well as a consistent degree of ambitious charm that, when complimented by fair chemistry throughout the cast and married with charming cheesiness within ambitious misfire, creates a kind of entertainment value that really does save this film from total collapse under the weight of its flaws, which isn't to say that flaws don't go drowned out, because with shoddy technical and a relentlessly cliched and cheesily poor script - whose flaws goes pronounced in execution by a few campy performances - incorporating cringe-worthy moments amidst constant blandness, "Jaws 3"... or "Jaws 3-D", or whatever version you're spending your time not too wisely watching, is left drifting as an utterly forgettable, considerably unrewarding and altogether tremendously underwhelming forced third installment for the once promising blockbuster saga.

2/5 - Mediocre.