A Year of Garbage Movies #59, “Jaws 3-D” (1983)
A 90–minute advertisement for Sea World. Randy Quaid’s less talented brother splits his time between fixing broken shit around the park and trying to convince his marine biologist girlfriend to move to Venezuela. Bess Armstrong spends most of her time being ignored by the park owner and tending to dolphins.
Nowadays when you watch a movie that had a 3D release, it’s not obvious that it’s a 3D movie. Sure, there’s sometimes a scene or two where you pause and say “hmmm this is fairly pointless but I bet it looked good in 3D”, but that’s about it. Back in 1983, however, this was not the case. This movie is littered with bizarre artifacts that were clearly never meant to be viewed in a normal setting, so we’re treated to holographic body parts that seem to float 20 feet in front of the surrounding scenery.
The premise is basically the same as Piranha 3DD, but with fewer boobs and D-list celebrity cameos. Big shark gets into a water park and proceeds to do…not very much. Some guests get injured, but that’s about all the shark can pull off in a crowded lagoon. In total, the body count ends up being a drunk diver, the prick shark-killer, and a couple of employees. The body count would have been even lower were it not for the CEO constantly making the worst possible choice at every turn. For most of this movie I thought he was the same actor who played Dick Holloran from The Shining, and so I was puzzled why he couldn’t see any of this coming.
Pros:
- Probably dissuaded more people from coming to Sea World than “Blackfish” did
Cons:
- We are still supposed to be surprised when they kill the shark by setting off an explosive in its mouth
- Worst 3D I have ever seen.
