This is a pretty standard documentary. There are a lot of talking heads from the film industry, some of which are more interesting to hear from than others. For some reason, Emily Blunt has a lot of screentime. She was probably the worst one while the best was Steven Spielberg himself. (No surprise there.)
A decent portion of the interviews also look like they were recorded in the decades past and were reused for the documentary. Obviously, this mainly involved the actors who have since passed away.
While shark scientists do get a few moments in the fun, the focus really is on the movie itself and the process of making the movie. I expected there to be a lot more attention and focus placed on the cultural legacy of Jaws, but the documentary never went there. Not really. Not beyond the very surface level "people wouldn't go into the water and started killing sharks."
Is it a fluff piece? Yeah. A little bit. For something that is claiming to be both definitive and the inside story, I never got the sense that I was actually learning anything hidden or scandalous. Everything that they talked about felt like common knowledge with possibly two exceptions. I didn't realize just how deeply Jaws had affected Spielberg even after the movie was released and a huge success.
That was probably my favorite moment of the documentary just because it felt like something real. It wasn't polished or put out for a fun factoid. Jaws traumatized him. All of the praise and money in the world wouldn't fix that.
I also really enjoyed hearing from the actors that had very small roles. I didn't realize just how much of the cast were Martha Vineyard residents. It wasn't just background extras. It was basically everyone outside eight people.
There was a lot of behind the scenes footage that was cool to see. Most of it was focused on Spielberg, which makes sense now that I'm sitting here thinking about it. The documentary is really less about Jaws or its legacy 50 years later and more about how Spielberg navigated the trials and triumphs of making Jaws. It's about him during this particular time of his life.
Very cool to hear about, but not what I had been expecting or wanting. Honestly, if you want a Jaws documentary, check out The Shark is Still Working instead. It's much better.
Random Thoughts
This summer, I reviewed 12 shark movies and one television show. August was entirely dedicated to the increasingly absurd Multi-Headed Shark Attack series, but beyond that we still had a fun mix of SyFy slop and theatrical releases from a few different decades and countries. Much like last summer, I'm going to rank this year's movies based on my own personal enjoyment. This is not based on quality. I won't include Jaws @ 50 or All the Sharks.
- Santa Jaws
- 6-Headed Shark Attack
- Bait
- Jaws 2
- Open Water
- 5-Headed Shark Attack
- Shark Side of the Moon
- 2-Headed Shark Attack
- Sharknado
- Shark Warning!
- No Way Up
- 3-Headed Shark Attack
I would like to thank you all again for celebrating our second summer of sharks with me! I always have a great time doing this. Believe it or not, there's still a lot more shark movies out there that I could review. We're definitely going to do this again next year.
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An Honest Fangirl loves video games, horror movies, and superheroes, and occasionally watches far too many shark movies.
Fangirl, thank *you* for keeping us all amused, which is a strange thing to say about shark attacks. And I know they aren't just amusing -- they're such a strange and unusual movie genre.
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