With all that we now know about marine parks, Joe Alves’ “Jaws 3” isn’t just a terrible film, but it’s also one filled with awful undertones. The cast of “rah rah America actors with white teeth spend the majority of the mostly dull “Jaws 3D” obliviously trying to turn the newest discovery of a massive great white in to a new attraction. Meanwhile the writers and producer seem to turn “Jaws 3D” in to an almost pitch video for the Jaws ride in Universal. After “Black Fish” in 2013 we learned so much the heinous treatment of these poor animals, and how there are aren’t any real winners or losers.
There is just a mangled shark, imprisoned dolphins, and loyal scuba expert Matthew.
SeaWorld Florida is about to open a new state of the art underwater lagoon attraction, that would have multiple tunnels to explore, views of the fish-filled tropical lagoon, a sunken pirate ship attraction, and an underwater 5 Star restaurant. Suddenly, it is discovered that the water being filtered in from the nearby Atlantic Ocean has accidentally let in a great white shark. The media obsessed owner of SeaWorld decides to exploit this and, in the process, realizes that what they saw was only the baby shark, and the mama shark was trapped in there as well.
If you’ve never seen “Blackfish” before, it’s absolutely monstrous the way this corporate entity has treated killer whales, and just animals in general since the early 1900’s. “Jaws 3D” essentially acts as one big product placement for the theme park, set almost entirely within its vicinity where everything is just hunky dory. Director Joe Alves has no idea what suspense or mounting terror is, instead opting for more light hearted scifi adventure antics with only mere flashes of connecting tissues to the 1975 original horror film. It at least utilizes the 3D technology ad nauseum, propping up as many shots as possible to take us in to the gimmick.
It’s always funny how most of the time these movies never end up being good enough to enjoy the 3D. But don’t worry, we get to see a syringe shoot liquid at the screen. And we also get to see the first person perspective of someone being eaten by a shark. The shark here has the least convincing presence even with the utilization of 3D, as most of the time it looks rubbery, floppy, and just dead eyed. “Jaws 3D” is terrible, yes, but it would not be too bad a movie if named something else, but the producers and writers transform “Jaws” in to the precursor for the theme park ride.
Director Alves works very hard to make his film feel less like a sequel and more like a prologue to the inevitable ride which opened in 1990. Every effort falls flat with a movie that pays little homage to its horror roots and only really accomplishes its immortality due to one of the most infamous and goofy 3D shots in film history.