Jaws: The Revenge (1987)

(Say what you will about these movies, but they had the best taglines.)

They gave it the old college try and took one last stab at it, and mostly did enough to remove the bad taste left in our mouths from its predecessor. This time we focus on Brody's surviving family following his implied death and completely ignores the events of part 3, as they become convinced that the shark harbors a personal vendetta against them. It attempts to be earnest for the most part, but it's unraveled by the sheer stupidity and lack of satisfying resolution. This was pretty much the final nail in the coffin for ol' Bruce.

While the sea long lies dormant for this franchise, the barrage of cheap, blatant killer shark rip-offs continues to this very day, unfortunately.

2 roaring sharks out of 5

Note: This is one of the very rare cases where the TV version contains a better edit of the film, along with the original uncut ending, whereas the only version currently available for viewing has the ridiculous truncated version. Look it up on YouTube if you're curious.

Jaws 2 (1978)

Four years after the events of Jaws, Chief Brody has PTSD and evidence of a new shark attack has made its way to Amity Island, to everyone's skepticism. You'd think those ungrateful assholes would believe poor Brody by now.

Roy Scheider reluctantly returns in this cash-in sequel that Steven Spielberg completely removed his name from, which manages to take all the terror and adventure out of the original and distill it down to a lifeless cycle of shark, kill, repeat. It emulates enough of the original that it's still watchable, but it's basically a retread in every way. It turns out lightning couldn't strike twice.

2½ power cables out of 5

JAWS [1975]

Director Steven Spielberg successfully scared people out of the water with his man vs nature adventure/thriller Jaws.
A sleepy island town is flipped upside down when a 20 foot long Great White Shark starts making tasty meals out of it's panicked citizens.
Effectively proving that showing more is less, Spielberg raises the b-movie premise into a top-class popcorn blockbuster that's endless nail-biting fun.  Like many of his films of the time it's about obsession and mostly chooses to ignore the potential social class themes floating around but never thoroughly studied.  There's some wonderful camera work made even better with John Williams' ominously simple iconic music and the late great Robert Shaw, who knows exactly what type of film he's in and has great old time playing it up for the camera with delightful exaggeration.

5 scars out of 5