Lorraine Gary, who was Chief Brody’s wife in the first two films, is in reality married to the head of Universal Pictures. Here, she finally gets star billing in a soggy sequel that refuses to be called Jaws 4 because it avoids all reference to Jaws 3 and tells an alternative story about different versions of Roy Scheider’s grown-up children’s brush with a vindictive killer fish.
Michael Caine, trying to win back his reputation for appearing only in complete rubbish after accidentally being in the rather good Hannah And Her Sisters, is a dissolute pilot who takes a shine to the widowed Gary (yep, Scheider finally broke that contract, and appears only in borrowed footage for flashbacks), and accompanies her from Amity Island to the Bahamas when a shark kills one of her sons.
The shark follows the family and keeps up the vendetta. After the initial chomping, the film turns annoyingly bloodless as it spares all the major characters from death in a soppy, clearly much-rewritten ending that makes no sense.