It's a very good movie, but there are a few things that bother me about it.

Rating: 7/10 (22 July 2005)

I don't know if it is pure coincidence or if they did it on purpose, but it's a fact that only a couple of days after we got the news that two people in the USA had been attacked by a shark in a couple of days time, this movie was shown on one of our national television channels (I don't really believe this was just pure coincidence, since they can't get any better 'publicity' for such a movie). And it has to be said: this movie may well be thirty years old, but it's still capable of scaring the hell out of people.
The story of "Jaws" is actually a quite simple one. When a girl dies in the ocean near a peaceful community on Amity Island, it's immediately believed to be a shark attack. But because the mayor doesn't want to spoil an entire summer by scaring the many tourists away, he is able to have it called a boating accident, much to the new police chief Martin Brody's frustration. He's convinced that more people will die if they don't do anything against this ferocious predator and soon enough he's proved right when a boy is killed by the shark. Together with a scientist and an old fisherman, he goes after the giant white shark to get rid of it for once and for all...
This movie may well be one of the most famous movies of the seventies, but that doesn't mean that it is perfect. As long as you don't see the shark this is really a terrifying movie, but from the moment on that they show that giant rubber 'thing', it loses quite a lot of its power. You just know that this isn't correct, because it just is too gigantic and it doesn't react like a real shark. And I'm not even talking about the fact that it attacks boats, what I'm talking about are some 'small' details like not closing its eyes when attacking or not changing the position of the mouth. Normally a shark opens its mouth further when it gets closer, showing a lot more of its gums. This shark however is lifeless as it attacks.
However, the movie has a lot of good things to offer as well. The acting for instance is really good. Roy Scheider does a good job as police chief Brody, but in my opinion it was Robert Shaw who was the best with his role of Quint, the fearless boat captain. Also very good is the music. I believe there is absolutely nobody who doesn't know what it is like and if you ask ten people to hum it, nine out of ten will be able to do it. And let's be honest, if it wasn't for the music, most scenes wouldn't even be scary. It's the music that creates the atmosphere of tension and terror when there is in fact nothing to be seen in the movie. But it works perfectly and that's all that matters.
Overall this is a good movie, but if it hadn't been from the hand of Steven Spielberg, I'm pretty sure this would have been an awful one. It was probably his very first really great movie and he proved with this one that he was able to make a very good movie out of a concept that begs to become a failure. Many others have tried to copy its success with two sequels, but also with other 'shark' movies and not one of them was able to get to the same level of fear. However, when you are at least a little bit interested in sharks, you know that what is shown in it isn't correct. Many people only feared sharks after seeing this movie and that's too bad, because this marvelous creatures really aren't the mindless terror / killing machines that this movie made of them. I like the fact that the movie is one of the best in the genre, but I wish it had been a bit closer to reality. That's why I give it a 7/10.