Cemented Spielberg's brilliance

Rating: 10/10 (25 January 2004)

Jaws is still the ultimate adventure/scare movie ever made. One forgets that this was Spielberg's first BIG budget film (not counting The Sugarland Express), and the pressure he was under was intense. 'Bruce' the shark could have been a phoney looking disaster in the hands of most other directors, but Spielberg adapted to the limitations of his animatronic 'actor' and infused the film with a sense of mystery and forboding by rarely showing the shark, and only in quick glimpses when he did.
The acting was first rate with great actors Robert Shaw as Quint, Roy Scheider as Chief Brody, and Richard Dreyfuss as shark expert Hooper. They made you CARE about the characters. Without that we would WANT the shark to eat them, and all tension and suspense would be nothing but chum in the water.
Perhaps the biggest negative about Jaws is all the sequels it spawned. The movie was great and should have been left to stand on its own, with the sequels draining some of the reputation that the original created. Imagine E.T. coming back with phasers bent on world domination, it just doesn't work. See Jaws again for the first time, and remember how great it really is/was/will be.