Okay, so this isn’t an actual line of dialogue, but how could I not include arguably the most famous tagline in movie history?
Today is the 50th anniversary of Jaws. But seeing as I already reviewed it last year, today we’ll celebrate by reviewing its first (and best) sequel.
Following it up was always going to be an impossible task. How do you recapture that jolt of fear when the shark’s head first rears out of the water? You can’t. And so the movie never really tries. There’s a very different vibe. Instead of a tense, cat and mouse style thriller, we get something almost closer to a slasher, complete with a large, teenaged cast and a hulking, scarred killer.
This is really the biggest change. Instead of focusing on three men from three very different backgrounds with three very different belief systems, there’s a verifiable gaggle of very similar looking teenagers, including Brody’s son, Mike.
No, seriously, am I the only one who had a lot of trouble telling the teenagers apart? I feel like half the guys had identical haircuts.
Anyways, the last third of the movie focuses on the teenagers adrift in the ocean, trying to survive repeated shark attacks. It’s also the part that has the most action and kills, and yet is far less interesting to me than everything that came before it.
I was fascinated by Brody’s descent into paranoia and PTSD and how everyone around him reacted to it. Roy Scheider simply killed it. The scene where Brody confronts the town council and completely misreads the situation is only rivaled by the dawning horror on his face when he realizes that he saw bluefin tuna instead of a shark.
My favorite moment, though, is completely silent. The way that Brody’s expression changes as he watches his son, Sean, help him pick up spent shell casings is simply wonderful. Gold stars.
Overall, there is a lot of very strong acting from multiple people. Tina whispering and pleading “Make it go away!” after the boat gets attacked is going to stick with me for a while. Mayor Larry also got to be a bit more than just a buffoon with his head stuck in the sand this time around. It actually felt like he was someone caught between a rock and a hard place, trying to do the best that he could to navigate a way through.
Marc Gilpin is also very good as young Sean, a rare child actor who isn’t obnoxious. It would be too easy to get frustrated with him, especially in the later parts of the movie, but instead you just want him to make it out okay.
And there really is a lot that he needs to survive. He and the rest of the teenagers are stranded for a very long time. I appreciated how competent they were, though. They did exactly what you were supposed to do in that situation, lashing the boats together and keeping an eye on each other. Even when tensions got high and they started to snap at each other, no one acted rashly.
There were some truly excellent set pieces as well. The helicopter was certainly a highlight, and I will always be fond of the grand finale because of the similarities to the old Jaws ride at Universal Studios. (I still miss that ride dearly.)
Of course, there were some issues that I had. While the writing is good and the plotting at times clever, it really does follow the formula that Jaws set out very closely. Very, very closely. I also had to question if the town council would really just dismiss Brody so quickly. Either they needed to really highlight the fact that Brody was prone to jump at shadows, or soften the council more.
Still, for a movie that had just as trouble a production as its predecessor, Jaws 2 is worthy of the name and more than worth a watch.
Random Thoughts
The mechanical shark still looks dated, and there is one moment where the mouth actually folds in on itself as it swims by. They had to build new sharks since the originals had rotted away in the years between filming.
Hooper is stated to be in the waters around Antarctica, so he can’t come around for any shark shenanigans.
Jaws 2 was the highest grossing sequel in history until Rocky II came out a year later.
One of the deleted scenes that I wish made the final cut shows Mayor Larry being the only one to vote for Brody to keep his job.
Even after four years, Brody still isn’t comfortable with boats.
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An Honest Fangirl loves video games, horror movies, and superheroes, and occasionally watches far too many shark movies.
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