#89: Jaws

Jaws (Spielberg, 1975)

A big shark eats a bunch of people, and they go out to kill it.

I probably could end the writeup with just that one sentence. It's pretty typical for Spielberg. Great production value, great effects. One dimensional cliches for characters. The action of the film isn't that exciting anymore because simple scenes like that have been ruined by modern CGI. You could predict who was going to live and die pretty much from the beginning. The one interesting thing about the plot was the 'Politics of mass hysteria' angle, where the girl gets killed and they don't want to call it a shark attack because it would terrify people. Unfortunately that angle is represented by a cliche 'Stubborn idiot politician' character.

Rating: ** 1/2 / 5

39/100

Next: Madame De…, Pierrot le Fou

New films:

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo: 7/10

A crime thriller about a reporter who was being sent to jail after being set up for a libel case, who's hired by a member of a rich family to investigate a fourty year old murder. There's also a woman (With the dragon tattoo) who's had a history of violence and mental instability, but who's also a genius investigator. The plots start out separate but after about an hour she gets involved in the investigation to. The characters are interesting, the mystery is compelling, and the conclusion satisfying. There's heavy themes of abuse and misogyny. The only thing about the film that was weak was the directing style. The plot itself is really good, but the film doesn't add anything to the core events of the plot so much as just show them to you. Nothing in the film is that stylistically or cinemotagraphically interesting, so the whole two and a half hours of it can a times be tough to get through. Fortunately, the plot keeps you interested enough in the mystery to pull you through.