Ratings
Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer: 81%
Rotten Tomatoes Average Score: 6.1/10
IMDb User Review Score: 3.3/10
Rotten Tomatoes Average Score: 6.1/10
IMDb User Review Score: 3.3/10
Acting: 4/10
Special Effects: 4/10
Coherence: 5.5/10
Fun: 6/10
Humor: 6/10
Introduction
Synopsis (Spoiler-Free)
Think you're safe out of the water? Think again. No place is safe in Southern California when a hurricane comes along that, along with flooding, is capable of launching sharks anywhere. When this happens, Fin, a surfer and bar owner, gathers his loved ones and makes for safety. However, once the storm spawns tornadoes that pick up sharks (hence Sharknado), conditions become even more deadly, and Fin, his family, and his friends must now stop running and find a way to stop these sharknadoes before everyone is devoured by ridiculousness.
Character Summaries (Minor Spoilers)
Fin Shepard (Ian Ziering)
Fin is the protagonist of Sharknado and pretty much fits the mold
for a stereotypical SyFy movie leading man. He is extremely resourceful and has
excellent survival instincts. Also, Fin is heroic. Super heroic. Pathologically
heroic. Fin is so goddamn heroic that midway through the movie, his ex wife
April literally asks him to stop being
heroic. Fin owns a bar (creatively named “Fin”) by the beach and seemingly
only has one bartender, Nova. Also, Fin has two children with April, Matt and
Claudia, and he seems to be a little bit estranged from them, enough so that
Claudia is perpetually pissed at him.
April Wexler (Tara Reid)
Considering that April is played by Tara
Reid (read: the only cast member we’ve ever heard of before), I was very
surprised that April literally doesn’t do a damn thing in the whole movie
beside be kind of a bitch to Fin until her new boyfriend meets his demise (at
which point she starts being nicer). April is Fin’s ex wife and they have two
children together, Matt and Claudia.
Nova Clarke (Cassie Scerbo)
Nova is Fin’s bartender (possibly
his only bartender). She has an attitude
and proves to be the only woman in this movie that is not a complete waste of
oxygen. She has a scar on her leg that she refuses to talk about, and is extremely handy with a shotgun. Nova
definite has a thing for Fin, which is kind of weird because 1) there is quite
an age gap, 2) he’s her boss, and 3) he absolutely is not interested in her in
the slightest. George sort of has a thing for her, but it is more in an older man,
not-serious/playful kind of way.
Baz Hogan (Jaason Simmons)
Baz is Fin’s best friend, and the only
likable character besides George. Baz is extremely loyal, but typically just
follows Fin’s lead. That being said, he does have one or two good ideas of his
own. Baz also tends to lighten the mood, making wisecracks at almost every
opportunity.
Claudia (Aubrey Peeples)
Claudia doesn’t do shit in this entire
movie; I’m actually not entirely sure why I am writing about her. She is Fin’s
and April’s daughter, and she has major daddy issues because of the divorce.
That’s pretty much all there is to say. She is either being moody to Fin or
telling other people not to trust Fin. That’s her whole purpose in this movie.
Matt (Chuck Hittinger)
Matt is Fin’s and April’s son.
Currently in flight school, he is very similar to his father in that he is a
resourceful problem solver and very heroic. Unfortunately, his high pitched
voice and extremely goofy face make him very difficult to take seriously. He
will also end up concocting what must be one of the dumbest plans in the
history of the human race.
George (John Heard)
George is a frequent patron of Fin’s
bar, and frequently hits on Nova (but playfully). While he does
almost all of his drinking at the bar, he nevertheless comes off as kind of a
drunk. However, he is by most measures, the most likable person in this movie.
Saving Graces
Self-Awareness
Many of the movies in this blog will have some degree of self-awareness, but I'll wager that none have it to the degree that Sharknado does. By self-awareness, I mean that the makers and stars of the movie all know exactly what this movie is: a B-grade SyFy original movie.
It can be easily seen just in the premise of the movie. It deals in the absurd. There are an infinite number of topics that could qualify as science fiction, but SyFy chose to make a movie about tornadoes... in Southern California... that picks up sharks... and launches them everywhere. It's just ridiculous. Given this preposterous scenario, the characters in the movie don't seem at all, which creates an additional level of humor.
The special effects also help to keep us aware that this movie is ridiculous. The special effects are not awful, but they also are not particularly good for this day and age. Now this is obviously the result of the movie's budget, which IMDB estimates at $1,000,000, a very modest budget for a full-length movie. However, a side effect of the special effects being less than stellar is that it prevents us from being too absorbed in the movie and thus allows us to keep our distance and appreciate the goofy premise of the movie. I mean really, could you ever take this sharknado seriously?
Sins (Spoilers)
Misleading
Premise
Now this may just be a personal misinterpretation, but when
I hear the work “Sharknado” I picture more of a tornado that just tears one’s
ass apart once it takes you in. This notion is furthered by a moment in the
opening scene:
I guess what I was envisioning was closer to a piranhanado
because this type of thing never happens again. The sharknado serves more as a
shark-missile launcher, and the hurricane that spawns the sharknado serves as a
method to flood the coast so that sharks can access places they could not
before. Like I said earlier, you may disagree with the movie being misleading,
but this was just a pet peeve of mine.
Science
Here is the movie’s real
sin. I know that the SyFy channel has a very loose definition of science, but I
still think it needs to step up its game a bit. There are several issues that
are probably just oversights. For example, the sharknado is present for pretty
much the final act of the entire movie. Even if we go by real time, which would
put the shaknado’s duration at about thirty-five minutes (movie time would be a
few hours), the sharks would still asphyxiate from being out of the water for
so long. That doesn’t make a several hundred pound shark-missile any less
damaging, but the movie literally forgot that sharks live in the water.
Regardless, like I said this was probably an oversight. No big deal.
The movie’s knowledge of hurricanes and tornadoes is a
little more troubling. First of all, this movie is set in Southern California.
Here are two direct quotes from Wikipedia: “Since 1900, two tropical storms have hit
California, one by direct landfall from offshore, another after making landfall
in Mexico” and “Since 1900, only four tropical cyclones have brought
gale-force winds to the Southwestern United States”. Basically, hurricanes
and tornadoes don’t happen in Southern California. The filmmakers literally picked one of
very few places where hurricanes don’t happen. Their understanding of
hurricanes is also suspect with quotes such as “the eye is pounding the shore”.
As anyone who has had 8th grade science knows, the eye is the one
part of the hurricane that doesn’t pound
anything.
However,
nothing else in this movie compares to what I am about to show you. This is
Matt’s ingenious plan to get rid of the tornadoes.
If
you don’t feel like watching the video, I’ll give you the general rundown of
the plan: Matt tells Nova he is going to throw bombs into the tornadoes to
destroy them. When Nova questions his logic, Baz comes literally from out of nowhere
like a ninja schoolteacher to give us a brief science lesson, namely that tornadoes
are created when cold and warm air meet. He then claims that a bomb might
equalize it but that if they miss, they’re screwed.
Now
here are some issues with the clip besides that fact that anyone who views it
is that much closer to having an aneurism. First, throwing a bomb into a
tornado wouldn't do shit. The tornado would just pick it up, it would explode, and
the tornado would be baffled by the pitiful attempt on its life. What’s worse
is that Baz tries to justify this
plan with science. He does, however, have a minor point. Let’s say you
detonated a nuclear weapon near a tornado, the shockwave plus all of the debris
being incinerated might disrupt the tornado (keep in mind, this is a guess; I
am not a physicist). However, Matt is making gasoline IEDs.
There
is also another issue that Baz manages to almost hit on but doesn’t quite get
there when he mentions, “if you miss”. Matt and Nova are literally about to pilot
a helicopter over a populated city and throw bombs at it. Most people know that
to be terrorism.
Lastly,
all things considered, watch Matt’s face. Look how pleased he is with himself when he reveals his plan.
Overall,
this plan is so unbelievably stupid, it hurts the rest of the movie because
there really is just no way to
suspend your disbelief. It’s also just lazy. I can just imagine the writers
thinking this through: “Well fuck it, I can’t think of any way to fight a
tornado. Let’s just bomb it and call it a day”.
Play-By-Play Summary (Complete Spoilers)
Sharknado begins
by having a tornado picking up a bunch of sharks from the ocean… … … that was
fast.
We are then taken to a boat 20 miles off the coast of
Mexico, where a stereotypical boat captain (for shark catching, of course) and
a stereotypical shady Asian businessman are negotiating a price for the catch.
Our Asian friend suggests $100,000 while the captain suggests $1,000,000,
indicating that one of these two men is an idiot. After the captain forces a deal at gunpoint,
the Asian man flees and we have quite possibly one of the worst standoffs ever.
They are all promptly eaten by sharks from the sharknado. Now while dropped plot points are not as
common in Sharknado as they are in
some of the other movies I will cover, it is worth mentioning that none of what
just happened ever gets mentioned again.
Now we are in Southern California, where people are doing
beach stuff like surfing, volley ball, tanning, and being attractive. We are
introduced to Fin, a bar owner who was some kind of big deal in the surfing
world, and Baz, a wisecracking Tasmanian.
We are also introduced to Nova, a bartender (Fin’s only one, I guess) with
attitude who for some reason does
not like to have her ass grabbed by old men, namely George, the movies token likable drunk. We also learn that Hurricane David is coming and that it is
driving the sharks away, which doesn’t make any goddamn sense at all since we
know full well it is doing the exact opposite.
Fin tries to save a woman from the sharks because despite
her flailing and cries for help, no one seems to give a shit. I am not making
this up:
Sharks then start attacking everybody near the shore and
ignore Fin and Baz in the middle of the ocean. The eventually attack Fin and Baz
(I guess when all other options were exhausted), but the two escape. Back at
the bar, Nova makes a move on Fin, which is gross. Fin then calls his obviously-ex
wife, April, and she’s a total bitch to him.
All of the sudden, sharks come crashing through the windows
of the bar, and after everyone leaves the bar, the hurricane immediately
decides to demolish the entire beachfront in a matter of seconds because that’s
how hurricanes behave. This includes people being chased by a rogue Ferris
wheel.
Fin, Nova, George, and Baz try to make their way to April’s
house, but the entirety of Southern California is under water, and the sharks
are swimming around everywhere. Fin also has this weird disease where he is
absolutely compelled to be heroic, so he goes and helps some people. George
also tries to be heroic, but God doesn’t like George, so his heroics are
rewarded by being hit by a monster wave and devoured by sharks. They finally
arrive at April’s house, which Fin
notes is “in the hills” and therefore they should have time to get everyone,
which we know is bullshit.
At the house, we meet April, Claudia (Fin’s and April’s daughter),
and April’s boyfriend, who is a total doucheface and who fortunately exists in
the movie for all of one minute and twenty-three seconds (exact time) before he is eaten. Once
the shark has consumed all but his legs, everyone then decides to try and save him, which surprisingly doesn’t work.
Nova then shoots the shark in the head with a shotgun several times because she
is thus far the only woman in this movie who isn’t fucking useless. We then
find out that Fin also has a son, Matt, who is in flight school, which is news
to Fin. At this point we begin to wonder how many kids he has not mentioned
yet. Next, Fin “distracts” (his words) another shark by singlehandedly impaling
its brain with a rod of some sort, and they all escape just before the entire
house collapses for no reason.
On their way to Matt, Fin notices a bus stranded in the road
(partially under water of course) under the bridge that they’re on (read:
they’ll need to RAPPEL down). There’s no explanation as to how he saw the bus,
but who cares? Fin claims that they must help them without even knowing if
anyone is on the bus (of course there is but he doesn’t know that). April very
correctly scolds him for choosing to ensure the safety of others before his own
family. Fin promptly ignores this and proves April absolutely correct by going
to the rescue. Using an extremely convenient set of professional rock climbing
equipment, Fin rappels down has every individual in the bus (twenty or so kids
and a fat aging hippie) pulled up to the bridge. He accomplishes this task,
which should take hours, in a matter of minutes because this is a movie. I
can’t believe I am about to say this, but on Fin’s ascent, a shark jumps at least fifty feet (no joke) in the air and (no joke) grabs hold of the rope because
gravity is for pussies. Seriously, look:
The hurricane instantly stops, as hurricanes are wont to do
after someone saves lots of people. But then some tornados form in the distance
and kill the bus driver with debris because he was totally asking for it. The
wind also destroys the “Hollywood” sign because that is a clause in the
“Hollywood” sign’s contract for starring in movies. As they drive away, a shark
lands on the roof of their car and bites through it despite having absolutely
no leverage with which to do so. Nova takes care of it via shotgun, and they get
out of the car when they smell gas, which makes absolutely no sense because the
shark was on the roof. As any of you readers who have ever had a gas leak know,
cars explode shortly after having a gas leak.
They stock up on supplies, and in the store, Claudia warns
Nova not to go after Fin because Claudia thinks her dad sucks. They steal a car
and blow through a police checkpoint because they just have no restraint whatsoever.
The cops actually give chase because I guess they have nothing better to do
during the storm of the century.
At the flight school place thing, Baz looks outside to see
that a sharknado is headed their way, and they find Matt shortly after. When
they tell him what’s been going on, he has what is definitely that only
reaction in this movie that could’ve happened in the real world:
They debate for a minute as to whether or not it is possible
that sharks could have made this far inland, with Fin saying it’s “entirely
possible”, which is ridiculous, but this is Sharknado
after all. After an expendable unnamed colleague of Matt’s is taken by the
sharknado, it promptly vanishes, presumably because it’s had its fill for the
day.
Fin then baffles the hell out of the entire audience by
claiming they need to stand and fight, as if you can fight a tornado. Matt
directs them to a hardware store, which considering it was a decision made on
the spot, is the smartest thing anyone has suggested thus far into the movie.
However, our praise for Matt instantly ceases when he proposes that they throw a
bomb into the tornado to destroy it. This scene is so colossally stupid that I
already dedicated an entire section to it, so I won’t show it here. Seriously
though, it is an assault on the brain. Baz also separately starts building a bomb
because I don’t know why. That’s why.
At this point, Claudia starts bitching to Fin about how he has
never been there for her despite being there for her this entire movie. He
reminds her of that and she tries to process it. While making the bombs, Nova
tells Matt about when she was a child and sharks ate pretty much her entire
family when her grandfather’s fishing boat went down on a fishing trip, and that’s why she hates sharks. This is
Matt’s reaction.
 |
| Durrrrrrr... |
Before Nova and Matt take off in the helicopter, Baz drives
up in the Hummer and reveals his bold Plan B. If Matt and Nova’s plan doesn’t
work, he’s going to drive the Hummer, with a bomb in it, into the tornado. So
to recap: if the bombs being thrown into the tornado are ineffective, he’s
going to suicide bomb the tornado. It’s bulletproof.
So Matt and Nova fly to the sharknado (helicopters are
awesome near tornados) and Fin shoots one of the sharks headed for them with a
pistol. Once the shark is dead, the tornado no longer feels compelled to hold
onto it so it just drops out of the sky. Nova throws a bomb into the tornado
and it totally works! This victory is soon eclipsed by the best scene part of
the movie. I’m not even going to try and describe it.
Shortly after, Baz and some random people we’ve never met
before who are helping him are injured by shark-missiles and, Baz is taken up
into the sharknado, effectively knocking off the only remaining character we
liked (the other being George (and I guess we care a little about Nova (maybe(?)))).
Nova and Matt destroy the second tornado, and the falling sharks lead to one of
the most hilarious deaths ever:
Afterward, Fin rescues some elderly people and blows up a
now shark-filled pool. He does this even though the sharks can’t hurt anyone as
long as they’re in the pool. Nova bombs the third sharknado but SURPRISE: it
doesn’t work. Then a shark from the sharknado grabs hold of the helicopter and
while trying to stab it repeatedly, Nova is killed preposterously. Matt’s
reaction is pure gold.
Matt has a rocky landing but is okay, and then Fin, with his
hero disease, decides to drive the Hummer into the tornado to, as he puts it,
“finish this”. At this point I’ll remind you that there is no reason that this
should work. Fin drives the car up to the sharknado but jumps out at the last
moment (which is something Baz never thought of). After the last tornado is
destroyed, hundreds of sharks start falling from the sky, and one of them heads
straight for Claudia. Fin pushes her out of the way and then literally jumps into the shark’s mouth. Why he
couldn’t just also move out of the way is a mystery.
Fin chainsaws his way out of the shark’s belly and guess
who’s inside as well: Nova! (who was swallowed… whole… wholly whole). Probability
can suck a dick. After Matt revives her, Nova tells him that her real name is
Jenny Lynn. She then leans into him, indicating she totally into him now. I
guess since she couldn’t have Fin, hey a silver medal’s not so bad, right?
Lastly April and Fin make out. This is completely out of left field being that
(next to) nothing in this movie indicated they were becoming closer as a
couple. They all then stare into the sunset and Fin says, “Hell of a day”. Well
said, Fin. Well said.
THE END
