Jaws, 1975.
Directed by Steven Spielberg.
Starring Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw, Lorraine Gary and Murray Hamilton.
SYNOPSIS:
The community of Amity Island is terrorized by a deadly great white shark.
Steven Spielberg’s classic Jaws is finally coming to Blu-ray. The iconic movie is considered to be one of the best of all-time and it very well should be. It’s the movie that made people not want to go into the ocean and to this day I have no doubt it still makes people afraid to go into the water. Now that the movie has made it’s way to Blu-ray the question is, how good is the transition to high definition?
For those that haven’t seen Jaws, Roy Scheider stars as Martin Brody, the newly appointed police chief of a small island community called Amity. Things have been fine since he and his family moved out to the town, that is until a great white shark starts to terrorize the community. After the shark kills a few of the townspeople, Brody has had enough. Along with the help of oceanographer Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) and shark hunter Quint (Robert Shaw), he sets out in the hope of killing the beast that has been terrorizing the town of Amity.
Jaws works on so many different levels. From the great acting by Scheider, Dreyfuss and Shaw to the brilliant directing by Steven Spielberg, it all comes together incredibly. Spielberg manages to strike fear into his viewers by only showing a few glimpses of the shark until the last thirty minutes of the movie. Using a camera from the point of view of the shark to show it closing in on its victims was also a great idea and having the amazing score by John Williams set the mood made it all work so perfectly. There isn’t much else to say about the movie other than it’s an extremely well made movie and one of the best ever made.
As for the transition to Blu-ray, there’s no need to worry because it looks incredible. Occasionally, there have been a few movies that didn’t look so hot after being transferred to Blu-ray. Jaws, however, looks like it could have been made a few years ago with a tremendous HD transfer. All the scenes out on the beach or when our heroes are out on their boat look great. Anything involving water they seemed to focus on the most, which works perfectly because the majority of the movie takes place out on the ocean. The shark looks better than ever as well. It looked great on every other format, but now on Blu-ray it looks better than it ever has before.
The disc itself has plenty to check out in terms of bonus features. There is a Blu-ray exclusive feature length documentary with never before seen footage and interviews with Steven Spielberg, Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss. Elsewhere, there’s a two hour making of featurette, deleted scenes, outtakes, an in-depth look at the process of restoring the movie and much more.
If you’re a fan of Jaws and own a Blu-ray player than this is a must have. Relive the magic of the movie like it just came out in theaters yesterday.
Flickering Myth Rating: Film ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Jake Peffer
Originally published August 24, 2012. Updated April 11, 2018.
