Welcome to the beautiful disaster that are the Sharknado
movies. Hard to believe we’re already on the fourth one! SyFy tends to create a lot of silly creature
feature movies – they are filled with D-grade celebrities and insanely terrible
writing, special effects, and acting – but all of that is what makes them so
absolutely watchable. As long as you
understand you’re watching total crap – it’s a good time.
Sharknado first aired in 2013, staring Ian Ziering and Tara
Reid fighting to reunite their family while battling a tornado filled with
sharks. That one speculated that global
warming was causing sharks to mass in unnatural numbers while a freak hurricane
occurred above – when tornadoes spun off the hurricane, they sucked up the
sharks and dumped them into the flooded streets of L.A. The movie was an
unexpected hit due to viewers live-tweeting their shock and awe. And so a franchise – based mainly on Ian
Ziering’s confidence in his over-committal - was spawned.
You’ll remember that the last one ended with Fin pulling his
wife, April, and their infant son out of the belly of a great white shark as
she had given birth there while falling back to earth from space – where they
had to leave Fin’s father, Gil, on the moon after he fired a space laser that
disrupted the bank of sharknados along the east coast. The movie ended with fans getting to choose
April’s fate by tweeting #AprilLives or #AprilDies as she appeared to be
directly in the path of falling space debris.
I tweeted that she should live, because after you give birth to your
baby in the belly of a great white as it falls back to earth from space –
really, nothing should kill you.
This movie picks up five years on from that point,
billionaire Aston Reynolds has created company Astro-X, and installed Astro-Pods
around the earth that are able to eliminate sharknados as soon as they crop
up. He’s also developed better space
travel so he was able to rescue Colonel Gil Sheppard (Fin’s Dad) from the moon. Gil is now working with Fin’s daughter
Claudia at Astro-X, developing a mechanized suit with the assistance of a
scientist named Wilfred – who we later learn is April’s dad.
Fin and his now five year old son are on his mother’s farm
in Kansas. Young Gil is drawing family
pics with his mother as a shark (not even going to get into that…) and they are
still in mourning from losing April – apparently she was in a coma for four
years, and they finally pulled the plug.
Well, Fin and his cousin Gemini mention that Nova is in Paris (to
quickly explain why she is not in this movie), and they are heading to Las Vegas
because Aston Reynolds is celebrating five years of being Sharknado free by
opening a huge Vegas hotel/casino called SharkWorld. Fin’s son Matt is scheduled to meet them
there after being in the military for the last few years. His military service has really changed him.
I don’t mean emotionally, I mean literally changed him into a different actor
than he was in the first movie. In any
case, new Matt and his fiancée Gabby are about to get married while skydiving
when a sharknado hits. This allows for
all kinds of Sharknado-Vegas bits as a shark eliminates CarrotTop’s head, they
swarm through a casino, and the Chippendales dancers get to fight falling
sharks.
Fin and Gemini jump into action (literally) to save Matt and
Gabby during their dive – and then, in a moment of pure genius (or nonsense),
Fin hijacks the pirate ship from in front of the Treasure Island hotel to sail
down the flooded strip, narrowly evading a ‘sharkberg’ formed from falling
sharks. And that’s just the cold open.
At this point we learn that April is still alive – well,
sort of alive. Her father, Wilfred, has
turned her into a cyborg of some sort, rebuilding what he could of her from the
bits that were left after the space wreckage hit her. He’s told her that Fin,
the baby, Gil – everyone else basically, died, so she’s spending her time doing
cyborg training montages.
Aston and his crew realize that the reason their systems
didn’t disrupt the Vegas Sharknado is because it was sand-based, not
water-based, like a regular Sharknado (what? How did the sharks get … you know
what, nevermind. The science is sound).
They bring Fin, Gemini, Matt and Gabby down to Texas where Aston is
based to talk it through – and they decide to drive to Kansas. Meanwhile, a
sharknado – with ice and hail in it (hail-nado?) pops in over San Francisco –
just as April learns Fin is still alive from a news conference, and breaks out
of her holding area in time to save Gil and Claudia from being sucked up into
the hailnado by catching their car WITH HER HANDS. Aston comes to get them after they yell at
Wilfred for telling everyone that everyone else was dead. Then they head out to meet the others in
Kansas.
Okay – so the Vegas Sand-sharknado headed down to Texas, and
while Fin and Co. fight it – it crosses over an oilfield, becoming, you guessed
it – an oil-nado. It hits power lines,
there’s a spark, and sure enough – the oil catches fire – so now you have a
fire-nado – but still with sharks inside, so it’s spewing out firey sharks as
it twists over Texas. Fin uses a large
bit of machinery and some fire extinguishers to defeat that ‘nado, and the hail-nado
has been taken out – but there’s still one over the central U.S., a large
sharknado that went through Salt Lake City, and is now heading straight to
Kansas. It also rolls over a farm, picks up cows, and the cows were fighting
the sharks inside of it.
As Fin and all drive north, after some help from his
lavalantula-fighting buddy Colton (I can’t even get into that now), the remaining
‘nado hits the world’s largest ball of twine, filling it with sharks, and
causing it to roll down the streets just as they arrive in Kansas to rescue Fin’s
mom and son. Gabby gets hit by falling sharks as Matt, Gemini, and Fin get into
the farmhouse to rescue little Gil.
Then, concurrently, we are introduced to the mayor of Chicago – who has
launched into a tirade on TV about how all these sharknados are actually Fin’s
fault and he’s not allowed in Chicago – not really an issue, since he’s still
in Kansas – but of course, the house gets picked up in the storm, and carried to
Chicago – where it falls on the mayor, wicked witch-style.
Aston’s plane lands with April, Gil and Claudia – and April
heads into the ruined farmhouse to rescue Fin and little Gil. Now, the Sheppard clan is completely reunited
on Aston’s plane as they come up with a plan to stop the ‘nado, which is
complicating things by rolling through the Perry nuclear plant in Ohio and
heading towards Niagra Falls – now a full-blown nuclearnado filled with
radioactive sharks. The science is
sound.
Everyone heads to Niagra Falls for the final showdown, and
they get a slow-motion walk up.
Inevitably, they manage to shut down the nuclear-nado, with Fin using the
completed mechano-suit, and April revealing that she CAN FLY. She can straight-up fly because she’s mostly
cyborg. Of course, every member of the
family gets swallowed by different sharks, Russian nesting-doll-style (seriously)
ending with Fin getting swallowed by a large great white that then gets
swallowed by a whale. Where did the whale come from (whale-icane?)? Little Gil is the only one left out – so he
takes his baby chainsaw and jumps into the whale, rescuing each member of the
family in turn. They all crawl out of the ick to stand triumphantly together
just as the Eiffel Tower spins in and lands in front of them with a lone figure
on it. Looking up at it, Fin says, “Nova?!”
Honestly, I was exhausted after watching it – emotionally and
mentally drained, and my stomach hurt from laughing so hard. Really, they
outdid themselves this time. Props to
writer Thunder Levin (yes, that is his real name) and director Anthony C.
Ferrante. The movie is so much insane
fun. The cast keeps expanding in terms
of celebrity cameos – but the core is pretty much the same.
- Once again – half of the success is Ian Ziering, and his decision to pay Finley Allan Sheppard with complete and total dedication. He’s in on the joke, but playing it so incredibly seriously really adds to the fun.
- Tara Reid plays April, and I never thought I would say this – but she’s better in this one! She actually seems to be a little more self-aware (instead of half-asleep), and really, that training montage was hilarious.
- Ryan Newman plays Claudia Shepphard in both this one and the third, but is not the same Claudia as in the first one. And that’s a good thing, because Newman is way more fun and aware.
- Cody Linley (yes, Jake from Hannah Montana if that means anything to you) plays new Matt, and again – he’s way better than the previous Matt.
- Imani Hakim plays Matt’s wife Gabby, they met in the military and had a whirlwind romance (see what I did there?) but it was unfortunately cut short after sharks fell on her. Too bad, because she was awesome while she was around.
- Masiela Lusha is new this time around as Fin’s cousin Gemini – I’m not going to lie to you, I missed the explanation of who she was, and I kept thinking of her as not-Nova until I thought maybe she was his sister? But no, cousin – she’s pretty fun and action-ready.
- David Hasselhoff plays Gil, Fin’s father – and continues to match Ziering’s intensity. Especially fun this go round was that he got to interact with Baywatch alums Alexandra Paul and Gena Lee Nolin again as they played two Astro-X technicians who got killed by nuclear sharks because they were slow-motion running away from the nuclear-nado.
- Gary Busey plays Wilfred Wexler – April’s father. Honestly, I completely believe Busey and Reid are related.
- Tommy Davison plays Aston Reynolds – and this may have been the role he’s been meant to play. He matches the silliness of the tone perfectly, and I particularly enjoyed the cameo from his Living Color co-star T’Keyah Crystal Keymah as one of his techs.
- The rest are basically cameos, and honestly this time there were pretty much too many to mention, but here’s a few: Carrot Top, Vince Neil, Wayne Newton, Al Roker, Natalie Morales, Jillian Barberie, Stacey Dash, Dan Yeager, Dr. Drew, David Faustino, Kym Johnson, Gilbert Gottfried, Paul Shaffer, and Seth Rollins.
Overall – it’s complete nonsense. Turn off your brain and enjoy the ride. You’re
going to encounter multiple people who will tell you it’s dumb. Yes, of course it’s dumb, that’s the
point. Remember, tell them the science is
sound, and if they persist, throw a knunch their way. That’s the simultaneous knee-punch that is
really hard to defend.
10 of 10 – because, why not. Gained points for the Star Wars
quotes and references, the Wizard of Oz quotes and references, and all the
other quotes and references.
Bonus – Comic Con Panel!
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