Why JAWS 3-D doesn't work!!!

                                

Director: Joe Alves    Writers: Peter Benchley (suggested by the novel "Jaws"), Richard Matheson & Carl Gottlieb (screenplay), Guerdon Trueblood (story)
Stars: Denis Quaid, Bess Armstrong, Simon ManCorkindale

 

JAWS 3-D or otherwise known as "JAWS 3" is one of the other crummy sequels in the franchise of  Steven Spielberg's classic movie JAWS. This film was considered to be a cheap gimmick to get audiences into theaters do to its bad acting, poor writing of script, and story line that didn't make any sense.  The film in my opinion could have been good, but it really needed a reality check and is one of the negatives I'm going to discuss in this blog.  

Background:  Originally the producers of  JAWS 1 and 2 pitched JAWS 3 to be a spoof but was shut down do to conflicts with Universal Studios; however, Joe Alves was suggested to work in the film because he had worked on the other previous JAWS films as a production designer and a second unit director. He got the job and writer Richard Matheson who was involved in Steven Spielberg's film Duel was hired on set but did not agree with the director.

Storyline: The story is about Michael Brody, son of  Chief Brody from the previous films is now working in a Florida resort, SeaWorld along with his wife as marine biologists who previously discover a baby Great White Shark has broken into the facility. They capture the baby shark for world wide news but later dies. Eventually a 35-foot mother shark who had fallowed its offspring into the park begins terrorizing tourist of the resort.  

The story for the film in my opinion is very lousy as-well as the acting. The film is contains many inaccuraties throughout the story. For example, in the film they suggested that the mother shark had fallowed its offspring into the park. That doesn't happen in real life. Sharks don't mother there young.

Another thing that is wrong with the film is that in the movie, a marine biologists wants to capture the great-white shark that ended up sneaking into the reserve of Sea World so they can keep it as a main attraction. Whats wrong with this is that its illegal to do so because sharks can become big and eventually become impossible to tame. They're not like killer whales that can be tamed.

Also, this film  needs a reality check because  in the movie, the shark is suggested to be measured 35-feet in length, but when the shark is near a person or eating a character, the length is not in proportion to 35-feet and can easily predicted to be at least around 25-feet. In other words, the shark is too small.

 (see image bellow. Its not accurate to the movie but gives you a general idea.)

Director: Despite Joe Alves was the director, he was criticized on set even by his own writer who wasn't satisfied with the finished film. The writer complained that he wrote a very good script that Joe Alves did not agree or follow and at the time, this was the only film that Alves had ever directed. So Joe Alves is a very creative man but as a director, nope. This wasn't his movie or probably should never have been for his poor decisions.

Action sequences/ Special effects: The action sequences and special effects in the movie are actually ok for most scenes at at-least.  Joe Alves had promised for the film that they were going to show realistic designs for the mechanical shark thanks too experimentation with props and science. The shark actually looks good for the most part. When the shark opens its mouth in the film, it exposes all these gum layers and gore stained into the teeth. The sharks death in the very end was really amazing. When the shark explodes, gore flies through water and in the same time, the teeth fly in front of the camera conveying the name of the movie. That's really good but if only the story had made sense and was good, this would have been a really good thriller. As if the shark ate the script too.

 

Acting & Casting: The acting in the film is very terrible and has no direction.  The characters make dumb decisions or will perform incoherent tactics. The film consists cliché stereotypical acting with stupid underdeveloped characters that jump all over the place that make the entire film look murky. 

Music: The music is composed by Alan Parker who adapted the "shark theme" from John Williams. His music sounds menacing in the beginning of the film but later becomes and boring.

Summary: The film really messed up the series and could have showed a lot more but came across as a stupid film. This film is exactly the reason why we have the JAWS rip-off movie the Deep Blue Sea. JAWS 3 was a failure, but at least it made JAWS 2 a decent sequel. Even though this film wasn't good, it was still more tolerable then JAWS THE REVENGE. So if your looking for a good JAWS sequel, I suggest JAWS 2 because it seems to be the only  good sequel in the series.

"That's a wrap!"

Charlie the pundit

Is MAN OF STEEL really that good?

MAN OF STEEL

 

 

Director: Zack Snyder
Writers: David S. Goyer (screenplay) David S. Goyer & Christopher Nolan (story) Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster (superman creators)
Stars: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, and Michael Shannon.

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence, action and destruction, and for some language.

The MAN OF STEEL is an attempt to revitalize DC Nation's comic book story of Superman. This film has appealed to audiences almost everywhere, but not everyone was satisfied with the film's success. Some critics and people, like me, regard the film as a bad reboot for not having good scope or direction. 

I couldn't agree more. The film doesn't have a good storyline and it is one of the negatives I'm going to discuss in this blog.

 

Background:

The reason for the reboot for the MAN OF STEEL was to restart the franchise of Superman. 

Right after the movie Superman Returns came out and was a disappointment to fans, multiple writers, producers, and directors from Warner Bros. Studios discussed restarting it from scratch, hence the MAN OF-STEEL.

Storyline:

As almost everyone is familiar with the story, the movie starts when a baby named Kal-El is sent to earth by his parents to protect him from their home planet Krypton which was in battle threatened from the main villain of the film and protector of the planet General Zod. The baby's was sent to earth not only to protect there son from the battle, but  the boys father Jor-El one of the counsel members of the planet predicted the planet  would eventually be destroyed in a explosion as it did. As if any body listened.

The baby lands on Earth and starts an adopted life with a family and learns to live as a human but eventually discovers his powers and who he really is. He is Superman. 

Then the storyline changes from both comics and the original film.  

First of all, I knew the story was going to be different from the original film including comics. 

In the film, Earth is under attack by the main villain  General Zod  who was sent into The Phantom Zone along with his men who were captured before Krypton exploded. His appearance in the film comes early unlike the original who arrived in the earth later in the sequel. The general and his men escaped and found there way to earth and wanted to consume the planet by turning it entirely out of krypton  to make a copy of the original home planet. "This looks like a job for Superman!"

Before I saw the reboot, I thought it was going to have a great storyline to progress through; however, and unfortunately, I was wrong. 

My critique, as I mentioned before, was its lack of scope during the story mostly because of not understanding the characters correctly except just the main protagonist. 

It was disappointing. I know the film is about Superman, but in the film, they don't exploit the main antagonists as much as the original 1970 film witch explained (action, comedy, and romance) while this film had but only to show (violence, brief comedy, and brief romance). The film just brought in random characters into the movie who were apparently not important or at least were not made important. Characters were just tossed aside and latter became forgotten. Don't take this the wrong way because I think Henry Cavill is grate actor but isn't given the best script lines to work with.

For Example. In the movie, the director  brings in characters into the film like Lois Lane who Superman only new for a very short time but torts the very end of the film, they kiss passionately  with no chemistry involved which doesn't make any sense. How could they kiss if Superman known her for a short time and didn't learn anything about her? There needs to be a reason, but there wasn't. The director should have given the characters a back story because this is poor character development and lazy script writing.

Another problem in the story is that throughout the film, there is non-stop violence with no plot line of sorts. Superman basically fights his enemies but practically bashes them through buildings and sky scrapers causing amazing damage and peril to who ever is still inside. Superman is careless  and brooding throughout  and doesn't seem to care who's in peril. His only priority seems to be to beat the living crap out of bad guys while causing destruction in his path smashing enemies into sky scrapers and buildings. Why is this a problem? Superman should be concerned about the people who are in danger, not vengeance. Some people don't see a problem with this but you would, if your were in that predicament. Would you really stand by and let Superman smash your house or car while beating up a bad guy?

Acting/Casting:

The acting and casting of the film was not terrible; however, unlike the original movie, Superman's character doesn't come across as a gentleman - even though he's still a good person in the film trying to fight for justice as a superhero would. Also to make matters worse, Superman in the comics promised himself that he would never kill like Batman but in the film, he kills a character. Whats up with that?

Action Sequences/Special Effects:

I actually have a positive view on the special effects used in the movie. The quality action sequences are a really good. The problem is that they're prolonged. Because the violence is prolonged, you don't focus on the storyline or understand the characters.  

In my opinion,  I think this is the main issue of why the film was criticized even though it has a 4 star rating. It was in many ways, a truly destructive movie.  

Music:

No issue. The composer Hans Zimer's music was fine and did a interesting adaptation for this movie but it can never be better the than the original score composed by the one and only John Williams.

Summary:

Overall, the film was a cheap gimmick probably meant to get audiences into theaters. An inferior copy of the original classic.  It was a waste of money to see this film at the theatre  - and to be honest, I couldn't wait for it to finish and leave. 

Still, it did appeal to certain audiences and you might be one of them if you haven't seen it and you're not loyal to the original story. 

In closing, if you really are a big fan of Superman and don't care about the details that I covered on this film, go right ahead and see it, but I don't recommend it.

"That's a wrap!"

Charlie the pundit

 

 

Why SUPERMAN IV THE QUEST FOR PEACE Fails!!!!

SUPERMAN IV 

THE QUEST FOR PEACE

Story by: Christopher Reeve, Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal

Director: Sidney J.Furie

Music by: John Williams

Music Adapted by: Alexander Courage

Producer: Menaheh Golan and Yoram Globus 

Associate Producer: Michael Kagan and Graham Easton

Visual Effects Supervisor: Harrison Ellenshaw

Director of Photography: Ernest Day, B.S.C

Production Designer: John Graysmark

Creator of Superman: Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster 

Screen Play by: Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal

 

  

Have you seen SUPERMAN, the movie? It's one of the most popular movies that Warner Bros Studios made in the late 1970s. How about SUPERMAN IV THE QUEST FOR PEACE? Its one of the most disappointing films of the franchise to ever hit the late 1980s.

In my last blog, I did a review of JAWS2.  This time, I'm going to blog about SUPERMAN IV mainly because the reboot of SUPERMAN, called The MAN OF STEEL, is out now.  

You may not like my response, but I have an important critique regarding the quality of SUPERMAN IV.  It is really a disgrace, mostly because it is has really poor special effects, continuity mistakes, and other errors.

Storyline

Christopher Reeve, one of the most remembered actors of this franchise, once again, plays the beloved superhero of the film as Superman.  Reeve's character tries to bring world peace to earth and all of humanity by ridding the earth of its weapons of mass destruction, but Lex Luthor - played again by Gene Hackman - has other plans.  Luthor teams up with his idiot nephew to create a evil villain more powerful than Superman.

The overall story line of this film is not very realistic - or as logical as any superhero movie can be. For example, wouldn't Superman, who is bent on destroying military weapons, be perceived as an anti-hero by the government? Wouldn't he face problems with other governments around the globe in his "quest for peace"?  This obvious conflict is not even mentioned, much less addressed.   Is everyone okay with that? I'm not.

Background

First of all, let me give you a little history about this movie. Before production, the original budget to make this film was $36 million dollars, however, the studios eventually suffered financial problems and had to cut corners  to stay within the budget.  Ultimately, they slashed the budget to $17 million dollars.  The studios could not afford the original special-effects crew that worked with them on the first three films, and instead, had to use a inexperienced special-effects team. The result was a poorly made SUPERMAN IV.

Acting/ Casting

The acting by the main cast was not bad at all.  They did the best that they could with the script they were given.  If only the storyline would have been better...

Action Sequences/ Special Effects  

The action sequence, due to the poor special-effects in the film, are really a pain to see, mainly because every time you see Superman and other characters flying, you cannot help but notice that the lighting is off and that the image does not blend well with the background.  (See image below.)

Other scenes show characters being visibly supported by wires and cables.  Even one particular scene  -the fight on the moon - the background is obviously just black curtains -  appearing as outer space.  Wow!

Music

The famous composer John Williams is not involved in this film.  In the original movie he created outstanding music; however, for this film, he could not participate. Instead, John Williams suggested to the makers of the film another composer named Alexander Courage who has played similar music and could adapt the "Superman theme". The decision was made and Alexander Courage was hired for the job. Unfortunately, he created a poor adaptation.

Summary

It's a disappointment to know that this was the last movie that Christopher Reeve played the role of the Man of Steel.  It should have been his best movie.   After all, the three previous sequels were done well.  Instead, SUPERMAN IV had a poor storyline and bad cinematography.

Now I wonder how the reboot of SUPERMAN - THE MAN OF STEEL - is going to do.  Is it going to appeal to audiences everywhere? We'll have to wait and see.

I hoped you enjoyed my review.

 "That's a wrap!"

Charlie the pundit

Is JAWS 2 worth it?

JAWS2
Writer: Carl Gottlieb and Howard Sackler
Director: Jeanot Szwarc
Music: John Williams
Based on Characters on Novel by: Peter Benchley
Producer: Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown
Associate Producer: Joe Alves

Have you seen Steven Spielberg's classic JAWS, one of the most horrific thrilling blockbuster movie that Universal Studios has ever made? 

Well, have you seen JAWS2? Its one of the worst sequels to ever hit the movie business! If  you have seen it, some of you may know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, this review may give you some considerations before you see it. The reason I'm doing this review is because this film was a disappointment to the JAWS franchise and people are claiming its the best JAWS sequel movie ever made! Personally, I don't believe its the best JAWS movie, like JAWS THE REVENGE. How can you call this a good movie if the shark looks fake, has bad cinematography, distorted music and sound score, bad acting, pointless action sequences, and most importantly, the film shows the shark too much, which ruins the suspense?  These are some of the negatives I want to include in my blog review. There will be no spoilers, but I will explain certain aspects of the movie which I believe affects the film.

STORYLINE

Roy Scheider has returned to the big screen as Chief Brody, a policeman of  Amity Island in JAWS2, who has a fear of sharks  after a strange encounter in the first JAWS movie. Chief Brody becomes overprotective of residents and believes that another shark has returned to Amity after a few disappearances on the island.  Everybody believes he's paranoid and he ends up losing his job after mistaken evidence but his prediction and fear of a shark problem is actually true.

BACKGROUND

The first things I want to talk about before I explain more of this film is how the decision was made to make the sequel. After the film of JAWS was complete, Universal Studios immediately demanded a sequel. The producers of JAWS discussed if they really wanted to do it because if they didn't, somebody else would make another shark movie.  They felt very protective of the film so they decided to make a sequel based on the characters in the novel by Peter Benchley. Steven Spielberg would have none of it, however. He claimed that he was done with shark movies so the studios decided to use another director named Jeanot Szwarks.

DIRECTOR

I found that the problem with the movie was not hiring the right director ; however, Szwarks made bad decisions from the first day of shooting this film. The director claimed and felt they needed to show the shark often in the film because of the poster in the first movie.  The JAWS poster showed the picture of the shark, but throughout the original film, you don't see the shark until the middle and end of the movie, so Szwarks decided that it was never going to happen again. Because the audience was coming to see the sequel and knew it was about a shark, he believed there was no need for hiding it.

This in my opinion was the sequel's biggest downfall and a very bad decision by the director because it doesn't capture your collective imagination, which would've made things scarier for you.

ACTION SEQUENCE

In the beginning of the film, you don't see as much of the shark except for dated footage of a real shark, which was kind of an overkill for me. For those looking for gruesome and bloody scenes, I must warn you that this film is not as horrific and thrilling as they said it was like in the first film. Perhaps in retrospect the problem of showing the shark wasn't that it was shown, but rather how it was introduced to the audience. 

    

The thing that I found of poor quality in the film were the action sequences. The first bad action sequence that I spotted was the scene with the girl skiing in the water.  She is unaware that she is being chased by the shark in an unrealistically fast speed. The shark swam like it had a motor boat engine!  After the shark eats the girl, the woman who was pulling the girl on the skiis turns around and notices that she's gone and, out of nowhere, the shark attacks her boat.

This next scene is also pointless and I feel it affects the film in a bad way. The shark rocks the boat, the woman overreacts to the situation, and she grabs gasoline and pours it all over her body - as if its a coating of protection. She then grabs a gun from out of nowhere and shoots the shark, leaving a scar on its face.  It leaves, but in the same moment, the woman shoots herself in the buttocks, screams pathetically, and blows the boat and herself to kingdom come.

ACTING & CASTING

This woman's character made a really dumb move for a last chance of survival. She was just not a good actor, but then again she worked with what she was supposed to do so it not all her fault. Its more likely the director's fault, who worked to make this sequence "exciting" but instead, it came off as dumb. 

Joseph Mascolo was another actor who's role I didn't like. He played one of the council members in the mayor's office. I've seen him in good films but he did not play a good role, and as a mater of fact, he played a weak role in the film. His character just did not match, in my opinion, that of a real council member. There were several actors in the film who's acting I didn't like but this one in particular was one of the worst. 

MUSIC

The music of JAWS is strong and powerful. John Williams composed a really strong and scary score for the first film. For JAWS2, however, the music was okay but it was not as powerful as in the first movie, although it was the same composer.  The music sounded very distorted and was not really restored when I bought  it on DVD. This doesn't take away from the fact that I like John Williams music. But you know what really ticks me off? John Williams music does get suspenseful in the film, but unfortanately, the scenes in the film are so over the top dramatic that the music doesnt flow with rest of his music. 

SPECIAL EFFECTS 

The special effects  for this film were really disappointing. The shark in the first film looked really realistic, but for this movie, it looked really fake. The studios spend so much money on set design but didn't put much effort on the shark to look at least believable.  Instead, they give the shark a dopey scar, which made the shark look even worse.  In some scenes, I saw robot machines inside the shark's mouth!  Were we not supposed to notice this magical feature?

SUMMARY

It might just be me, but I know I did not like the obvious flaws in this movie. Sequels are a funny business as they can fall apart if not properly made and this was just not a good sequel. Jeanot Szwark did not do a good job of directing this movie. To Szwark's credit, however, he has done other good films that I've really enjoyed. 

In the meantime, if you don't care about bad sequels, go ahead and see it. Maybe you won't mind the ugly shark or silly shots that I've pointed out about this movie.

"That's a wrap!"

Charlie the pundit