Roy Scheider

Lorraine Gary

Murray Hamilton

Joseph Mascolo

Jeffrey Kramer

Collin Wilcox Paxton

Ann Dusenberry

Mark Gruner

Barry Coe

Susan French

Gary Springer

Donna Wilkes

Gary Dubin

John Dukakis

G. Thomas Dunlop

Keith Gordon

David Elliott

Marc Gilpin

Billy Van Zandt

Martha Swatek

Gigi Vorgan

Christine Freeman

April Gilpin

Kathy Wilson

Robin Lebert

John Williams

Gene Johnson

Jeannot Szwarc

Carl Gottlieb

Phil Abramson

Robert A. Mattey

David Brown

Ted Grossman

Richard D. Zanuck

Steve Potter

Howard Sackler

Michael C. Butler

Arthur Schmidt

Philip Leto

Bill Jobe

Robert Jiras

Joe Alves

W. Stewart Campbell

Stephen A. Hope

Roy Arbogast

Neil Travis

Peter Benchley

James Troutman

Gregory J. Barnett

Dorothy Parkinson

Jaws Collection

Horror

Thriller

Jaws 2

Universal Pictures

Zanuck/Brown Productions

United States of America

English

dying and death

rescue

island

panic

mayor

shark attack

police chief

current

boat accident

animal attack

sailing

sequel

scuba diving

creature

shark

great white shark

killer whale

high-tension current

water skiing

tourism

Ian Beale

**Excellent sequel!**

Intense sequel directed by Jeannot Szwarc (who also directed episodes of Columbo alongside Steven Spielberg!) 

Performances here are every bit as good as the original and Szwarc manages to infuse of great sense of style to the proceedings - building upon and adding even more depth to the Brody story. The camerawork is extremely stylish - some great gliding point of view shots.

John Williams outdoes his work in the original movie with his Jaws 2 score.

The film feels more brutal than the original and leads to a nerve shredding climax.

A great counterpart to Jaws (1975).

- **Ian Beale**

Adequate but still entertaining sequel has some okay practical effects with the shark though still really silly given what happened in the last one nobody in charge would listen to Brody. Nothing overly special and doubt I'd revisit this anytime soon, but an okay sequel. **3.25/5**

just as good as the original, if not better

A disappointing follow-up.

I enjoyed Roy Scheider's performance and the core action sequences near the end, but everything else is a bit boring. 'Jaws 2' puts high focus on the teenagers, though their story never possesses any intrigue. The effects for the shark, meanwhile, are a step down from the original.

It's not terribly far from being watchable, a slightly shorter run time might've helped in that regard, but I just personally found it to be an uninteresting 115 minutes or so. Perhaps initial director John D. Hancock's ideas would've came out better, though he was fired during production; speaking of which, the issues behind the scenes for this - and even the first film, really - are pretty fascinating.

CinemaSerf

It's only after watching this that you realise just how crucial to the success of the first film Robert Shaw was. This is not the worst sequel I've seen by any means, but without his gnarled and charismatic "Quint", we are left with a pretty mundane effort from all concerned. This time our hungry finned friend has a group of young sailors - including, of course, the Brady bunch - "Michael" (Mark Gruner) and "Sean" (Marc Gilpin) firmly in it's sights. This necessitates their sheriff father (Roy Scheider) having to defy his own loathing of the water to try and rescue them. Director Jeannot Szwarc tries to mix it up a little, but there is just too much inevitability about the ending; and the screaming hysterics of the weans - especially the truly irritating "Jackie" (Donna Wilkes) started to get under my finger nails quite quickly. The photography is good, and some effort has been made to disguise the more mechanical elements of the shark attacks, but the calamitous fire pan to fire scenarios recycle themselves once too often. John Williams' score still works well to help generate some semblance of a sense of peril, but I'm afraid this isn't remotely scary and was quite a disappointing watch.

Jaws 2( 1978)

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...

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A review by Ian Beale

Written by Ian Beale on Mon Feb 13 2017

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