Spielberg's Best Movie

Rating: 9/10 (27 September 2005)

There's something terrifying about open water that has etched itself upon the human psyche . Undoubtedll this is because our natural survival instincts tell us to keep away from it . We can't see , hear or smell what's under the waves and we can't breathe in water either and anything that can has got one over on us . Why do you think there's been so many legends about sea monsters ? And the success of JAWS is entirely down to the way that it exploits mans fear of the sea
The great thing about this movie is how focused it is , Spielberg's cut out all the crap from the book like the politics of the town , and the sexual subplots and made the ending truly climatic . Compare this film version to Peter Benchley's BEAST which is basically the same story where a greedy capitalist is in denial , an obsessive boatman tries to catch the monster etc the only real difference is that BEAST features a giant squid as the monster . You would probably be correct in arguing that JAWS is the only time when a film adaptation actually improves over the source novel
Sadly at the age of 28 the then unknown Steven Sielberg seems to have reached his creative peak . True EMPIRE OF THE SUN , SCHINDLER'S LIST and SAVING PRIVATE RYAN may contain more artistic achievements but JAWS is certainly a more consistent movie that's difficult to fault . The only time there's any disappointment is when the eponymous shark appears in the last segment of the movie . It's obviously a giant animontronic model of some kind and since Spielberg has spent so much time using very effective suspense like the soundtrack and the shark's POV for much of the running time the on screen revelation is unfortunately going to be a disappointment
But let's not talk about minor disappointment and just admire what the director has given us here . We know that someone is going to get chewed up on the crowded beach so Spielberg teases us . A fat woman walks past the screen and the audience snigger " I bet she'd make a good meal for the shark " so everyone in the audience puts money on Mrs Obesity being eaten , especially when she's surrounded by cute kids because cute kids never get eaten in movies . ooopppps I spoke too soon . Perhaps the reason it is a good film is because Spielberg has ignored convention , certainly we don't get drowned in sentiment or family life , unlike say THE TERMINAL or ET . Non existent are the other Spielberg faults like overlong shot duration , here everything is shot in a very snappy manner and the movie is quite rightly regarded as a classic fright fest