JAWS 2 (1978)

JAWS 2 (1978)

Tagline : One good bite deserves another… 

In this one it’s been four years since a rogue shark went nuts and started terrorizing Amity Island by eating it’s residents. So there is new tourism there now, and apparently their idiot mayor won another term because he’s still there and he still sucks. After a random killer whale is beached with massive shark bites in it, Brody starts to have serious reservations about the safety of the beach…and now he’s just shooting at stuff that even remotely looks like it could be a shark. The reality is that we’ve got a new shark in town and it doesn’t take long before this thing is doing its best burnt face Freddy Kruger impression. I mean, this thing looks like the freakin devil. 

Overall this movie attempts to ramp it up in regards to the danger level by adding more possible teen and adolescent victims to the mix. We also get some of the original cast back. Lorraine Gary returns in this outing as Ellen Brody and is given a bit more to do. Roy Scheider is back as Brody and we have the same Mayor. Brody’s sons are involved in this movie more, but neither of Brody’s sons are played by the same actors from the first movie. Mike is played by Mark Gruner who had just 6 acting roles in his career, and didn’t return to the role for JAWS 3-D. Sean Brody (the youngest Brody brother is played by Marc Gilpin who also didn’t reprise that role for JAWS 3-D. I have no idea why. Richard Dreyfuss is also missing from JAWS 2, but the real issue with this one is the lack of real storytelling. 

Alongside the good performances of the returning cast, Donna Wilkes role as Jackie is almost over the top screaming and freaking out wise for me. However she must have made an impression because she is still acting to this day. Ann Dusenberry plays Tina in this movie and her acting feels a bit more even. Almost all of the other teens in the movie are either annoying or just flat out jerks in their roles. This is fine in a slasher movie maybe, but in a movie like this, you kinda want to care about the characters a bit. 

JAWS 2 does a better job with effects that the first movie and we see a lot more of the shark. All this is great, but it’s not enough to repair the missing fabric needed to make this thing dynamic. I do like the ending sequence but man, there are just a TON of loose ends when this thing wraps and it’s really rough.

JAWS 2 doesn’t suck by any means, but I would have loved to see a better written film. The score was still great.

I give JAWS 2 a 4 out of 7. This for me is in the bottom half of the JAWS movie series.

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