Movie Night: Jaws 2.

Review #555: Jaws 2.

Cast
Roy Scheider (Martin Brody), Lorraine Gary (Ellen Brody), Murray Hamilton (Mayor Larry Vaughn), Joseph Mascolo (Len Peterson), Jeffrey Kramer (Deputy Jeff Hendricks), Collin Wilcox (Dr. Lureen Elkins), Ann Dusenberry (Tina Wilcox), Mark Gruner (Michael Brody), Barry Coe (Tom Andrews), Susan French (Grace Witherspoon), Gary Springer (Andy Nicholas), Donna Wilkes (Jackie Peters), and Gary Dubin (Eddie Marchand) Directed by Jeannot Szwarc.

Review
It figues that even though the first movie wrapped itself up nicely and leaving no doubt that the shark was dead, the studio wanted a sequel. Scheider is back at least, along with Gary and Hamilton, which is alright (a shame there's no Dreyfuss though), but let's get to the point, the movie doesn't have much chance of replicating the scare of the original movie, and the movie acknowledges that by revealing the shark many times throughout the film. So yeah, how is the film? It's pretty mediocre. Scheider does his best, and to the film's credit, most of the cast do a pretty fine job...except the teens. After a while, you start rooting for the shark. I think the thing that irritates me the most is the fact that once again nobody agrees with Brody that there's a shark attacking. The original script made more sense for why they don't believe him, as the Mayor and Peterson are apparently in debt to the Mafia (don't ask), borrowing money from them to build resorts to help restore Amity after the shark attacks devastated the town's economy in the first movie (I wouldn't want to go to a place with shark attacks either), thus explaining why the two "disbelieve" him. But instead, due to rewrites, there's now no reason for the two to not believe Brody, the man who's hunted down a shark before. At least the shark effects look decent. The tagline "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water..." is really clever and invites you with such an irresistible line. The movie is okay, but compared to the first film, it's a inferior sequel. But...what about the sequels? Well, we-I mean I am going to find out.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.