Review: Jaws @ 50 Is A Fun But Shallow Celebration Of The First Blockbuster

There’s not much new here for old fans, but it’s still fun to play the hits.

The history and the mythology of Jaws is well-established by now. First film to make $100m. The shark rarely worked. Filming on water was hell. Spielberg thought his career was over. Robert Shaw was drunk a lot. If you know the film, even only as a casual fan, you know at least a few of these trivia tidbits.

Well, get ready to hear ’em all again, and more, as Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story swims into view. You’ve seen this kind of thing before – hagiographic behind-the-scenes packages used to be endemic DVD extras – but there’s a difference here, and that difference is: it’s Jaws.

There are, really, very few films contesting for Best Movie Ever, but Jaws is one of them. Jaws @ 50 makes use of that, never making a case for why the film is great, but rather assuming its greatness is accepted wisdom. That does cut out a lot of potentially grating backslapping, and leaves a lot more room for war stories.

Veterans of the original production, including Steven Spielberg (of course), screenwriter and actor Carl Gottlieb, production designer and shark builder Joe Alves, and actor Lorraine Gary, are all on hand to share insight. Celebrity fans, such as James Cameron, Jordan Peele, Cameron Crowe, J.J. Abrams, Emily Blunt, Steven Soderbergh, and Guillermo del Toro, show up to sing the film’s praises. Occasionally, those who have passed are represented by family members – all else aside, it’s amazing how much Ian Shaw looks like his old man.

We’re in safe hands here. Director Laurent Bouzereau has made literally hundreds of these sort of documentaries, after all he even made the 1995 doco The Making of Jaws. It’s all very polished and consistently entertaining. And yet in watching Jaws @ 50, there wasn’t a single moment where I felt I was learning something new. It’s all very familiar material, reiterated for a fresh audience.

Which is fine, of course – there are only so many Jaws stories to tell, and if you’ve ever caught the 2012 documentary The Shark is Still Working, you’ve heard most of them. Jaws @ 50 does everything you expect this sort of film to do, but nothing that sheds new light on the original film. Still, as potted history of the world’s greatest shark movie, it does the job.

Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story is streaming on Disney+ now.