The movie topic for this week was a film with a 15% or less on Rotten Tomatoes, something I've been looking forward to since the beginning of this semester. I figured that the lower the percentage the movie was given, the worse it would be and so the more I would enjoy it, so I wanted to watch something with a 0% rating. I decided on Jaws 4: The Revenge because I liked the original Jaws and I also read that at the time when it came out, Jaws 4 was one of the quickest movies to be planned and filmed, so I knew it would be bad. Let me assure you, I was not at all disappointed with my movie choice. The movie starts out with the classic Jaws theme song as the camera films underwater to make it look like the perspective of the shark. For some reason the camera man decided that it would be a good idea to keep making the camera bob up and down out of the water while moving, which only made me dizzy and wonder how, in any way, a shark bobs up and down in the water. Finally after a ver long and unnecessary opening sequence of credits, the movie finally moves on to the plot, at least somewhat, when Ellen Brody and her son bond over cooking a disgusting looking fish. Then for about ten minutes there was unnecessary dialogue to fill in gaps, and finally I could see where the story was about to begin as Sean Brody, a police officer, was sent, in the middle of the night, to go out on a boat by himself and turn over a piece of wood that had fallen in the ocean. At this point it was pretty obvious what was about to happen, and I was not surprise when the huge, fake shark that somehow looked even less technologically advanced than the original Jaws, jumped out of the water and bit Sean. It was at this exact scene when I realized why it got a 0% on rotten tomatoes: the acting was awful as the actor tried to come across as in pain while screaming, the special effects were terrible as there was already blood in the water before Sean was even bitten, and the plot was random, as Sean could not be heard screaming because random kids were practicing Christmas carols in the background. Somehow the movie went downhill from here, as Sean's brother, Mitchell flies in for the funeral with his annoying family. For about 15 minutes, all the movie shows is Ellen randomly crying (which was terrible acting) and running off and Thea, Mitchell's daughter, being an annoying, nosy 5 year old. Since her son was just attacked by the same shark that caused her husband so much turmoil, Ellen decides to go down to the Bahama's, where her only living son is studying sea life. On the way down to the Bahama's the characters showed just how stupid they are as Mitchell pratically swings his daughter off of a barge into the ocean, the annoying pilot of a rickity old plane lets Thea drive it over the open ocean, and then Thea swings on a piece of rope hovering just above the open ocean and asks everyone to look at her, as she practically swings off into the jaws of the shark. When the movie didn't show Thea being a pain in the you-know-what by asking to go out into the open ocean with friends, it was full of unnecessary dialogue and random scenes that didn't really make sense. In an attempt to make the movie more interesting (aka give it some type of plot), Mitchell and his friend Jake decide to track and study the huge great white that just miraculously appeared in the Bahaman waters, despite the fact that Mitchell's brother had also just been killed by a huge great white. Hmm, interesting. Soon enough the shark tries to kill Mitchell but he gets away so the shark moves on to a popular beach where Thea just so happens to be on a banana boat after begging/ her mother to do so. This has to be my favorite scene in the whole movie. Ive never seen worse special affects in my life, it was comical, and the bad acting was at its prime as just about every character attempt to scream in fear but just sounded like they were shrieking. This one scene made watching to awful movie worth it. The rest of the movie is boring until the shark makes its final return and appears to eat Jake. I had to watch this ending sequence about 5 times to understand what happens because the effects were so awful, but from what I could understand, Ellen has had enough of this shark so she runs into it with a boat at the same time as Mitchell basically throws a bomb ( how clever) into the sharks mouth. The shark floats to the bottom of the ocean and all the characters jump over board as running into the shark somehow demolished the entirety of their huge sailboat, and Jake appears and is somehow still living, yay. Obviously the main theme of this movie is man v. nature, as the members of the same family have to deal with a huge shark basically following them and hunting them down. I honestly don't even know what camera angles this movie used because I was distracted by how awful every aspect of the movie was, but most scenes that included the shark were filmed underwater from the sharks perspective. Overall, I think this movie should have earned more than a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes because while the movie was pretty bad, it was also pretty entertaining so I would have given it at least a 10%. I would definitely recommend this movie as it is extremely entertaining and a great way to relieve stress because it is so comical.
