Review: “Sharknado”
Syfy Original Movies have been the laughingstock of the network since Day One. Put together some D-list actors, awful special effects and ham-fisted editing styles and you pretty much have the nucleus of what powers these movies.
A few years ago, the movies went from roll-your-eyes bad to a new level of giddy atrociousness. Leave it to Syfy to strike while the iron’s hot with “Sharknado”. Before they were laughable garbage you gleamed over whilst drunk at 2am. Now they’re social media events.
“Sharknado” stars former “90210” hunk Ian Ziering as Finley “Fin” Shepard, a former surfing great who’s made the transition to quiet restaurant owner. In addition to his loveable crony workers, he has his estranged family: his wife April (Tara Reid) and his two teenage(?) kids Matt and Claudia. Things go sour when Hurricane David makes landfall in Santa Monica, causing destruction and flooding in addition to bringing all kinds of deadly sharks inland. Call it a “sharkicane” if you will.
Fin and his co-horts spend the movie saving people from danger, including his estranged wife and children. It’s not long before the hurricane creates some deadly super-tornadoes, which of course, contain oodles of deadly sharks as well.
“Sharknado” features that nucleus I was talking about earlier. Ziering and to a lesser extend Reid, spend most of the movie staring off to the side in reaction to the terrible special effects. Each scene seems like it was shot three ways: a few cuts of the actors, a few with the “action” and a few with some stock footage of flooding and sharks that must’ve cost pennies. The horrible editing creates for some confusing terror scenes, complete with a lack of continuity and laughable CGI.
The film culminates in a rather “entertaining” climax where Fin’s crush and his son fly a chopper towards the three mega-sharknados in order to drop bombs into them to destroy them and the sharks. (The impossibility factor is off the charts.) Here we get some good action from Ziering, who armed with weapons, attempts to take down the sharks as they fall from the skies. This is no better executed than in the final action scene, which stands as the most ridiculous scene I’ve ever seen in a movie. Let’s just say it tops “Hard Ticket to Hawaii“. I was planning a solid 4 rating for this movie until this scene showed up and took the awfulness to the next level. And I wasn’t even sure there was a next level.
Syfy knows what it has on its hands with their original movies. They revel in the badness in hopes to goad people into watching. “Sharknado” has just the ridiculous premise to work. As long as they pile up the D-list actors and the cheesy special effects along with the crazy plots, they might strike gold from time to time. And “Sharknado” is garbage gold.
For comedic purposes…
[rating=5]