Jaws 5: Cruel Jaws (1995)

Wait a minute, hold on... Steven Spielberg... Jeannot Szwarc... Joe Alves... Joseph Sargent.... Nope, no mention of Bruno Mattei in any of their respective biographies. We're good.

I've alluded to this one before, in my numerous tirades against why foreign countries should never be allowed to watch our movies (Why? Because they usually end up copying them!), and also because it was made by bad boy Bruno.

Oh, Bruno. Bruno Bruno Bruno. Anyone who knows Bruno Mattei's body of work knows what to expect: ripoff story line, bad effects, spliced-in footage from other movies and bad acting. REALLY bad acting.

I knew what to expect. I sallied forth regardless.

It's bad enough that you make a ripoff movie, but a ripoff that purports to be a sequel in a series of already-established films? That takes guts, if not brains, and I'll say this much for Mattei: his guts are on display here in full.

This is the man who's made lots of zombie movies, many gladiator movies, a good hunk of sexploitation movies and even had the time to zip off a little sequel to The Terminator that was more about aliens underneath Venice, Italy than it was about robots.

Even though Bruno passed on in 2007, he left behind a legacy of over 50 films, none of which had one original idea in them. And as we're about to see with Jaws 5: Cruel Jaws, not only were these films not original, they weren't good, either.

You know what really makes me mad about this one? This is probably the laziest movie about shark attacks, shark hunting, shark catching and shark destruction I have ever seen in my life, and at no time did I ever believe this was anything more than what it was: a cheap ripoff that gives cheap ripoffs a bad name.

Of course, what can you expect from a man who has to splice clips from other directors' product into his own to be able to call it "complete"? If the man is Bruno Mattei, you shouldn't expect any less.

Now, about Jaws 5: I don't know why I insist on calling it that, seeing as this is about as much a sequel to any Jaws film as Re-Animator is a sequel to Porky's.

Get a load of this plot rundown: A tiger shark bred by the Navy as a killing machine is wrecking havoc in the sleepy tourist town of Hampton Bay. In the meantime, the Mafia is involved with sleazy real estate investments, and send their thugs to keep a lid on the fact the residents are (as Crazy Ralph from Friday the 13th would say) all doomed. However, the residents of Hampton Bay and the local dolphins come to the rescue to save the hamlet from both the mob and military covert operatives.

First of all, I say "tiger shark" but it really just depends on what stock footage you go by. Sometimes it is, as I said, a tiger shark. Other times it's a great white like we'd be used to in this situation. Then there are other times in the proceedings that we're afraid the papier-mâché is going to deteriorate if left in the water too long.

Now as far as the plot goes..."a tiger shark bred by the Navy as a killing machine"? "Mafia"? "Sleazy real estate investments"? "Military covert operatives"??? The IMDb dares to sully the name of Peter Benchley by claiming this screenplay is based on his own classic novel.

Of course, that's like saying David Lynch's Dune is based on Manos: The Hands of Fate, what with all the hand references....

And speaking of hands, this is a screenplay that not only Mattei had a hand in but was also touched by co-writers Robert Feen and Linda Morrison, two writers whose previous credits have been...well, nothing. But who, since Jaws 5, have gone on to write...well, nothing again.

As is par for the course in a Bruno Mattei movie, all of the actors were recruited from the entry kiosk for "America Ain't Got Talent", since not a one of these individuals could act their way out of a wet paper shark. In fact, for most of them, this was their one and only shot at a big movie...and this went straight to Italian TV!

I'll take that back; one of these actors, Larry Zience, went on to an illustrious career...as a second unit director. Oh yeah; films like 2 Fast 2 Furious, Bad Boys II and Wild Things: Foursome benefited immeasurably because of Larry's involvement. Good for him, you know?

You want Matt Hooper/Richard Dreyfuss? Sorry, you're stuck with Bill Morrison (Gregg Hood), who's supposed to be a marine life expert but whose expertise is in equating a shark to a "locomotive with a mouth full of butcher's knives". Just in case you didn't know what to compare sharks to. And he kind of looks like the "Oh My GAHHHHHHD" kid in Troll 2, which does NOT help me take him any more seriously.

You want Sheriff Brody/Roy Scheider? Sorry, you're stuck with Sheriff Francis Berger (David Luther), whose main purpose is to show us what Sheriff Brody would have been like if the part had been cast with beefy gung-ho guy who's good with a machine gun and a helicopter. Yes, those get utilized in Jaws 5, too. The Sheriff? Not so much.

You want Sam Quint/Robert Shaw? Sorry, you're stuck with Dag Snerensen (Richard Dew) who may look like Hulk Hogan but has the onscreen presence of a hoagie, even when talking about the accident (What accident? Don't ask...) that claimed the life of his wife (What's her name? Don't ask...) and crippled his little buck-toothed daughter Suzy (Kirsten Urso), who may actually have the cruelest-looking jaws in the whole movie.

This of course coincides with the threatening of Dag's Sea World-ish park and its three dolphins from the mayor who wants to foreclose on it and build something-or-other, I don't really remember and it isn't important. The only reason the mayor even gets any screen time is to foist bad Mafia stereotypes, get insulted by people or get pushed into the water. Twice. He doesn't get eaten by a shark, though, which is a bet I think they always missed with Jaws' mayor (Murray Hamilton).

Something else I have to comment on is how they film the shark attacks, or at least 90% - 98% of any scenes involving a shark. Mattei keeps up the standard everyone is used to in his movies by getting out his scissors, sneaking into the film lab and making off with gigantic chunks of other films to splice into his own.

Clips from movies like Speilberg's Jaws, Szwarc's Jaws 2, Joe D'Amato's Deep Blood and Enzo G. Castellari's The Great White (the one with James Franciscus and Vic Morrow... remember?) are all on display here and...this is the worst part...are really indiscernible from any of the rest of Mattei's Cruel work herein. I guess that means that no matter what kind of a shark movie you make, it's all pretty much the same. Doesn't matter.

My biggest gripe with Jaws 5: Cruel Jaws is the same gripe I had with Alien 2: On Earth - why do film-makers from other countries feel it necessary to make all of these unofficial sequels to films that come from our shores anyway? My basic knee-jerk cynicism say it's for the almighty dollar (or almighty Euro) and nothing else, but something else comes into play here as well. An absolute lack of any creativity. I mean look at it this way; for every original, thought-provoking foreign film like The Bicycle Thief, La Dolce Vita, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, That Obscure Object of Desire or even, God help me, Last Year at Marienbad (hey, at least it was original!), there is something that makes the viewer think they are looking at the latest production from Mad Magazine cross-bred with Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. It just doesn't mesh. It makes your eyes water. It makes your soul die. It just plain makes you want to boycott Europe.

Then again, America's no prize either when it comes to wannabe sequels and ripoffs and outright unwarranted copies of our own films. So maybe I'm the pot calling the kettle black. I'll admit it; just don't ask me to like it.

I know there can be fun to be had in a bad ripoff of a film. I know that and I have seen examples of such, I swear I have. But Jaws 5: Cruel Jaws is NOT that film. It is stupid, lunk-headed, lame-brained, tries too hard in some parts and not hard enough in most others.

So if you want to watch this after all the warnings I just gave to you, then you are a sick, diseased, twisted individual whom there is no hope for. And I'll let you watch my copy with me.

I'm surprised they didn't add in any footage from Jaws 3. Could only have helped. My guess is that Mattei figured he owed Dennis Quaid a favor or something.

Because Mattei sure didn't do anyone else any favors....

Jaws 5: Cruel Jaws (1995) 2010-10-10T08:44:00-07:00 Rating: 4.5 Diposkan Oleh: admin