An excellent piece of pure movie entertainment.

Rating: 9/10 (18 June 2002)

A smart and carefully crafted thriller, based on the novel by Peter Benchley, when a vicious great white shark is suspected of attacking swimmers near a small, quiet sea-side community. The down-to-earth chief of police, Martin Brody (Roy Scheider), a keen oceanographer, Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), and a scruffy yet Captain Ahab-like fisherman, Quint (the late Robert Shaw) set out in Quint's untidy boat to find and kill the beast before it strikes again.
Steven Spielburg, who directed the movie, does a brilliant in taking a tale like this and creating a real stomach-churning, mind-numbing adventure. Plus, Spielburg, the three leads (Scheider, Shaw and Dreyfuss), and the screen-writers deserve a great deal of credit for their parts. I can't forget to mention the priceless score that's done by John Williams and Bill Butler's colorful camera work.
What made me enjoy the movie is that Spielburg uses fear instead of gore to scare the viewer and make him/her feel like anyone who goes to that beach. Even the dialogue has its' share of good one-liners and the harrowing speech delivered by Quint (Shaw) about the sinking of the Indianapolis and the problems that he and the crew members encounter. He covers just about every detail that you can think about those who made it out alive and those who didn't survive.
In conclusion, "Jaws" is an excellent piece of pure movie entertainment. As for Spielburg, the film made him a genius.