Completely manufactured Hollywood film with monster shark and big name actors thrown in

Rating: 4/10 (15 October 2018)

This film constantly gets copious amounts of praise for how well directed and well managed it was. Granted the Jaws theme John Williams composed has remained a classic in film score and depicted with aplomb the anxiety and terror of a large predatory shark closing in, and the scenes are decently directed and put together if you assess them with conventional mainstream movie criteria... but this is so far removed from actual shark phobia in any realistic, poignant sort of way and is so completely disinterested with it aside from the very first scene (possibly the only really creepy moment). It never even attempts to be realistic or genuine and only settles for that big production plastic Hollywood atmosphere and basically self-imposed itself as the one good shark movie out there that was legit (all other attempts being cheap B rated rubbish). It had John Williams for the score, Spielberg behind the cams, and Scheider/Robert Shaw and Dreyfuss, all well established big names, to give it the outside credibility it really is all about in the end.
And 'Jaws' was even a novel, so they already had their story written for them.
Instead of looking to develop psychological triggers of thalassophobia (fear of the ocean), perhaps kenophobia (fear of immense empty spaces), or actual fear of sharks, where they could've shown a lot more footage of the deep dark endless ocean and managed the suspense up to a climax there, built tension of a lurking sea monster which looming presence is felt like its terrifying appearance is imminent, played around between the ominous utter silence of the ocean blue and filled up that silence with a sudden change of pace and horrifying panic... basically instead of doing their job at that with this being the supposed top notch 'fear of the ocean/featuring a great white shark' masterpiece, they settle for the bare minimum in terms of exploring the phobia itself and just go for processing a bland screenplay and script and scenes that are about as superficial and deep as the entrance of a beach.