Jaws 2 Review

What lurks underneath the water is still terrifying and the screams continue to ring through the air across Amity Island, but something is missing from Jaws 2, and it's more than just the name Steven Spielberg. The events that occur during this second great white death extravaganza carry with them a feeling of redundancy which makes it all the more noticeable how perfect it was to have Roy Scheider's Brody alongside Robert Shaw's Quint and Richard Dreyfuss's Hooper. The absence of compelling supporting players makes the building of tension and the execution of the horror essential to make this sequel worthy of a watch, and Jaws 2 does at least slightly succeed in this regard. The scenes in the water are gripping and unnerving, yet they achieve nothing more than in the moment thrills rather than lasting cinematic memories.

I read somewhere that Scheider was initially reluctant to sign on to doing this sequel, but you can't really sense a different approach from him personally throughout the film, a performance pretty much in lock step with what he brought to Jaws and his familiar face adds appeal to the picture. Unfortunately there just isn't much here for him to work with, and if anything this film serves as a reminder that the original didn't succeed solely because of an iconic musical score and a giant fucking shark. It's the quiet sequences between characters, the moments that feel safe enough to allow an audience to let its guard down even for just a few minutes, that are crucial to making us clench up when we get another sight of the fin lurking in the distance. Director Jeannot Szwarc and screenwriter Carl Gottlieb clearly understand this enough to attempt to embrace the notion, but the spaces between the scenes in which the blue water turns red feel like nothing more than recycled boring filler.



2/5