Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Grade: B
What do I find myself saying? Jaws is one of the most overrated motion pictures that I have seen. Does that mean that it’s a bad movie? No, absolutely not! Jaws is by way and large a good film (though not a great one), and for the most part, it is entertaining. Jaws is never predictable and offers its fair share of surprises and thrills. Just because it is today regarded as a classic film, I would recommend it to anyone.
Is it a shame that I only felt partially connected with the characters and the plot line? Of course it is. I’ll admit, I was coming dangerously close to lowering my star rating of Jaws down to a B-, borderline C+. but I eventually decided that it’s too well made for that. Yes, Jaws is very well made.
Steven Spielberg was a young filmmaker then, and this film was a hit or miss for him. In other words, this was the movie that would decide whether or not Spielberg would go on to become a professional filmmaker at all. From what I have read, the filming of Jaws was exhausting, difficult and demanding. The determined Spielberg though didn’t give up and finished the film. The result was a massive box-office and critical success that made Jaws the ‘father of the modern blockbuster’.
How many other blockbusters have we seen since then? Too many for my tastes. Anyway, for what it is worth, Jaws is a good film. It has inspired many horror-thrillers in the years since and has been parodied too many times. Jaws provides sequences of suspense and drama in equal doses. It's one of those movies that you simply must see at least once in your lifetime. And yet, I do have this aching feeling that Jaws could have used a bigger boat on the emotional side of things, even for all of the admiration it really does deserve.
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