Jaws 3-D

Directed by Joe Alves, Jaws 3-D follows the staff members of a Florida-based aquatic park, including Dennis Quaid’s Mike Brody and Lea Thompson’s Kelly Ann Bukowski, as they’re forced to fend for their lives after a deadly shark swims into the compound. Filmmaker Alves, working from Richard Matheson and Carl Gottlieb’s screenplay, delivers a slow-moving and mostly uninvolving sequel that does, for much of its running time, feel hopelessly, irredeemably padded-out, as the sluggish narrative has been suffused with a whole host of decidedly underwhelming sequences that cumulatively result in a disastrous lack of momentum – with the arms-length vibe compounded by an ongoing reliance on chintzy, entirely unconvincing special effects. (The proliferation of objects flying towards the camera, presumably to satisfy the movie’s 3D component, is a continuing annoyance, to be sure.) And although Alves has admittedly peppered the proceedings with a few tense set-pieces, including a search-and-rescue mission that goes dangerously awry, Jaws 3-D, which climaxes with a fairly interminable third act, comes off as a predominantly ineffective followup that squanders the charismatic efforts of its affable roster of performers.

** out of ****