Dorsal Fin 2

I finally did it. After decades of active avoidance, I watched Jaws 2. The one that everyone damns with the faint praise, “it’s actually not that bad”- an open-ended phrase usually reserved for something like a broken pinky toe that keeps getting more painfully puffy and purple, or, like, that one Nickelback song. You know, that one that you heard on the radio. That one.

So, a few years after our merry dysfunctional trio of Brody, Hooper, and Quint (oh my!) got over their petty differences to defeat a dog-and-child eating rogue Great White, another one shows up. Because it’s the ocean. But the mayor and smahhmy town council membahs are all like, “yeah, no. Definitely not a recurrence of the kind of thing that we dealt with that one time, no matter how obvious the signs.” You know, like some of the US’s state governors and the Covid Delta variant.

But I digress.

So Brody calls in an expert that is absolutely NOT a condensed, one-scene rewrite of Richard Dreyfuss’ character (#sarcasm) and loses his job because he cares about people. Then he electrocutes a shark with an underwater foreshadowing line that he found in the first act. Oh, sorry- I meant power. Power line.

You’d think a film sequel that involves the continuation of blind capitalism as a cynical rebuttal to small town neighborly love in the wake of a shared community tragedy would be just the ticket for a follow-up to one of the greatest films of all time. And you’d be right! Jaws 2 deftly walks the line betwee…

Nah, just kidding. They just awkwardly and sleepily rehash the same stuff from the first film, from a shark watch on the beach gone awry to a corpse jump scare to returning tertiary character-actor grumpy locals. Brody’s son is in danger again. Mayor Vaughn thinks he’s overreacting again. Lorraine Gary asks Roy Scheider if he “wants to fool around” again. And you’d better believe there’s a measuring of bite radii.

Here’s the thing, though- people are right. It’s actually not that bad. Which is to say it’s entirely forgettable. From the aforementioned callbacks, to the lack of any subtext whatsoever, to music that, to this viewer, sounds like they said, “hey, John Williams, write another Jaws score and send it to us. We’ll round hole that square peg, no problem,” Jaws 2 is just… there. It exists. It’s a background noise option on a Saturday afternoon when you’re maybe a little high and cleaning your living room. Which is to say there’s not much about Jaws 2 that’s engaging enough to distract you from your Swiffering duties. I suppose you might pause to watch the shark eat the helicopter, but other than that, you’re golden. So, yeah, go ahead and throw it on, stoner Jim.

It’s actually not that bad.