Great film with a few small flaws

Rating: Null/10 (5 December 2001)

Slickly made suspense with effective attack scenes, good acting and characterisation.
When viewed today, in the politically-correct 2000s, what seems bizarre in this film is the mercenary attitude of many of the characters. Few of the characters seem to experience the horror and dread that viewers of the film would probably be feeling. At worst they are in denial and are shown to be more worried about the financial effect if the beaches are closed than the actual deaths that have occurred. In all we see very little of the effects the deaths have had on others.
The direction is mostly very good, with lots of great camerawork. One minor irritation is Spielberg's insistence on slotting in some brief comedy asides, and then repeating them in case we didn't get it the first time.

SPOILER: The jetty scene is humorous and suspenseful at the same time. Unfortunately the awkward dubbed-in repeat of the whiny "Can I go home now?" is not funny and sounds out of place given that the fishermen would likely be in shock (not to mention cold) after the near-death experience in the water. There are a couple of other instances of this occurring in the film.
I also thought the film was let down by the ending. The final few scenes seemed a bit rushed after the huge amount of running time devoted to showing the three hunters aboard the boat in the final third of the film. It's like they filmed all these great dialogue scenes and then thought "Oooops, we'd better end all this quickly". After long lives spent surviving sharks, it is like everyone realises how long the film is getting and so suddenly the characters are falling over themselves to lose their footing on deck or go for a swim and become shark food. As it is the ending seems very rushed and implausible.