Classic Movie Review: I Hate 'Jaws 2'

Jaws 2 (1978)

Directed by Jeannot Szwarc

Written by Carl Gottlieb, Howard Sackler

Starring Roy Scheider, Lorraine Gary, Keith Gordon, Murray Hamilton

Release Date June 16th, 1978

Published August 9th, 2023

If there is ONE movie in the long history of movies that does not need a sequel, it's Jaws. Jaws, as crafted by Steven Spielberg, is a perfect movie. That doesn't mean it's the greatest movie of all time or even my favorite movie. When I say Jaws is a perfect movie, I am merely stating that, as the story is told and the film is executed, it's perfectly crafted in and of itself. Jaws, as it is, cannot be improved upon and requires no expansion upon its story. The characters, action, and ending, all play out in the best possible fashion for this movie. Jaws, as it plays, doesn't need to be expanded upon nor does it lend itself to being expanded upon.

Thus, the only reason anyone would be ridiculous enough to make a sequel to Jaws is money. It's a purely mercenary effort to separate audiences from their money. There can be no art, no pure joy of creation to this endeavor, it's only about using something beloved and familiar as a brickbat with which to beat money out of audiences. Jaws is a money pinata and greedy Hollywood executives wanted their candy by any means necessary. That means that if they needed to force actor Roy Scheider to star in the sequel by holding him hostage to his contract, they would do it. And they did do that, Scheider didn't want to be in this movie.

If it meant backing up a brinks truck to try and get Steven Spielberg and Richard Dreyfuss back, they would do it. It's a sign of great integrity that both Spielberg and Dreyfuss refused big money deals to compromise their integrity. Studio executives likely tried to drag up the corpse of Robert Shaw's Quint but thankfully stopped short of that. But would you be surprised that the idea was floated? It would not surprise me if that happened. Anything remotely familiar was going to be exploited for the chance of whacking that Jaws piñata. For instance, one person who did compromise his integrity is composer John Williams who did return and provided one of his most forgettable pieces of work for Jaws 2.

So, why am I ranting about Jaws 2? The movie isn't exactly timely or relevant. Well, Jaws 2 was the classic on our latest episode of the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast. We paired Jaws 2 with The Meg 2: The Trench and what we found is that both of these movies stink out loud. Both, The Meg 2 and Jaws 2, are miserable, overlong slogs that fail to remotely capture what made the first film something worth watching. The Meg, of course, doesn't compare with the genius of Jaws, it's merely the first of two Meg movies. But, The Meg is certainly better than its sequel and that's where the sequel relates to Jaws 2, which is a vastly inferior film to its original.

For reasons that defy credulity, Jaws 2 takes it story back to Amity Island where we find that no one, other than maybe poor Sheriff Martin Brody (Scheider), has learned anything in the two years since a shark ate several Amity residents. Just two years later, if anyone even mentions the potential of another shark in the waters around Amity, they get shouted down by greedy morons desperate for tourist dollars. Somehow, Murray Hamilton's boneheaded Mayor Vaughn is still in charge of Amity, despite being very much responsible for several deaths in attempting to cover up a violent shark attack.

Two years later, Mayor Vaughn is still an egotistical, greedy, idiot willing to sacrifice lives to protect that sweet, sweet tourist dollar. From a very cynical perspective, I guess it makes sense that Mayor Vaughn is still in power. After all, our history is littered with feckless, greedy idiots who tend to thrive in these situations thanks to their willingness to be deeply unethical. That said, the movie presses past the borders of believability with his character and those of the Amity town council who see Sheriff Brody as a paranoid nut job despite his having saved numerous lives in the previous shark attacks. Granted Brody does himself no favors by running around trying to shoot a dark shape in the ocean, narrowly missing women and children with his flailing shots.

Roy Scheider reportedly hated this scene where he fires his gun just past the head of a small child while trying to shoot what he thinks is a shark. Scheider wasn't so much the star of Jaws 2 as he was a prisoner of Jaws 2. Scheider desperately wanted to get out of a three picture deal he was in with the studio behind Jaws and only agreed to Jaws 2 for a large paycheck and the guarantee that this would be his last movie under his contractual obligation. Forced into the movie, Scheider fought with director Jeannot Szwarc who inherited the disaster of Jaws 2 after an earlier director was fired. Szwarc's lasting contribution to the history of the Jaws franchise is having a fist fight on set with Scheider.

I loathe Jaws 2. I turned the movie off just over half way through as I was too irritated by the grating teenage characters and the moronic adult characters. I was also only mildly entertained by the very clear, very real angst of star Roy Scheider. It's very clear that he just wants to get this movie over with and while that could be deliciously dark fun, it's not. It's not fun watching the only good actor in Jaws 2 be so demonstrably miserable. I was right there with him in that feeling, that complete lack of joy, that feeling of being obligated to take part in something. Granted, I was lucky enough to be able to turn off Jaws 2, poor Roy Scheider probably took years off his life trying to will himself to finish this terrible movie.

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