Week Two was “We’re Gonna Need A Bigger Sequel: a beginner’s guide to shark movies”. Ben and I aren’t fans of shark movies so we weren’t really feeling it this week. Add to that an actual social life and you end up with only one movie watched. That movie was, of course, Jaws.
Roy Scheider is Chief of Police on tourist Island and is also scared of the water. A lady and dude and a kid get eaten by a shark and his own son is almost eaten. He miraculously overcomes his fear and with the help of Shark Expert Dude and Piratey Shark Hunter Guy they go out and hunt down this nasty shark.
(not an official trailer, but all the ones I could find wouldn’t let me embed it and this one was pretty good considering)
I have a number factual complaints about this film. In about the first two minutes I was already going “But a shark wouldn’t do that at all!” I know that it is a movie and I should be suspending disbelief and all that, but seriously. A shark will not swim right up to near the surface to grab a person’s leg and just waggle them around a bit. It will grab them and drag them down underwater. Also, if people were so scared about a shark attack but reeeeeally wanted to go into the water, why didn’t they just stay in the shallow water where a shark literally couldn’t get to? Why go “oh, there has been evidence that a shark has been around, and while one has been killed that doesn’t mean it’s fine. But I really want to go swimming, so let’s go way out where something could swim up underneath me and kill me!” No. Wrong. Dumb. I’m not even getting into a shark following a boat that is filled with people repeatedly shooting at it. Also, how did the Chief of Police get over his fear of drowning so easily? I wish I could get over my fear of drowning by just getting on a boat in the middle of the ocean.
That being said, it was a good enough movie. The fashions dated it a little, and the shark did look pretty clunky and bad, but it wasn’t as painful as Total Recall was. They did the best they could with the limitations of the time, and that is obvious. It was still kinda cheesy and not overly scary though; Ben jumped once which made me laugh at him being a scaredy cat, but in general you could kinda tell what was going to happen. I liked that there wasn’t a completely happy ending, and that you didn’t see the survivors reunited with their families and all this rubbish. The way it ended definitely suited the film. No way in hell am I going to watch the sequels, though. After it finished Ben and I had a talk about how film making has changed over the years. If Jaws had been made now there could have been a heap of explosions and everyone would have been gorgeous and the ending would probably have been really open ended to make sure there would be a sequel. The shark probably wouldn’t have even died.
The other movies for this theme were Deep Blue Sea (which we were going to watch, but watched Doctor Who instead), Open Water (we didn’t really want to watch a couple stuck in the middle of a shark feeding frenzy), Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus and Mega Shark Versus Crocosaurus (both which sounded hilariously terrible but would have been better suited for a group, not just the two of us). As someone who is pretty uncomfortable with the ocean and subsequent sea life, I am pretty proud that I actually watched any of the movies this week at all. Plus I can tick off another film off my list of movies I should have seen by now but hadn’t.
I think the shark was just a meanie and wanted to mess with people and cause as much havoc as poss. The Sea Captain is one of my favourite characters ever haha. Will you be reviewing the sequels as well?
Yeah, Piratey Shark Hunter dude was the best because he was kinda crazy. I probably won't be reviewing the sequels, next week is a new theme. Gotta push on, so many movies to watch!