Best sequel! ****(Spoilers****

Ten reasons why this was the best Jaws sequel:

1.) While I felt an emptiness left in the second movie, on account of Matt Hooper's and Quint's (well he died) absence, that was never really filled with the the underused teen character actors that kept appearing out of the wood work, Ellen, Michael, Jake, Hoagie, and Carla and Louisa, and even Sean filled this movie for me. The kids were cute too. Sean and Martin's deaths are sad, but the movie still held it's own without them.

2.) The friendships were great. I only wish there was more focus on it.

In laws are rarely shown getting along, but Ellen and Carla are really family, blood or not.

Jake and Michael are different races, but we never see racism cause a divide between them, or Michael being ignorant and he thinks it's funny, and Jake isn't extremely devoted to him with nothing given in return.

They're male friends and are not completely afraid to show their affection for each other, like when Jake tells Michael to be careful and "I love you." is written all over his face, or when Michael screams out for Jake (when he thinks he's been killed) and he is later hugging him in the water and in place of "I love you." (they are men after all and I guess homophobic restrictions do set it) he asks him if he's going to die on him and Jake says he isn't that mean.

3.) I wasn't angry that Ellen had a new love interest. Their love story wasn't shot as a romance for the ages, but seeing a fresh new romance having her act like a 13 year old girl asked out on her fist date was charming. Michael had some resentment and he didn't exactly find a second father in Hoagie, but surviving a shark attack tends to bond people.

4.) Mrs. Kintner must have made up with Martin. We see her greet Michael and she's all sympathy and no grudge. It looks like she must have forgiven Martin, or put her anger aside to care about someone else's pain, or she learned that her son's death was really Larry Vaughn's fault. It's too bad we didn't get more of a look into this.

5.) Ellen: Our seasoned feminist heroine. While men can be older than Dumbledore and still be seen as a capable hero material, we rarely see a still gorgeous woman like Ellen at the front line of the adventure, but here she is alongside three equally capable men. Also, Carla and Louisa were small parts, but they were strong, caring, and great moms at the same time.

6.) The conveying of emotions shots.

Scenes like Michael waking up to look at his injured arm or when he's contemplating how he feels about his mother falling in love again stayed with me and really got me into the character's head.

Ellen's fear was constant, even when she goes on a ferry ride with her family and later keeps her granddaughter out of the water by enlisting her help to build sandcastle moat. Little things like that told me the writers knew what they were doing. Also, she wasn't some hysterical weak female, when she showed fear, but an actual person.

Jake was an optimist, but he also seamlessly slipped in his concern when the movie called for it.

7.) The supernatural element was written in perfectly. Something always seemed slightly fantasy like about the Jaws movies shark attacks to me, so this psychic phenomenon Ellen had about her family being hunted by sharks wasn't to crazy for me to believe. It also wasn't to heavy, so the movie was still grounded.

8.) The flash backs. Martin may have been dead, but the filmmakers still snuck him in there. Even though Ellen wasn't their for his adventure, he must have told her about it, so it doesn't seem weird to me that we saw her face alongside clips of Martin killing the first shark. She has psychic powers after all. Who says she can't look back into the past?

9.) Christmas time is here! Christmas brings family together and I didn't even miss it being summer, like the other films, although I would hardly call this a Christmas movie.

10.) Beautiful camera work + great actors. It's great when a movie has both. The script was good, like the friendship and Ellen's constant fear a capability, but, like I said, I wanted some things developed more.