Should I Watch..? 'Jaws 2' (1978)

Jaws 2 is a horror-thriller film released in 1978 and if you haven't guessed, it is the sequel to arguably the best known shark-movie in history Jaws. The film reunites cast members Roy Scheider, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton and Jeffrey Kramer as citizens of the tourist beach community Amity Island who are once again being terrorised by what could be another great white shark. The film was written once again by Carl Gottlieb alongside Howard Sackler but directorial duties were handled this time by Jeannot Szwarc instead of a young Steven Spielberg. Like the first film, production was beset by problems on and off-screen but it nonetheless managed to become successful at the box office as it eventually ended up earning around $208 million worldwide. However, unlike the first film, critical reception was much more mixed with many slating the film for simply telling the same story again. In the wake of further sequels Jaws 3D and Jaws: The Revenge, this film has received a more positive response with most agreeing that this is the best of the sequels.

A few years after it was hit by a wave of deadly shark attacks, the tourist resort of Amity Island is working hard to get back on its feet again. Local businessman Len Peterson has just opened a brand new hotel and visitors are once again flocking to the town to take advantage of its expansive beaches, water sports and sunny weather. For Police Chief Martin Brody, though, things haven't quite moved on just yet as he is still traumatised by his close encounter with the great white shark that killed several people in the first film.

After two divers go missing exploring a wreck, Brody finds his fears quickly coming to the surface. After a water-skier disappears and their boat mysteriously explodes, Brody finds that his suspicions are falling on deaf ears once again as Mayor Larry Vaughn is reluctant to take any action for fear of the economic repercussions. Convinced that another shark has come to Amity, Brody orders his teenage son Mike and his younger son Sean to stay out of the water for the time being. But it isn't long before Mike's hormones get the better of him as he takes to the water in a sailing boat in order to impress girls and his friends...

I can't imagine anyone sitting down to watch this if they haven't caught the first film but if they have then thankfully, Jaws 2 does a fairly decent job of replicating that film's tension and sense of danger. John Williams' iconic soundtrack also returns and as soon as those instantly recognisable notes strike up, you can feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. The story is almost identical but with some added stakes this time, usually in the form of buxom teenagers in the water instead of Robert Shaw's alcoholic, salty seadog. And is it my imagination or does the shark look a little bit less rubber this time around? Apparently, it had to be rebuilt from scratch after the original model (nicknamed Bruce by Spielberg after his lawyer) was basically left to rot on the Universal Studios backlot. But it certainly felt a bit more convincing this time around, its monstrous appearance often greeted by the film's young cast screaming their lungs out.

Scheider's appearance also feels a bit more believable, cleverly using the events of the first film to give him some PTSD-flavoured characterisation. In a cast essentially going through the motions, his performance is easily the strongest on screen although Gary does well in the little screen time she seems to have. But most audiences will care most about the action scenes and when they arrive, they aren't as bad as you might have been led to believe. Yes, they are somewhat hackneyed and predictable but they are more ambitious than the first film and Szwarc includes plenty of jump scares in the film, many not necessarily related to the shark itself. Is it as good as the first film? No and I don't think anyone would dispute that but having said that, there have been no end of sub-standard, fish-based monster movies since the release of Jaws that attempted to recreate the magic and this is arguably one of the better ones.

• It was this film's tagline - "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water..." - that became arguably its greatest legacy, becoming one of the most popular and imitated in film history and has been frequently spoofed on countless occasions. Karen Leavitt, a copywriter at trailer production company Kaleidoscope Films, is credited with its creator.
• Scheider was adamant that he was not going to appear in this film, causing a contract dispute with Universal after he also left filming of The Deer Hunter. Universal agreed to cancel his contract if he appeared in Jaws 2 and he reluctantly agreed although he frequently clashed with Szwarc, sometimes physically. It was only in later life that his opinion on this film mellowed somewhat.
• Spielberg was also reluctant to get involved, claiming that a sequel would be a "cheap carny trick" and he disagreed with the film's narrative, wanting to make a prequel about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis instead. However, he later admitted that he would have made this film if his experience of making Jaws wasn't so awful and plagued by problems.
• The original screenplay contained a possible explanation for Vaughn and Peterson's reluctance to close the beach which, given the events of the first film, seems particularly stupid taken as depicted. It suggests that the town's leadership owed a great deal of money to the Mafia who had helped fund the town's reconstruction and thus, were keen to pay them back as quickly as possible. None of this made it into the final film though.

Glossing over the fact that the events of this film are almost exactly the same as the first, Jaws 2 also makes a considerable number of other blunders. Most of the teenage cast are frankly hilarious, dressed like they're cosplaying as Napoleon Dynamite extras and having little discernible personalities of their own. There's the quiet nerdy one, the uncool one with frizzy hair, the pretty blonde, another pretty blonde... basically, it's Stereotype Central so good luck remembering any of their names. The same can also be said for Hamilton's ridiculously incompetent Mayor who once again encapsulates everything wrong with corrupt politicians, not that there's anything right about them. Peterson's shady businessman never really sinks his teeth into much and doesn't add much to the film either. The film feels like it's one third shark, one third Scheider and one third teenagers in bikinis. Compared to the first, it's quite the letdown.

Speaking of which, it may seem unfair comparing this to the first film with made such a splash when it arrived in 1975. After all, it had a soon-to-be Hall of Fame director at the helm and the element of surprise - few audiences were truly prepared for seeing the shark lurch out of the water to chomp unsuspecting swimmers. Jaws 2 knows it can't compete but that seems to stifle its ambition instead of pushing it to try new things. I get why because the first film was such a hit so the pressure to produce something different wasn't so great. But it's disappointing to find a sequel that feels more like a homage to the first film than anything else. Granted, there's only so much story you can tell with shark movies and certainly, the sub-genre hasn't seen anything better than Jaws in the last half-century. I found myself wondering who exactly is this film for - fans who will feel cheated by what is essentially a remake or studio executives eager to squeeze every last dollar out of its audience. Seems pretty obvious to me...

Jaws 2 was never going to change the world and on first impressions, it's not as bad as I feared. But it does indicate the direction for the franchise overall, dragging its good name through some choppy waters. There are one or two moments where it shines such as generating a real sense of danger around the shark but generally, this film lacks a sense of energy and tension that the first film had in abundance. There isn't much to grab the viewers attention besides a couple of middling jump scares and some questionable fashion choices but you can be grateful that it isn't as bad as the series would get.

Great For: anyone who hasn't seen the first film (for whatever reason), making people scared of sharks again, reiterating how good the first film was

Not So Great For: paranoid swimmers, the sequels that followed Jaws 2, local leaders in beach communities

Another reason why Spielberg was reluctant to return for a sequel was his belief that he had already made the best shark movie possible and frankly, it's hard to disagree. Even after all this time and despite literally hundreds of imitators, Jaws still stands head-and-shoulders above its contemporaries including all of its sequels. Jaws 3D, which attempted to jump on to the 3D bandwagon at the time, saw none of the cast return in what was a widely derided entry in the series, frequently named as one of the worst films of 1983 and securing it five Razzie nominations. But worst was to come as Jaws: The Revenge limped onto our screens in 1987, dragging poor Gary out of her retirement and roping in the likes of Michael Caine and Mario Van Peebles in what turned out to be a historical bad film that was universally panned by critics, audiences and even its own cast.

Shark films have varied wildly in quality since Bruce ate his first paddleboarder but nearly all of them are essentially telling the same story every time - a person or group are hunted by a shark and have to survive, a story as old as the species themselves. Deep Blue Sea saw genetically engineered mako sharks turn against their creators with predictable results, 47 Meters Down sees two people cage-diving stranded on the ocean floor surrounded by sharks and The Meg is just an ultra-cheesy B-movie that simply makes the shark as big as feasibly possible and pits it against Jason Statham, so you already know how it ends. I can't think of any shark film, outside of the utterly bonkers Sharknado series, that has done anything different to the formula and frankly, isn't it time we stopped fearing these creatures and starting trying to conserve them for future generations?