Here we go again with the giant shark attacking swimmers on vacation and the one local sheriff who can stop it.

This time around, Spielberg wanted nothing to do with the production, but the producers were eager to cash in on the massive box office success of the first movie.

Returning cast included Roy Scheider (the sheriff), Lorraine Gary (the sheriff’s wife), and Murray Hamilton (the dipshit mayor). As the attacks and killings slowly increased, Sheriff Brody became increasingly paranoid due to the evidence he encountered. Unsurprisingly, the mayor wanted to throw caution to the wind, because making money is always more important than keeping people alive.

The movie tended to meander a bit too much when it really needed to be more “pedal-to-the-metal” to keep things engaging.

The creature FX weren’t much better than the original movie, which isn’t too surprising given how little anything could have progressed or developed over a short 3-year span. However, where the original movie tried to keep things subtle for lack of quality animatronic shark visuals, this movie was a little bit less cautious.

As far as killer shark movies go, this one is still pretty good, but it could have been better had it tried to find its own unique voice instead of just copying the first movie whenever possible.

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