The movie begins on a beach, where a bunch of teenagers are hanging out. One of them, a girl named Chrissy, gets excited and wants to go swimming. She takes off her clothes, swims, and has fun… until the shark approaches her from underneath and kills her. She is the first marked victim thanks to its attack.

And if that’s not bad enough, more people get killed over the next few days. One of them includes a little boy named Alex. 

A new officer, Martin Brody, is attempting to close the beach because of that. However, the mayor, Larry Vaughn, is resistant to the idea. He is worried that it will mess up the economy, particularly because it is very close to the 4th of July. Even the citizens are against the idea of closing down beaches. 

Not long after, though, an oceanographer named Matt Hooper dissects a tiger shark–but finds no human remains. Later, though, he finds a larger shark tooth around the severed head of fishermen, Ben Gardner. 

But Mayor Vaughn refuses to believe that that happened. So, he is against closing down beaches. Eventually, he has no choice but to close them.

Brody, Vaughn, and Hooper sail out into the ocean to hunt the shark. 

I was surprised how this movie drew me in all the way through. One aspect that stands out to me is how it used to scare audiences so much when it was first released. Some people even got heart attacks during it. And that was merely from the suspenseful music that plays before the shark kills anyone. 

But this movie did not scare me one bit. I was 16 when I first saw this movie in 2010. I remember thinking, Wow, this isn’t scary at all. I think the reason it didn’t frighten me was because I grew up in a time where movies had CGI and special effects to make them scary. So, that dark music playing as the shark is about to attack someone is nothing to me. I would imagine that a lot of people my age wouldn’t find Jaws scary at all. 

That being said, there are some moments that are not for the fainthearted. For instance, the scene where Hooper discovers Ben Gardner’s face grossed me out. Not only did his face resemble nothing of a living person, but there were also maggots on it.

Another scene is where the shark is trying to eat someone, and blood gets everywhere. I covered up that scene and said out loud to myself, “I can’t look.”

There is also some brief nudity, even from a strange angle. I actually found it bizarre that the girl at the beginning of the film decided to swim naked. Maybe it was because she didn’t have a bathing suit. Who knows? 

But she was funny, despite having little screen time. A boy asked her what she was doing, and she replied, “Swimming” quickly and happily.

Speaking of swimming–when the town wanted a picture for the newspaper, a group of locals gathered together, and smiled. One of them held up a “No Swimming” sign. That part made me laugh.

The major downfall of this movie was how it was so hard to follow. There was too much POV-switching done and very quickly. I felt like it was hard to figure out who the main character was. 

I understand that films do need to change points-of-view to get the stories across. But for here, it should have slowed down a bit. 

Overall, though, Jaws was pretty decent. I would still recommend it.

However, note that even though the film is rated PG, it is NOT a family or child-appropriate movie–as you can tell based on what I said earlier. But I think anyone, say, 13 and up, might enjoy it.

I give Jaws 3.5 out of 5 stars.