Steven Spielberg’s Jaws birthed a franchise of four movies, though they didn’t have the same success (and quality). When it comes to horror movies with killer sharks on the hunt, Jaws sits at the top of the ladder. With Steven Spielberg at the helm, Jaws is one of the best movies in film history, featuring great acting, writing, cinematography, and incredible visual effects with a mechanical shark monster. With the Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park franchises being notable exceptions, Spielberg has never seemed too keen on sequels, but that didn’t stop Hollywood from making them without his input.
Such was the case of Jaws, as Spielberg had no interest in making a follow-up and quickly turned down the chance to direct Jaws 2. Still, Jaws 2 proved to be a big hit, and Universal pressed on with a third and later a fourth film. After a 30-plus year absence from the big screen, it seems unlikely there will be another Jaws sequel, but for now, four movies are more than enough for the franchise. While none of the sequels could match the success and quality of Spielberg’s Jaws, some of them are still worth a watch.
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Jaws 3-D
Jaws 3-D Was Released In 1983
What makes Jaws 3-D much worse is some of the most shockingly terrible special effects ever to be shown in a studio-produced blockbuster film.
Lots of Jaws fans will argue Jaws: The Revenge is the worst entry in the franchise, and while The Revenge certainly is an awful film, what makes Jaws 3-D much worse is some of the most shockingly terrible special effects ever to be shown in a studio-produced blockbuster film. The third Jaws movie took it a step further with a 3D format, which was revived in the 1980s, but that doesn’t equal quality.
Directed by Joe Alves, with a script by Richard Matheson and Carl Gottlieb, Jaws 3-D (also known as Jaws III in its 2D format) takes the audience to SeaWorld in Florida, a marine park with underwater tunnels and lagoons. Working at SeaWorld as chief engineer is Mike Brody (Dennis Quaid), Martin Brody’s son, alongside his girlfriend Kay Morgan (Bess Armstrong), the park’s senior biologist. As the park prepares for its big opening, a young great white shark infiltrates the park from the sea and seemingly attacks some of the staff.
Jaws 3-D didn’t bring anything new, and its messy plot and campy performances only sunk it even more, though it was a massive commercial success.
However, after they capture the shark to use him as an attraction, they realize it wasn’t the attacker, and a much larger (and deadlier) shark is inside the park. What follows are Mike, Kay, and the rest of the staff’s efforts to capture and kill the shark before it kills more people. Ultimately, Jaws 3-D didn’t bring anything new, and its messy plot and campy performances only sunk it even more, though it was a massive commercial success.
There’s not much that can be said of Jaws 3-D as it’s just plain boring, which is basically the kiss of death for a movie (and franchise). A movie can be great, or so bad it’s good, but boredom is hard to overcome. In addition to that, and as mentioned above, the visual effects of Jaws 3-D are infamously bad, and the 3D format only made them worse. Not even the presence of Dennis Quaid, Louis Gossett Jr, and a young Lea Thompson could save the disaster that is Jaws 3-D.
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Jaws: The Revenge
Jaws: The Revenge Was Released In 1987
Jaws: The Revenge was lambasted by critics and general audiences, and became the lowest-grossing entry in the franchise.
As mentioned above, Jaws: The Revenge is unquestionably awful, and yet it’s not quite the worst in the Jaws franchise. Directed by Joseph Sargent and written by Michael de Guzman, Jaws: The Revenge serves as a sequel to Jaws 2, thus ignoring the events of Jaws 3-D (which is understandable). However, the decision to make it essentially the third movie in the franchise didn’t save it from being a mess, starting with its nonsensical plot of revenge… from the shark, that is.
Jaws: The Revenge goes back to the Brody family on Amity Island, only that Chief Brody has died from a heart attack. His widow, Ellen (Lorraine Gary), lives on the island close to her younger son, Sean, now a police deputy. Unfortunately, one day, when he’s dispatched to clear a log from a buoy, he’s attacked and killed by a great white shark. Ellen’s older son, Michael, convinces her to join him and his family in the Bahamas, but just as she starts to clear her mind from her recent tragedies, major trouble finds them.
Lorraine Gary came out of retirement to reprise her role from the previous films. Jaws: The Revenge is her last film.
Turns out that the shark that killed Sean followed them all the way from Amity Island to the Bahamas (yes, really). Not only that, but Ellen can now feel when the shark is about to attack her loved ones. After an attack that almost kills her granddaughter, Ellen takes a boat to track down the shark, and she’s followed by Michael and his team. It’s worth noting that Jaws: The Revenge has different endings in its original U.S. version and the one for international theaters and DVD releases.
Its biggest flaw is definitely its premise of a shark having a vendetta against particular people.
Jaws: The Revenge was lambasted by critics and general audiences, and became the lowest-grossing entry in the franchise with $51.9 million against a $23 million budget, and with good reason. Jaws: The Revenge is poorly written, the visual effects look cheap, and the characters are bland and mostly fail to make an impression, but its biggest flaw is definitely its premise of a shark having a vendetta against particular people (explained away with a voodoo curse of all things in the movie’s novelization, which only made it worse), which ended up being just plain stupid.
Putting Jaws: The Revenge above Jaws 3-D is a smattering of moments that are so bad that they cross the line over into being entertaining, albeit in a “laughing at it, not with it” kind of way. This includes the shark that stands up straight out of the water and roars like a lion, which is obviously not a thing sharks do. Michael Caine is also fun to watch, even if it’s inevitable to wonder what he’s doing there.
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Jaws 2
Jaws 2 Was Released In 1978
Some elements of Jaws 2 were praised, but in the end, it didn’t bring anything new and only recycled the formula of the previous movie.
While Jaws 2 is multiple steps down in quality from Steven Spielberg’s original classic, it’s not a bad sequel – and looks like Citizen Kane compared to Jaws 3-D or Jaws: The Revenge. Directed by Jeannot Szwarc and written by Carl Gottlieb and Howard Sackler, Jaws 2 is set four years after the first movie and takes viewers back to Amity Island. When scuba divers and water skiers are attacked in the sea, Chief Brody suspects another great white shark has arrived, but no one believes him and he’s voted out as police chief.
Of course, Brody’s suspicions are correct, and Amity Island is being terrorized by a great white shark again. Despite his parents prohibiting him from boating out, Brody’s older son, 17-year-old Mike, disobeys them and goes sailing with his friends, taking his 10-year-old brother Sean with them. Unfortunately, they become the targets of the great white shark, and the only one who can save them is Brody. The production of Jaws 2 was even more troubled than that of Spielberg’s film, including Rob Schieder only reprising his role to end a contractual issue with the studio and constantly clashing with Szwarc.
Some elements of Jaws 2 were praised, such as the performances of the main cast, John Williams’ score, and the special effects, but in the end, it didn’t bring anything new and only recycled the formula of the previous movie. Jaws 2 definitely benefits from the return of Roy Schieder as Amity’s easy-to-root-for chief of police Martin Brody, and Murray Hamilton as Amity’s laughably selfish mayor, who somehow managed to win re-election after serving up tourists as shark snacks by insisting the beaches remain open.
Jaws 2 got mixed reviews but was a box office hit, and for a while, it was the highest-grossing sequel in history (dethroned by Rocky II the following year). Jaws 2 is, by far, the best of the sequels in the Jaws franchise, and though its quality was superior to those of its successors, what played against it were its behind-the-scenes issues and the lack of creativity in its plot.
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Jaws
Jaws Was Released In 1975
Of course, the best movie in the Jaws franchise is, undoubtedly, the one that kicked it off. By the time Jaws was in pre-production, Steven Spielberg already had a couple of movies in his filmography, but Jaws was his first big hit – and it was a pretty massive one. Based on the 1974 novel of the same name by Peter Benchley, Jaws introduced the audience to the fictional Amity Island in New England, where panic is unleashed after a young woman on a late-night ocean swim is attacked and killed by a great white shark.
Jaws’ opening scene is now regarded as one of the greatest opening scenes in film history.
Jaws became one of Spielberg’s greatest works and one of the best horror movies ever made.
Newly hired chief Martin Brody quickly closes the beaches, but Mayor Larry Vaugh, concerned that this will ruin the town’s tourism, insists that they be reopened. After the shark enters a nearby lagoon and kills a boater (and almost gets Brody’s son), Vaughn is finally convinced to hire the services of local shark hunter Quint, who had offered them their services before. Brody, Quint, and oceanographer Matt Hooper set out on Quint’s boat to hunt for the shark, which is a lot more complicated and dangerous than they anticipated.
Jaws was a critical and commercial success, became the prototypical summer blockbuster, and was the highest-grossing film of all time for two years, dethroned by Star Wars. Jaws also earned a place in film history as the first major motion picture to be shot on the ocean, but it also had a very troubled production. Ultimately, Jaws became one of Spielberg’s greatest works and one of the best horror movies ever made (though some still debate whether it can be considered “horror” or not), as well as one of the greatest films of all time.
Jaws is a great film more than 40 years after its original release, and will surely remain great 40 more years into the future. Jaws is a fairly lengthy movie but never feels it, and the shark-hunting trio of Brody, Quint, and Matt Hooper never fails to engage and entertain. Jaws is a blast as a horror film, as a high seas adventure, and as a dramatic summer blockbuster, and it’s easy to see why it has a special place in film history and Steven Spielberg’s filmography.
