Jaws 3-D: David Shea’s review
The third dimension is terror
Rated PG.
Rated A-III by the USCCB (link)
Starring a fake-looking shark and a couple of cute dolphins.
Viewed 2005-04-12 by David Shea, David Cantrell, and Mike Imamura
Even in the trailer, Jaws 3 knew that it wouldn’t be a good film. The trailer that was avialable on the DVD consisted mostly of movie-trailer-voice man reminding the viewer of how much they enjoyed the first two films. In synopsis, “Jaws was really awesome. Jaws II was ok. And look, this one’s in 3-D!” That’s about the movie went, as well.
Lacking an Arrivision projector or those 3-D glasses, we were left with the two dimensional representation of the movie, which removed a rather crucial aspect of the original. Although the three-dimensional effects were used only for emphasis, to amaze the audience during action sequences—and the opening credits—the special effects depended on things popping out of the screen. The effects looked very fake and cheap, as if they were mostly made of hand-drawn images stiffly superimposed onto the film, so I would at least hope that the three dimensional aspect helped things a bit in the theater.
The movie has a fairly simple setup: we meet the now-grown Brody kids, learn of their current lives and conflicts and how the shark attacks of their youth influence them today, and then the shark shows up and messes up Seaworld. That’s really about it. Where the first two movies had well-developed characters, internal conflicts exacerbated by the external conflict of the shark, and breathtaking cinematography, this movie had flat reminders of the Brody children, a boring hard-ass park owner, and a pair of dolphins that occaisionally flipped around or ate some fish. The fake-looking shark was occasionally replaced with an even worse 3-D image of a shark. In all, Jaws 3-D was just a dull action movie, driven by a gimmick that has since become obsolete.