Sharknado: The 4th Awakens manages to both try too hard and try not at all, and the result is infuriatingly boring. If you are wondering why this review hasn’t started off with an explanation of the plot, that is because it’s Sharknado. A bizarre type of weather formation has struck (this time despite a weather system that should have stopped it) and the heroes have to survive and stop it. There really isn’t much here.
That in itself isn’t a bad thing – a movie doesn’t need a dense plot if it can make up for it with great set pieces, or a brilliant cast, or by being really funny – but Sharknado 4 has none of these things. The action isn’t exciting, the cast aren’t brilliant (to be honest, it takes them a while just to get to vaguely interesting), and it is almost never funny.
What makes this truly irritating is that on paper this should be a truly entertaining movie. This is a movie in which our heroes travel across Las Vegas on a novelty pirate ship in the wake of a tornado filled with sharks. This is a movie in which someone flies through a tornado and stabs a shark with a chainsaw sword. These things should be amazing and leave viewers filled with adrenaline! However, they aren’t and they don’t. What they are is really, really boring.
The best way to illustrate the paradox of too much and too little are the tornadoes themselves. In this latest installment of the series not only do we have a Sharknado, there is also a Firenado, and a Lightningnado. At one point we see cows swept up into a tornado. The sight of the cows in the air is mildly amusing but the movie immediately cuts to Gilbert Gottfried and has him call it a Cownado.
There are movies that are so bad they are good, but they achieve this through a sincere effort at making a movie which sadly didn’t work out as the creators intended. This movie on the other hand just feels forced. Every time something that might have been interesting happens, the movie has to spend a moment to draw attention to it, almost as if it is patting itself on the back. Yes, a tornado made out of sharks and lightning is pretty cool as ideas go. It stops being so cool, however, when the movie trips over itself to point out how crazy it thinks it is being.
Do not watch this movie. You may see the cover and think that if you watch it you are in store for a roller coaster thrill ride and some good, stupid fun. You aren’t. This movie is stupid, but certainly isn’t fun. Put your time, and your money elsewhere.
SHARKNADO: THE 4TH AWAKENS / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: ANTHONY C. FERRANTE / SCREENPLAY: THUNDER LEVIN / STARRING: IAN ZIERING, TARA REID, MASIELA LUSHA, RYAN NEWMAN, TOMMY DAVIDSON, DAVID HASSELHOFF, SETH ROLLINS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW 
