JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE TO GO BACK INTO THE WATER…

Chief of Police Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) begins to suspect that another great white is killing people in the waters off Amity Island, but the mayor refuses to listen to him.

It’s good to see Scheider again and hear John Williams’s music. Director Jeannot Szwarc does a decent enough job (nowhere near Spielberg though) and the second half of the film has its thrills.

However, it is basically just a retread of the original and the look of the mechanical shark hasn’t exactly improved. The scene where it attacks a helicopter is memorable… but the term ”jumping the shark” comes to mind.

1978-U.S. 117 min. Color. Widescreen. Directed by Jeannot Szwarc. Screenplay: Carl Gottlieb, Howard Sackler. Music: John Williams. Cast: Roy Scheider (Martin Brody), Lorraine Gary (Ellen Brody), Murray Hamilton (Larry Vaughan), Joseph Mascolo, Jeffrey Kramer, Collin Wilcox. 

Trivia: Followed by Jaws 3-D (1983).