one of my favourites

Rating: 9/10 (23 January 2008)

Jaws is one of those films that i have seen multiple times throughout my life, and unlike many other things it just seems to get better with age
the most important thing about the movie are the central characters.. Brody, Quint and Hooper. the three characters are very different to each other (slightly hippie academic rich kid, hard as nails working fisherman, and kinda edgy/disillusioned police/everyman) but they are brought together by a common goal. and the scene where they all get drunk and exchange shark stories is just brilliant. Shaw's recollection of events on the U.S.S Indianapolis is one of my favourite scenes in any movie, and he acts it brilliantly
Brody, the cop that tried to get an easy life is fabulous as well, and he, Quint and Hooper share an entertaining rapport throughout.
all of this, and the shark hasn't even gotten mention yet!
i try to forget about the shark actually as this film made me afraid of the water as a child. and even though i've faced my fear since, I'm still scared witless of big sharks and this film is the reason!!!
in actual fact the shark isn't a big deal and the parts where it starts leaping out of the water are less effective compared to what you don't see earlier on. and i'm certain that the shark scenes in this movie are small fry anyway by todays horror standards
the movie uses a lot of real world footage so it captures a really nice authentic essence of the 70's. and the part where Brody flicks through the book on actual shark attacks brings the movie into the real world
the sound in the movie is of course very memorable, and the jaws theme straddles the line between music and sound in an interesting way. also very nice underwater sound mixed abruptly with 'normal' sound as the camera breaks the surface of the water. i love that sound at the very start of the movie also just before the tune starts, which i think is a pod of whales or something like that. very cool anyway
i'm not sure that the new generation would enjoy this movie so much for thrills, but for me this is a 100% classic