The Ocean Was Wet...And So Were The Theater Seats!

Rating: 10/10 (11 March 2006)

With the dawn of the movie blockbuster, Hollywood unintentionally achieved two goals: with THE EXORCIST, they scared a legion of moviegoers back into church, literally. And with JAWS, they scared them out of the water, in some cases, permanently. The simple, pleasurable act that virtually defines summertime - going swimming at the beach - would never be the same again. And also, the audience love affair with a new, young, talented director by the name of Spielberg spanned into a marriage that lasted for both better and worse, over the course of damn near forty years! Whether you think of it as an adventure film with horror movie overtones, or a horror film that offers one hell of an adventurous ride as a bonus, there has never been anything quite like it.
Based on the late Peter Benchley's runaway best seller, the plot is quite simple. Following a lead very similar to the one that Hitchcock had previously set with THE BIRDS, a unusually large Great White shark shows up in the calm, blue waters just off the coast of Amity Island, (played superbly by Martha's Vineyard), and begins to snack on the unwary and unwise tourists and townies who decide to engage in nautical activities at the wrong time. The town's police chief (Roy Scheider), a marine biologist (Richard Dreyfuss) and a grizzled shark hunter (Robert Shaw) decide to deal with it the best way they know how. Needless to say, the three men's lives are changed forever by the encounter.
JAWS has long been an indelible entry into the lexicon of pop culture slang and references. There are times even now when someone can hum the ominous notes of John Williams' familiar theme, and watch their best friends' faces turn ashen as they mutter "That's not funny." For those who keep score of such things, many will remember this as the first American-made film to ever gross over one hundred million dollars domestically. I will always remember it with great fondness as the first film that caused people in darkened theaters across the nation to drop their buckets of popcorn, and maybe check their shorts as well, myself included.
For those rare viewers who have never seen this classic before in life, you have my envy and my sympathy. Envy, because there is nothing else in the world like seeing JAWS for the very first time. And sympathy, because no matter how great your HDTV and your home sound system is, there will never again be an experience like seeing it for the first time on the BIG screen. This is one of those rare ones that deserves four out of four stars, for great reasons.