Tag Archives: Michael Caine

31 Days to Scare ~ The Hand (1981)

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by 31 Days to Scare, Movie Review • Tags: , , , , , , , ,

The Facts:

Synopsis: Jon Lansdale is a comic book artist who loses his right hand in a car accident. The hand was not found at the scene of the accident but soon returns by itself to follow Jon and murder those who anger him.

Stars: Michael Caine, Andrea Marcovicci, Annie McEnroe, Bruce McGill, Viveca Lindfors, Rosemary Murphy, Oliver Stone

Director: Oliver Stone

Rated: R

Running Length: 104 minutes

TMMM Score: (5/10)

Review: Doing this series of 31 Days to Scare every October for quite some time now, I’ve been able to offer up some of my favorite suggestions of popular and lesser-known films/documentaries/tv shows to consider as the days get shorter, and temps get colder.  There comes a point when even I need to get some new material and that’s where movies like The Hand come in…and where I can sometimes run into a bit of a conundrum in how to present the work to you, dear reader.  You see, while my normal reviews are my unvarnished takes on new releases, I always try to feature movies that are worth in this special series between October 1 and October 31.  Setting out to experience the new, watching these older titles leaves me open to run across a stinker or two and while 1981’s The Hand is no outright turkey, it’s starts to grow more than a few feathers of bad taste as it starts to gobble up what made the first half so good.

Directed by then recent Oscar-winner Oliver Stone (this was Stone pre-Platoon, Wall Street, Born on the Fourth of July, Scarface, and more recently Savages) who was given near carte blanche by a studio eager to get into business with the red hot screenwriter/director, The Hand is an adaptation of Marc Brandel’s 1979 novel “The Lizard’s Tail”. Springing from the author’s mind as he was going through a divorce, the novel turned the strain of matrimony coming apart at the seams into scary stuff.  Stone keeps most of the novel intact, following a comic book artist (Michael Caine, JAWS: The Revenge) living in New England with his unhappy wife (Andrea Marcovicci, The Stuff) and young daughter who loses his drawing hand in a freak accident and then is unable to find his missing appendage. 

As he adjusts to life without his instrument to create, his marriage takes a turn, and he opts for a job at a college in California so he and his wife can have time apart.  It’s here that he becomes friendly with a fellow teacher (Bruce McGill, The Best of Enemies) and meets an attractive student in his class, a relationship that becomes something more.  When his wife and daughter visit for the Christmas holiday, several unexplained events happen which suggests violence has followed the artist from one coast to another.  Is it his missing hand which we’ve seen creeping around on the ground and randomly hopping onto the necks of various supporting characters?  Or is this all in the head of a man slowly losing grasp on reality and retreating into a fictionalized world to avoid dealing with his formerly stable life which is now crumbling around him?

That’s the psychological thriller of a movie Stone set out to make and is pretty much the way Brandel’s book flows, sidetracks to spirituality and metaphysical journeys with the wife aside, but it sounds like the studio wasn’t happy with what was delivered and made major changes.  These changes, clearly evident in the choppy and scatter-brained final act, rob the characters of much subtly and instead crank their dials up past 11 and hope for the best.  Without much room to breathe or act rationally, everything becomes fever-pitched to the back of the theater wall or your living room. If the hand was originally meant as metaphor it devolves into just another crawling creepy crafted by a legend of cinema, Carlo Rambaldi who had just come off of the far more successful 1976 retelling of King Kong for which he had won an Oscar.

The shift in Stone’s tone is fairly jarring, but then again if you are familiar with Stone’s later work you can see his natural inclination to not want to make your traditional thriller or a simple horror film – he likes playing the subtext and the exploration of that is here.  Going back later and claiming studio interference is easy and while I believe some of it was there, I also feel like The Hand maybe wasn’t even destined to be great in the first place. 

Where that leaves us is to count on the performances to help ground a series of late breaking events (and an entire epilogue of sorts) that threatens to carry the entire film right up, up, and away.  You can believe Caine when he says in interviews that the The Hand was one of a series of films he made in the ‘80s that were his “paycheck” movies, but it doesn’t register like that onscreen.  His performance is never anything less than totally committed and at times even giving more to the role than it may have deserved.  Stone’s cast the rest of the picture amicably too, with Marcovicci chilly as the not quite supportive wife and Annie McEnroe (Beetlejuice) playing the aggressive co-ed.  I’ll always be up for a McGill appearance and he’s nice here as Caine’s colleague in California.  What a surprise to see Stone cast himself as a indigent that becomes one of the first victims of the often well designed terror-hand.

I won’t even bother reviewing the severed hand because it was new to the business at the time and just getting its digits wet when it starred in this picture.  I’m not sure how it managed to get enough leverage to do the kind of deeds it does but if you’re delving too deep into the logic of it all you may have strayed too far away from the mindset required to take this in with the most open of minds.  I did hear that the hand received its training with Thing from The Addams Family so the skill was clearly there.  Aside from its tendency to glide on the ground when it should be crawling, it’s rather convincing.

Is The Hand a good movie?  Not really, but it’s never boring or so silly that you aren’t willing to stay invested to find out how it all turns out.  True, a rather strange coda leaves a bland taste in the mouth, and not just for the way it wastes a valued star like Viveca Lindfors (Creepshow). Then again, even that is written with such a bizarre bravado you almost have to applaud its audacity to send the audience out of the theaters like it does.  Caine is awfully good at selling what the role requires and Stone has gotten The Hand off to a mighty fine start.  It’s just those last 40 minutes of so when The Hand gets the thumbs down for grasping at air when trying to hold on to its message.

The Silver Bullet ~ Tenet

by Silver Bullet - Trailer Park • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Synopsis: An action epic revolving around international espionage, time travel, and evolution.

Release Date:  July 17, 2020

Thoughts: Shrouded in mystery, if you’ve been to the movies the last few months you may have caught a super exclusive theatrical-only preview for Tenet, the new thriller from Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk, Interstellar) but the time has finally come for a full trailer to be released.  Starring John David Washington (BlacKkKlansman) and Robert Pattinson (The Rover), little is known what exactly is up Nolan’s tricky tricky sleeves and this first look appears to leave viewers with even more questions.  In other words, it’s a pretty fantastic way to get people excited for the July release – here’s hoping Nolan can maintain that secrecy until it opens.

Movie Review ~ Now You See Me 2

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by Movie Review • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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The Facts:

Synopsis: The Four Horsemen resurface and are forcibly recruited by a tech genius to pull off their most impossible heist yet.

Stars: Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Daniel Radcliffe, Lizzy Caplan, Jay Chou, Sanaa Lathan, David Washofsky, Tsai Chin, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman

Director: Jon M. Chu

Rated: PG-13

Running Length: 129 minutes

TMMM Score: (4/10)

Review:  I’m just as surprised as you are that 2013’s Now You See Me did well enough to warrant a sequel seeing that I left my screening frustrated at its cheats and wholly averse to its attempts to charm. Still, someone thought it was smart move to assemble the old crew again three years down the line and aside from a new female in the mix, not much has changed about the film or my opinion of the series as a whole.  What could have been a slick summer mea culpa sequel is just another time-wasting sleight of hand.  It’s not that we can see what the actors and filmmakers have up their sleeves, it’s that we don’t care in the first place.

If you haven’t seen the first film you’re going to get some spoilers so if you don’t mind having the final twist of the original spoiled for you keep reading.

In the years since the Four Horseman took down a wealthy mogul (Michael Caine, JAWS: The Revenge) and a shady secret spiller (Morgan Freeman, Lucy) they’ve kept a fairly low profile. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg, American Ultra), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson, Triple 9), and Jack Wilder (Dave Franco, Warm Bodies) haven’t gone far though and as they’re readying another elaborate trick to expose a cell-phone hacking scam they’re joined by Lula (newcomer Lizzy Caplan, Bachelorette, replacing Isla Fisher as the lone lady in the bunch) who was recruited by their leader, FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Marc Ruffalo, Spotlight).  A mole in the FBI agency, Rhodes has been leading his colleagues on multiple wild goose chases, until it all catches up to him and his Horsemen when the tables are turned and they’re split up.

The Horsemen wind up in China, face to face with elvish Daniel Radcliffe (What If) who has grown a beard to show he’s not Harry Potter any longer. There’s some jibber jabber about an all-powerful computer chip Radcliffe wants and a rather lengthy sequence where the Horsemen break into a high security company to retrieve said chip. Hiding the wafer thin treasure on a playing card, director Jon M. Chu (Jem and the Holograms) takes, no kidding, nearly five minutes showing the Horsemen passing the card between each other to avoid being caught by guards that are frisking them. It’s an exhausting passage of time that isn’t nearly as impressive as anyone involved thinks it is.

Meanwhile, Rhodes has to bust Freeman’s character out of jail because only he knows who’s behind the mystery.  A personal vendetta between the two men quickly resurfaces and becomes a focal point for several head-scratching plot twists down the road. When the Horsemen and Rhodes are reunited, the final truth of who the man behind it all is and though the mystery is ostensibly solved, there’s still a good forty-five minutes left.  It’s in these forty-five minutes that I officially checked out as it’s just a series of parlor trick moments that are less than magical.

As I’ve said before, magic tricks onscreen just don’t work for me because there’s no sense of disbelief one can reasonably hold.  When magic is done live and in person, it can be an impressive experience because you learn to not trust your eyes.  On film, when I see a trick being performed in the middle of multiple edits and angles I’m just wondering how many takes and lighting set-ups it took to get it to look right. It just doesn’t work for me.  At all.

Performances here are in line with the broad script.  God love him, Ruffalo acts the hell out of his role and for that I thank him. If only his co-stars had found a way to do the same. Eisenberg is as nebbish and stilted as ever, Franco is disarming but not given much to do, Caplan starts off with spunk but gradually gets reduced to ninth banana, Radcliffe as usual is having way more fun than we are, and Caine and Freeman are just there to cash their checks (at least Freeman is required to both stand up and walk in this film…unlike London Has Fallen).  And poor Harrelson pulls double duty as Merritt and his offensively fey twin.

Capping off with another finale that throws some random turns in at the very end, Now You See Me 2 is slickly made and moves fast but is superficially bland and all together hollow.

Movie Review ~ Youth

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The Facts:

Synopsis: A retired orchestra conductor is on holiday with his daughter and his film director best friend in the Alps when he receives an invitation from Queen Elizabeth II to perform for Prince Philip’s birthday.

Stars: Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel, Rachel Weisz, Paul Dano, Jane Fonda

Director: Paolo Sorrentino

Rated: R

Running Length: 124 minutes

TMMM Score: (7/10)

Review: Watching Youth late one night with three other people, by the time it was over I was the only one awake so right off the bat I’ll let you know that just like director Paolo Sorrentino’s previous film (2013’s The Great Beauty, an Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film), his follow-up isn’t going to be for everyone.  Youth is a commitment to take in and even those concentrating hard may not walk away with much from the proceedings.  Easy to hate, hard to love…like most good movies should be.

Taking place over several days at a European health spa, Youth follows a retired conductor (Michael Caine, Interstellar) and fading director (Harvey Keitel, The Grand Budapest Hotel) making their annual pilgrimage for some rest and rejuvenation.  Caine’s character has just been asked by the Royal Palace to conduct a song he composed for his late wife, a song he hasn’t been able to approach since her death.  Keitel’s director is holed up with writers trying to figure out how to work his latest film after a series of failed flops.

Into the mix comes Caine’s daughter (Rachel Weisz, Oz the Great and Powerful) arriving as her marriage is falling apart and a young actor (Paul Dano, Prisoners) taking a brief hiatus while preparing for his next big role.  The film is a series of overly talky scenes that tend to come off as new-agey tripe but somehow managed to continually captivate me.  The film and its characters never seem to go where you think they will, making for a curiously fascinating two-hour excursion into some out-there territory.

It’s the performances that trump Sorrentino’s considerable style (still heavily influenced by Fellini).  Caine is almost impish over the course of the film and Keitel’s shows a vulnerability he hasn’t been able to achieve in some time.  Before the last few years, Dano has always struck me as a shapeless lump on film but he’s starting to actively take form before our eyes…his character here has a transformation that’s, to put it mildly, shocking.  Weisz has a humdinger of a monologue delivered in one-take…reminding us why she’s an Oscar winner.

Speaking of Oscar winners, there’s big buzz that Jane Fonda (This is Where I Leave You) will snag a nomination for her work here, and I’m still not quite sure whether I agree with it or not.  As Keitel’s leading lady, she is onscreen for less than seven minutes but makes quite the impression in that small amount of time.  It’s either a gaudy camp excursion or an elegantly sad triumph but darn it all if I can’t decide what it ultimately is.  One thing is clear though, Fonda is lampooning her own celebrity in some way and because of that, it’s a zinger of a scene.

As in The Great Beauty, Sorrentino shows a flair for style and music…though it’s not always refined.  Some scenes are deliberately obtuse and characters pass by without explanation…but the more you try to make sense of it the less likely you are to let the movie simply exist in its form.  I loved the opening set to “You Got the Love” from Candi Stanton (performed with airy verve by The Retrosettes) and a later scene involving Keitel encountering a host of previous actresses is pretty fun.

It’s not going to be for everyone…I’m not even sure if I see it again I’d feel the same way about it.  But my first impression of Youth was that I enjoyed its fresh feeling.

Movie Review ~ Interstellar

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The Facts:

Synopsis: A group of explorers make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage.

Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Ellen Burstyn, John Lithgow, Michael Caine, Casey Affleck, Wes Bentley, Bill Irwin, Mackenzie Foy, Topher Grace, David Gyasi

Director: Christopher Nolan

Rated: PG-13

Running Length: 169 minutes

Trailer Review: Here

TMMM Score: (7/10)

Review: Most of the reviews for Interstellar are going to focus on the fact that it’s a let-down to what we’ve come to expect from director Christopher Nolan.  Destined to be held to the impossibly high bar he set for himself with his trilogy of Batman films (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises), you could say that he really only has himself to blame for critics and audiences alike coming to expect a certain need to be filled with each Nolan epic.

While I agree that Interstellar may not be the 2001: A Space Odyssey of the new millennium as many thought it would be, I still marveled at the sheer magnitude of innovation surrounding the film.  I applaud its commitment to science, cinema, and humanity – it’s why I left the screening with a spark of ebullient respect that literally kept me up tossing and turning in bed as my dreams were filled with wormholes, theories of relative time, and all those failed physics tests of my youth.  Yet, as I continued to think on Nolan’s film as a whole, I found enough fault in the melodramatic moments Nolan and his brother Jonathan have unfortunately wedged in that overall my jovial enthusiasm for the movie faded…and faded fast.

In a distant future, our crops are dying and our prospects look grim.  Single father and retired pilot Cooper (Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club) lives on his farm trying to do best for his children.  Guided to a secret government facility by a series of events I won’t divulge here, it isn’t long before Cooper is blasting off into space with a two pronged mission to find a new world to inhabit and save the human race.

That’s a heavily oversimplified rundown of the first hour of Nolan’s three hour trek into universes beyond our reach and it’s this earthbound time at the front of the picture and the final hours that kept restraining the journey from really rocketing into the oribit I wanted it to.  There’s a manipulative feeling to what the brothers Nolan have constructed, with attempt after attempt to tug at the heartstrings of viewers.  What they failed to include, however, is a set-up that allows us to be attached emotionally to anyone enough to be moved by their fight for survival.

The film is best when it’s floating in space because that’s when the artistry begins to take form and all cylinders start to fire.  Projected on an IMAX screen and making full use of an immersive sound design (my teeth are still rattling), Interstellar could come across feeling like an entertaining school lecture with its long monologues describing time travel and explanations of the effects of relativity.  Thankfully, Nolan finds a balance in keeping audiences up to speed without boring them (or dumbing it all down) with textbook-ish dialogue that only a multi-PhD professor would grasp.

An impressive, Oscar recognized cast (2 nominees and 4 winners…5 if you count a surprising cameo) make the most of Nolan’s multi-layered script.  McConaughey’s a bit of an odd duck as our hero lead.  Adept at wearing his emotions on his sleeve, I found myself craving for a shot of the actor that didn’t show him with his eyes welled up with tears.  Cool headed when trouble arises, he still cuts the appropriate swath of an All-American dad just trying to get home to his kids.  Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables) has never been a favorite of mine but the break she took after her Oscar win has given the actress time to reacquaint herself with a grounded acting style and she largely succeeds in her role as a brainy, all-business counterpart to McConaughey’s cowboy cavalier.

Rounding out the cast is Michael Caine (Now You See Me) as Hathaway’s father and McConaughey’s mentor and Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty) playing a scientist with a link to McConaughey, alongside Wes Bentley (Lovelace) and David Gyasi (Cloud Atlas) as fellow explorers onboard the shuttle.  Caine has a long history with Nolan but here the role he’s been given is so clearly designed as a plot device that it’s hard to form an honest opinion of the performance.  Chastain fares better, considering she’s saddled with a hefty amount of the problematic moments in the final third of the film.

Less complex than Nolan’s trippy Inception and lacking the emotional attachment of 2013’s better (and shorter) Gravity, Interstellar is a film I can imagine getting less interesting with repeat viewings.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ll see the movie again in 70MM on the largest screen I can find because the movie looks absolutely incredible…but I’m not sure all the additional viewings in the world can excuse some major cracks in Nolan’s ambitious rocket-ship.

The Silver Bullet ~ Kingsman: The Secret Service

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Synopsis: A veteran secret agent takes a young upstart under his wing.

Release Date: October 24, 2014

Thoughts: This adaptation of the comic book “The Secret Service” looks fairly interesting based on this trailer I originally saw way back in May with X-Men: Days of Future Past. Sure, we’ve been inundated with countless big screen treatments of books focusing on seemingly ordinary teens that are tasked with saving the world…but something about this reminds me of a working class James Bond and that’s intriguing. Though I’ve grown weary of Samuel L. Jackson (RoboCop) popping up in every movie, I’m even more concerned about the recent overexposure of Colin Firth (Magic in the Moonlight). Kingsman: The Secret Service will mark the sixth film of his to be released in 2014…thank heaven he dropped out as the voice of December’s Paddington! Directed by Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass 2), this potential franchise starter could be a nice film to take in during the crisp autumn season.

The Silver Bullet ~ Interstellar (Trailer #3)

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interstellar

Synopsis: A group of explorers make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage.

Release Date: November 7, 2014

Thoughts: I’m so ready to see Interstellar. Not that I needed any more convincing after the teaser and first trailer for Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi drama, but this recently released preview shown at Comic-Con definitely ramps up my anticipation.  I cringed a bit when I saw how long the trailer was but thankfully Nolan (Batman Begins) remains a cagey filmmaker and doesn’t let go of many plotlines and important pieces of info that could spoil the overall experience.  Bolstered by a truly A-list cast featuring Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club), Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables), Jessica Chastain (Mama), Ellen Burstyn (Draft Day), and Michael Caine (The Dark Knight Rises), the rocket boosters are starting to truly heat up to send this one into orbit come November.  Can’t wait.

The Silver Bullet ~ Interstellar (Trailer #2)

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interstellar

Synopsis: A group of explorers make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage.

Release Date: November 7, 2014

Thoughts: Now at the point where the mere mention of his name guarantees you’ll buy a ticket to his films, director Christopher Nolan steps out of the shadow of The Dark Knight Trilogy (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises) and looks upward into space. The first teaser for Interstellar had tongues a-waggin’ though it had next to no original footage and while this second look reveals a tad bit more about what the film is all about, it’s still more intriguing than verifiably interesting in my book. Then again, Nolan’s trailers have historically been as spoiler-free as possible so that’s par for the course. Make no doubt about it, this is one of the most highly anticipated films of the year and it doesn’t hurt Nolan has the star power of Oscar darlings Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club, Mud), Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables), Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty), Michael Caine (Jaws: The Revenge) and Ellen Burstyn (Draft Day) to escalate this to warp speed. I expect big things from this one…and I’ll bet we get ‘em.

The Silver Bullet ~ Interstellar

by Silver Bullet - Trailer Park • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

interstellar-logo

Synopsis: A group of explorers make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage.

Release Date:  November 7, 2014

Thoughts: With a director that has yet to make a bad film and a, well, stellar cast of A-Listers it’s not hard to see why Interstellar is already one of the most highly anticipated films of 2014.  Director Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises) has tapped Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club), Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables), Jessica Chastian (Zero Dark Thirty), Ellen Burstyn, Michael Caine (Jaws: The Revenge), and Casey Affleck for his new film, details of which are still being kept tightly under wraps.  Sources say it has to do with time travel and the race to save the food supply of our planet but if I know Nolan it’s about so much more.  The first look doesn’t have a lot of footage to it (and you know I love my teasers) but it nicely places its stake in the ground as the movie we’ll be talking about in about a year.

31 Days to Scare ~ Jaws: The Revenge

by Down from the Shelf, Mid-Day Mini, Movie Review • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Chief Brody’s widow believes that her family is deliberately being targeted by another shark in search of revenge.

Stars: Lorraine Gary, Lance Guest, Mario Van Peebles, Michael Caine, Karen Young, Judith Barsi, Mitchell Anderson, Lynn Whitfield

Director: Joseph Sargent

Rated: PG-13

Running Length: 89 minutes

TMMM Score: (1/10)

Review:  It’s somewhat sad that the first Jaws film I ever saw in the theaters was this third sequel and final nail in the coffin of the series (for now).  Remember when the Sunday newspaper would have an ad for movies opening on Friday and a listing of the theaters it would be playing at?  I can vividly recall opening the paper and finding the announcement for Jaws: The Revenge , clipping it out, and keeping it with me all week while begging my parents to take me over the weekend.  Well, my parents and I found ourselves at Yorktown 3 for a Sunday showing and even as a seven year old I knew the film was crap.

Truly the lowest of the low, Jaws: The Revenge is a travesty of a film…one that gets worse with each viewing and is so off the mark that you wonder how anyone involved kept showing up for work day in and day out.  The premise is ridiculous, the direction stale, and the shark is so fake looking you expect to see a Made in Singapore stamp on its rubbery dorsal fin.

Star Lorraine Gary was so enjoyable in Jaws and Jaws 2 as the wife of Chief Brody that it was easy to overlook that in real life she was the spouse of the head of Universal Studios.  Now a widow, Ellen Brody still lives in Amity and her youngest son is following in his father’s footsteps.  One wintery night, Sean Brody answers a call to dislodge some pilings stuck on a buoy and he’s soon gobbled up by a mean ole shark as a choir of townsfolk sings Silent Night, masking his cries for help.  What could have been a reasonably effective opener (after a nice underwater credit sequence) is marred by an already fake looking shark and stilted direction from Joseph Sargent.

The grieving Ellen is convinced the shark intended to kill her son…which is totally logical, right?  Instead of shipping her off to a loony bin, her other son (Lance Guest) encourages her to come down to the Bahamas to clear her mind and spend some time with her granddaughter.  End of movie.  Wait…no…it isn’t?  Oh…OK.  So…Ellen flies off to the Bahamas and our revenge-seeking shark swims all the way from New England to the warm waters of another island town looking for Ellen and her family.

There are so many problems with this scenario that I don’t even need to go over them here.  It simply makes no sense in the least…begging the question why no one raised their hand and said “Um, that’s dumb.”  Even co-star Michael Caine (Now You See Me) missed accepting his Oscar for Hannah and Her Sisters because he was filming his gaffe-filled performance as a pilot that takes an interest in Ellen.  So we have about forty minutes where the shark pops up randomly and continues to do things sharks wouldn’t (and couldn’t) do like standing still in the water, leaping out of the water, and roaring like a dinosaur.  It’s laughably bad and is a total affront to the films that came before it…even Jaws 3D.

In a way, I’m glad that Jaws: The Revenge was the last in this series.  Though other shark films have been released over the years there hasn’t yet been another attempt to continue the Jaws legacy.  I’d be up for it if someone had a good idea, talented director, and made use of the original location of Amity Island.  Just please…no more trips to the Bahamas.