What a film

Rating: 9/10 (6 April 2020)

I was probably too young for Jaws the first time I saw it. I was only 9 years old, and I guess my parents had forgotten the surprising amount of blood and terror it contains when they got it from the video/dvd rental place to watch. Though to be fair, they would have been 9 or 10 upon its initial release, and may have had fond memories of watching it as a child too.
It's not horrifically inappropriate for maybe older children, but it probably wouldn't be able to get away with a PG rating these days. Anyway, I don't think it traumatised me too much. I have stronger memories of genuinely liking the film as a child rather than being made scared of ever swimming at the beach because of it. And as I've revisited it every so often as I got older- once in my late teens, and now recently as a 25 year old- it's still not truly scary to me, just very, very tense. And I think that's more than enough.
Spielberg knows how to do suspense like few others; I think it's one of his greatest strengths as a director. With Jaws and Jurassic Park, he proved himself just as capable of great suspense sequences as the master himself, Alfred Hitchcock (yep, I said it, and I genuinely believe it too). Jaws may be even more impressive than Jurassic Park because it was done with a smaller budget, and also done earlier in Spielberg's career, when his lack of experience you'd think would make the quality of the film suffer.
However, that's not the case. Jaws was brilliantly made for its time and remains almost flawless on the technical front 45 years later. There was one instance of noticeably distracting ADR, as well as a really awkward scene transition late in the film that I noticed as minor flaws. Also: some people do criticise the shark effects. Honestly, I think they look good. Even when they start to show the shark a whole lot more during the film's climax, I do sincerely buy it. It's not perfect, and I'm sure if I focused all my attention on the shark to look for imperfections, I could find some. But I think it was handled well, and the much publicised limitations of the shark leading to it simply being shown less is a fantastic example of how creative individuals can turn one of their weaknesses or disadvantages into one of their strengths.
There are things that everyone praises about Jaws: the music, the pacing, the typically clean and efficient directing from Spielberg, the acting, and the engaging, memorable main characters. I'll gladly raise my hand and say that I'm also of the opinion that all those things are great, but when it comes to somewhat less praised aspects of the movie, I'd like to add just how much I love the simplicity of it all. Almost every scene concerns the shark, and preventing (or failing to prevent) it from doing more damage to the town's population. It's so direct, and so straightforward, and the fact we get as much characterisation for some of these characters as we do- when the main thing on all their minds is the shark- is impressive. Once the climax is over, there could well be a lengthy, frustratingly drawn out epilogue, and you almost expect it, but nope: the film comes to a swift and immensely satisfying end, not lasting a second longer than it needs to. It's borderline jarringly abrupt, perhaps, but I love it. Jaws is a movie that knows exactly what it wants to do and how to do it, and it doesn't waste a single second of your time doing so.
The mild technical problems here and there are the only nitpicks keeping this back from an absolutely perfect score. Jaws is a masterpiece of blockbuster entertainment that has aged surprisingly well, and another absolute classic from Spielberg. Whoever you are, whatever you usually watch, no matter what genres you do or don't generally like: if you haven't yet watched Jaws in all its glory, try to amend that as soon as possible. It's a monster movie with a monstrously good reputation for so many reasons, after all.