JAWS 2
Synopsis: three years after the events of the first film, a new great white shark is lurking the beaches of Amity Island, looking for victims. After some attacks, Chief Brody suspects about it. This time, he´s alone against the shark, tyring to stop it before his own sons could be the sharks´s victims.
Release date: June 16, 1978.
Cast: Roy Scheider, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Joseph Mascolo, Jeffrey C. Kramer.
Crew: Jeannot Szwarc (director), Richard D. Zanuck, David Brown (producers), Carl Gottlieb (screenwriter), based on characters created by Peter Benchley.
After the success of Jaws, Universal ordered a sequel, in order to make more money and trying to start a new franchise. Steven Spielberg declined the role of director again —due to his negative experiences while filming the first movie. Instead, he opted to work in a personal project: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, taking Richard Dreyfuss (Hopper, in the first movie), with him. After several options, director John D. Hancock was selected to helm the project; but he was fired after some delays and his vision on the script: a dark tone and a devastated Amity Island, after the attack of the first shark. Besides, it was contemplated to make a prequel, based on Quint´s speech about his experience aboard the USS Indianapolis, narrated in the first movie. However, it was decided to return to the fictional Amity Island, depicting the island in a recovering period after the first movie. Also, it was decided to return with the Brody family. French filmmaker, Jeannot Szwarc, was finally chose to helm the project, trusting on his skills, having directed a major film: "Bug", released on 1975.
Jaws 2 starts like its predecessor, showing the underwater world. From the first moment, we go into the action, and one of the key in the plot: the photograph taken by one of the divers killed by the new shark, while exploring Quint´s boat Orca shipwreck. Unlike the first film, when the shark doesn´t appear until the third act, here is shown within the first minutes in all its glory, lacking from the suspense effect, acording with director Szwarc: "people already know how the shark looks like". The narrative has some dopey points; such like the teenagers sailing plot, a good excuse to return to the open sea, where the sons of Brody are involucrated. The main plot (of the shark lurking), here is handled in secret, unlike the first film, where the problem was in public domain, giving to the story (in the case of the first film) an organic progression in the narrative. Nonetheless, the movie has its positive points: underwater takes of the shark in its enviroment, frightening some divers; the sequences in open sea, where the shark attacks the boats and devours some of the teengers, generating enough suspense to catch your attention. The final confrontation between the shark and Brody is predictable. The whole third act seems like a copy of the original. Despite this, the direction of Szwarc (with some amazing shots), the music of John Williams, and the performance of Scheider as Brody, help this movie to stay afloat, preventing to sink it in the deeps.
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