Which is the worst JAWS movie? (as voted by you!)
Like eyesight and inflation, movie franchises generally get worse with time. Case in point, cinematic classics ALIEN and The Godfather got off to perfect starts with two epic first installments and then faultered at the third (and subsequent chapters). The major difference is that with ALIEN and The Godfather movies, the biggest debate is about which of the first two movies is the best, whereas the JAWS series is argued in terms of which sequel is the worst.
Steven Spielberg’s original JAWS certainly isn’t the ‘tallest dwarf’, standing proud among a mediocre series. Upon it’s release, Jaws became a instant classic and as Quentin Tarantino said “…Jaws is maybe, possibly the greatest ‘movie’ ever made.”.
The JAWS series (currently) has four movies: Jaws (1975), Jaws 2 (1978), Jaws 3-D (1983) and Jaws The Revenge (1987). Each susequent film appears to try and top previous in terms of shark action, thus sacrificing character and story (massively missed opportunity with Brody/Roy Scheider in JAWS 2). The studio felt they knew what made ‘Jaws’ (1975) so popular with audiences and decided to give them what they wanted… more shark; completely missing what made Spielberg’s original the enduring masterpiece it is.
Quint (Robert Shaw) tells his story about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis
After Jaws 2, a fresh approach was needed as a second return to Amity would have been boring and even more implausible, plus Roy Scheider would not be returning as Chief Martin Brody. So JAWS 3-D was set at SeaWorld where Michael Brody (Dennis Quaid) worked and kid brother Sean would visit. The new location and novelty of 3-D technology created some exciting possibilites for third JAWS movie, and some parts are friggin awesome (seeing Fitzroyce get chewed up from INSIDE the damn shark’s mother’s mouth is genius!). Alas, the studio once again spoke up and wanted to push the 3-D effects more than director Joe Alves originally planned which severely impacted the quality of the end result.
Jaws The Revenge (1987) sees the initial action return to Amity Island and then take a sharp left at the traffic lights, ending up in the Bahamas. Why? Well, because in the words of director Joseph Sargent, “Why not?”. ‘Revenge’ only happened because Joseph Sargent was asked by then Universal Studio head Sid Sheinberg (husband of Jaws actress Lorraine Gary) to come up with “a new way to kill the shark.” He did, and was allowed to shoot anywhere he wanted. So a fresh, new ‘mythical’ approach was taken that (kind of) explained how a Great White shark could not only follow a person to a certain place, but also swim in waters that would normally kill it. Talk about suspension of disbelief. You can watch our exclusive Jaws The Revenge 35th Anniversary Interview with stars Lance Guest (Michael Brody) and Mitchell Anderson (Sean Brody) below.
Which leads us to the question that keeps most JAWS fans awake at night… no not why didn’t they take Hooper’s boat…. but which Jaws movie is the worst? Looking at most of the online movie forums, the ranking from best to worst seems to the follow the order in which the movies have been made. For a complete breakdown, read How JAWS rates on IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes and Letterboxd.
The JAWS movies ranked on Rotten Tomatoes (as of April 2023)
The interesting thing about the Jaws series is how low the last two movies score. Looking at Rotten Tomatoes, the first two movies average a score of 79%, while the third and fourth movies score an average of just 5.5%. Alarming to say the least. But does this tell the whole story? Well, we polled our followers on Twitter and asked ‘Which is the worst JAWS movie?’. The results are shown below.
You polled the wrong one!
True to form, Jaws The Revenge came in worst with just over half the vote, with Jaws 3-D second worst. Amazingly the original Jaws came in third with Jaws 2 being voted the least worst (a.k.a. the best?) Jaws movie. Didn’t see that coming.
So the order of worst Jaws movies, according to our Twitter poll is:
Jaws The Revenge
Jaws 3-D
Jaws
Jaws 2
Not the expected result but there are some IMDb users who rate shark classic JAWS as one-star movie so maybe not that unexpected? Some praised 3-D’s and Revenge’s originality, while others had no hate for any of the films. However, some fans like Marc Van Helsing hit the wrong button and voted for Jaws by mistake but the result stands.
Words by Ross Williams
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