Jaws Is Far From Rotten But Some Critics Are Less Than Kind To Shark Classic
Over at Rotten Tomatoes, Paddington 2 has just eclipsed Citizen Kane as the highest rated film on its site based on film critic reviews.
It's come about after a negative review from the time of the Orson Welles classic's release has been unearthed from the Chicago Tribune, more from that publication later. Kane - like his snowglobe - has slipped, down to 'just' 99%.
What makes it all the more ironic then, is that Welles had a genuine fear of bears.
Obviously, we all know it is something of a moot point, as we all know Welles' greatest film is his last, Transformers: The Movie (1986).
Jaws sits pretty high on the Rotten Tomatoes site with a non too shabby 98%, but not everyone felt Jaws was the classic of cinema that we all know and love upon the time of its original release.
And if those negative aspects of reviews aren't aimed at the script, then they are directed at the performances of the actors. It's enough to make you drop your, um, jaws. So here's a look back at what some film critics were saying about Steven Spielberg's Jaws upon its release in 1975.
These aren't theories that we happen to agree with, at all.
But what does all this prove? To paraphrase Quint, well it proves one thing Mr. Critic. It proves that you wealthy college boys don't have the education enough to admit when you're wrong.
LA Times
Review by Charles Champlin
It is a coarse-grained and exploitive work which depends on excess for its impact. Ashore it is a bore, awkwardly staged and lumpily written.
New York Times
Review by Vincent Canby
If you think about "Jaws" for more than 45 seconds you will recognize it as nonsense.
It's a measure of how the film operates that not once do we feel particular sympathy for any of the shark's victims, or even the mother of one, a woman who has an embarrassingly tearful scene that at one point threatens to bring the film to a halt.
Characters are like stage hands who move props around and deliver information when it's necessary, which is pretty much what Roy Scheider (the police chief), Robert Shaw (the shark fisherman) and Richard Dreyfuss (the oceanographer) do.
Chicago Tribune
Review by Gene Siskel
The characters, for the most part, and the non-fish elements in the story, are comparatively weak and not believable.
Time magazine
Scheider is occasionally too recessive for his own good, while Shaw is too excessive for the good of the film. Dreyfuss, however, is perfect. With a cheeky charm he manages to humanize the picture while stealing it.
For those eager to know the Rotten Tomatoes critic's scores for the Jaws sequels, they are as follows.
Jaws 2 - 59%
Jaws 3D - 12%
Jaws the Revenge - 0%
By Dean Newman
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