connorbbalboa There was a point when I started watching more shark movies when I decided that I should stop trying to compare these movies to Jaws, because there's no point to it. Instead, I try to make more comparisons with the first sequel: Jaws 2. But as it turns out, movies like The Last Shark make me miss Jaws 3, which was horrible, but at least it has more production value than this cheapo. This movie feels like the filmmakers took Jaws and got rid of everything except the essential elements. Some reviewers have even pointed out similarities to Jaws 2, like a scene with a helicopter. This is really the same plot as Jaws and that makes it more tiring. Vic Morrow and James Franciscus are the stars, but they are simply there; they don't come out as great characters. They, like most of the cast, simply seem to be going through the motions; I mainly noticed this when I watched how both Franciscus and Morrow seemed pretty calm about the governor leaving the beaches open, even though they disagree. There was also a group of teens that I found super annoying, although there was a small moment when the governor smacks his son in the face for stealing his boat to try to kill the shark himself while putting his friends in danger that made me laugh. The shark looks absolutely horrible, even when compared to the sharks in Jaws 3 and Jaws: The Revenge. Sometimes, it's a stupid-looking miniature, sometimes it's a big animatronic shark, and sometimes it's stock footage of a real great white shark, which is actually where the shark looks scariest, mainly because the footage is so grainy, even though it doesn't match in quality with the rest of the footage. There is a funny subplot however where this TV reporter keeps trying to get footage of the shark even though people are getting eaten on camera. Bottom line, don't even think of watching this reeking mess even if it is because it rips off Jaws. You'd be better off with Jaws 3.

oscar-35 *Spoiler/plot- 1981, Rather bad rip-off of the block buster shark film from Universal Studios. The movie is a 'spin' doctor of the exact scenes that made the other film so successful. A bad copy of it.*Special Stars- James Franciscus, Vic Morrow.*Theme- Sharks love to eat.*Based on- Universal's film, 'Jaws' *Trivia/location/goofs- Filmed in Italy to cash in on the shark craze. *Emotion- A somewhat forgettable as a carbon copy of the big budget shark film with different leads. Here is the best example of how many international films and US films are just obvious remakes of films that caught the public's attention and made millions for their producers. This one fails miserably.

mnpollio The story of Great White (or "The Last Shark" depending on where it was released) is more interesting than anything that appears in the final product. A thinly veiled Jaws rip-off, the film was released in the early 1980s in the US with lots of advance ads, but quickly pulled from release following a lawsuit from Universal Studios, which allowed the film to generate a cult following leaving many people wondering what they missed. After viewing the end product, not a heck of a lot. The Jaws storyline is virtually duplicated here with a summer beach town suddenly becoming the feeding ground of a 35-foot Great White shark. Minor derivation - instead of the town sheriff being the focal character - we get James Franciscus as a popular local novelist (named Peter Benton, obviously a riff on Peter Benchley the author of the original Jaws). Truthfully, 1982 was a bit late to be ripping off Jaws since at that point we already had Jaws 2, Piranha and the soon to released Jaws 3-D (which is a worse film than this one). The film does have some moments of suspense as most killer fish movies generally do, but they are almost in spite of the methodical plodding direction and often senseless screenplay. A nicely done opening attack (which keeps the beast off camera) sets the stage, but too much time is devoted to a rather tired subplot about a politician running for re-election and there are far too many moments of people acting foolishly. Whenever the shark is around, you know some idiot will accidentally fall into the water to become shark bait. Even worse, characters go off to ostensibly "hunt" the shark with no set plan on what to do with it if they find it, resulting in at least three sequences where someone is maimed or killed because of idiocy. The sequence where the local politician attempts to capture the shark by dangling bait tied to the tow cable of a helicopter is especially preposterous, because he has no plan in place of what to do if he finds the shark and given the film's pattern, you know one of the passengers will fall out. The film tries to blend in elements of Jaws 2 by including a gaggle of teenagers, including Franciscus's daughter, and a helicopter sequence. Kudos for making the politician, played Joshua Sinclair, relatively congenial and proactive, and not the usual douchebag that popped up in Jaws and its ilk - he truly does not deserve the fate that the movie has for him. Franciscus is actually fairly solid, while Vic Morrow in the Robert Shaw shark hunter role is an unintentional hoot overacting with a highly suspicious Scottish accent. The over-synthesized score is a misfire. The direction is uneven and heavy-handed, with a distinct problem towards pacing. The cheap visuals hardly help. Apparently the special effects budget only covered the top third of the shark, because the rest is done with stock footage that fails to match up. Oftentimes, the film substitutes footage of a shark (sometimes not even a Great White) that is obviously considerably smaller than the shark in the film is supposed to be - apparently hoping no viewers would notice the huge discrepancies. Much of the underwater footage is murky and the film's mid-film "action" piece where the shark breaks through safety barriers and crashes a wind-surfing regatta is unintentionally funny as it basically shows a red buoy that get caught on the shark (a la the yellow ones in Jaws) systematically knocking all of the wind surfers off their boards in a straight line, but yet with all those young flailing surfers in the water it manages to snag none of them, instead opting to knock a small boat up in the air to munch on an obnoxious character. Decidedly underwhelming, but worth a look if nothing else better is on, and certainly better than last summer's execrable Piranha 3-D.

Bezenby I've no idea why a guy like Enzo Castellari would stoop to such a wholesale rip-off of the Jaws movies, but we're talking about the wacky world of Italian cinema, so who knows? Castellari never ceases to amaze me with his action-packed, stylistic films like Street Law and the Big Racket, and although folks say that he lost it a bit during the eighties, the Last Shark is the only film I've seen by him that's less than great (c'mon - Bronx Warriors and The New Barbarians are still a hoot, despite their limitations).The plot is a bit of Jaws and a bit of Jaws two mixed together. We've got an Italian b-movie cast from heaven - James Franciscus (Cat o Nine Tails) is our hero, with Vic Morrow (Bronx Warriors) as the pseudo Scottish Robert Shaw facsimile, Joshua Sinclair as the troubled mayor torn between his polls and the safety of his folks, Romano Puppo as a shark hit-man (or something like that), with Giancarlo Prete and Massimo Vanni turning up as a ruthless film crew.Basically: it's Jaws. A large Great White turns up in the sea outside of town and starts eating folks. The mayor doesn't really want to shut the beach due to an upcoming Regatta, and Vic Morrow offers his hand in wasting the troublesome fish. The plot is so nearly identical that Spielberg sued the film right out of the USA! It never come near the original's level of tension, and there's not much by way of shocks (the 'head popping out from under the boat bit' in Jaws is a classic), but I'd say that the Last Shark is mainly interesting for fans of Castellari himself, as well as his perpetually recurring actors. Every non-shark orientated shot is full of primary colours: blues, yellows and reds abound. There's a ton of style injected into these proceedings, plus plenty of Castellari slow motion, and the usual gore (though not so much as Jaws).The Last Shark starts off well, slumps slightly in the middle, and picks up again towards the end when Joshua Sinclair tries his hand at fishing the shark out the water using a helicopter. Plus, any film that has Massimo Vanni being bitten in half earns extra points.At the end of the day though, it's still a blatant rip-off of Jaws, and the low budget rears its head whenever shark footage appears, with some dodgy models and terrible stock footage. Some copies of this film are very dark too, which would hamper viewing (although the first version I watched, on Italian television, was as clear as anything).For Enzo Castellari fans only - his mark is all over this film. Check out Vic Morrow's Scottish accent too! I've never heard a Scotman talk like that, and I live there!