Jaws 2 (1978)

It's always hard to do a sequel to a film that is considered a classic and not have it look bad, yet Jaws 2 succeeds in it's own way and was a pretty fun watch. Occurring several years after the first film's events, it seems there may be yet another shark on the prowl in Amity Island's waters. Of course, just like in the first one, no one wants to believe Chief Brody that another shark is in the water till it's to late.

This sequel gives us way more shark for our buck than the first one, and that's not necessarily a great thing. Too much of it is shown way to early, and it's just not that effective. In certain scenes when the shark has it's mouth open, if you look closely you can see the mechanical workings in the mouth. Whoops. Shark phoniness aside, that is more than made up for in the number of shark attacks in the film, and there are plenty. Old Bruce be pissed off here my friends. Boats get rammed; people get chomped, chewed, and swallowed aplenty. Gotta love that classic scene where the shark attacks the helicopter, that's some good campy shit.

While definitely not as suspenseful as the first one, some scenes brought up the old tension meter pretty well. The scene where the kid keeps getting lifted out of the water by a sail at the beginning only to keep falling back in and out as the shark approaches was pretty cool. The scene that got to me though, and you have to put yourself in the persons situation to fully understand it, was when the chick watching Brody's little kid gets swallowed whole. She keeps trying to climb back in the boat, only to slip and slip till....CHOMP! Shark bait. Just imagine that big fucking fish coming right behind you and there you are, two feet from safety and you keep slipping and slipping....ugh.

Besides the fish attacks, the acting by Roy Scheider and Lorraine Gary was great, and they do a great believable job as a married couple with shark problems. Most of the city counsel people from the first one return as well, including the mayor, who does a great job again of being on the border line of an asshole and a decent guy. The rest of the cast though is basically nothing more than teenage fish bait that you really could give a rat's ass about. They are just there to be annoying and get ate by the shark, and they do that very well. To bad Bruce did not get all of them. Anyway, yes it rehashed some stuff from the first film and shows a little too much of the shark, but Jaws 2 was fun to watch, and that's really all I need from a movie. Just prepare yourself for the next two sequels, which are complete stinkers.