Jaws 2 review

Jaws 2

Jaws 2 is an unnecessary follow up to the excellent original movie by Steven Spielberg. Spielberg, for his part, was too busy to with the major problems with his Close Encounters movie to direct the second one. So, they brought in a new director and then promptly fired him, then bringing in another director from France.

The film isn’t bad at all, and most of the shark attack scenes work, (One attack scene is down right terrible and bumps this movie down a grade.) Roy Scheider is wonderful as the hardened Police Chief Brody. This time, he doesn’t have his allies from the 1^st movie to help him. He’s a flawed character that doesn’t want a repeat of what happened in the last movie.

Of course, most of the town people don’t believe him. This is one of the problems I have with the film. After the terrible things that happened to the town in the first movie, you would think these people would believe him. Some of the members of town council are just plain stupid.

Yet another problem I have with the movie is the young teenage kids. For some reason, the writers thought it would be cool to include some teenage subplots about these goofy kids. One teenage girl in the movie just screams the whole time and nothing else. (Nope, the shark didn’t eat her.)

Probably the best factor about this movie is the simply pretty and soaring score by John Williams. Besides the main shark theme, most of the score is brand new with new themes. (There is a throwback to the “boat theme” from the first movie, listen for it.) The “end credits” music is some of the best of old school Williams, so sit around and listen.

The deaths in the movie are more graphic and bloodier, but in the end, the movie just doesn’t have the heart that the first one had. Still, give this movie another try.

Grade C

~There’s a nice shock where a girl gets completely gulped up by the shark. It is one of the better scenes in the movie.

Here are some scenes that should have been in the movie, (Cut and pasted from Imdb.com)

((The Council goes into Mayor Vaughn's office to take a vote to fire Brody; Mayor Vaughn alone votes against Brody's firing.))

You see this scene alone should have been included in the movie. Mayor Vaughn was such a jerk in the first film and was partly responsible for the death of the young boy in that movie. This scene would have shown that Vaughn changed and actually did side with Brody, going from being a guy against Brody to the one guy that believes him.

((The shark attacks the helicopter pilot, after capsizing it underwater.))

It would have been creepy to see this happen, but then it would have gotten an R-rating.

Here’s something to think about: The shark just ate an entire girl, so you can imagine the bad shape her body is in after this…yuck.