MOVIE REVIEW: SHARKNADO 2 – THE SECOND ONE / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: ANTHONY C. FERRANTE / SCREENPLAY: THUNDER LEVIN / STARRING: IAN ZIERING, TARA REID, VIVICA A. FOX, MARK MCGRATH, KARI WUHRER
Yes, there’s another one. After last year’s Sharknado sent social media networks into meltdown, it was decided that a sequel was a good idea. I personally want to start off this review by blaming you, every single one of you who Tweeted about this or mentioned it on Facebook, for this abomination of a movie. The first movie, we get it; we can take it as a one-off and for what it was intended to be – enjoyable trash. This second one, though, it really is all kinds of bad.
The plot, or what is classed as the plot, sees extreme weather, as in sharks-in-tornadoes extreme, hit New York, where the first movie’s Fin (Ziering) and April (Reid) are visiting Fin’s sister Ellen (Wuhrer – whose lips look stapled to her face) and family. Given that the film opens with Tara Reid hanging out of an aeroplane, shooting a handgun at flying sharks, you know you’re in for a bumpy ride. Seemingly running through a checklist of New York’s classic sights, including those giant alligators in the sewers, the film beats you round the head with redone moments from the first movie and a bunch of ridiculous yet somehow predictable happenings.
In terms of performances, whereas Ian Ziering fared quite well in the first movie, here it seems that everybody on the cast has been brought down to Tara Reid’s level, and that’s a level that nobody wants to be at. The fact that Sugar Ray frontman Mark McGrath puts in the best performance of the film says it all. Oh, and his character, the husband of Fin’s sister, is “cleverly” called Martin Brody, meaning there’s a Martin and Ellen Brody reference that comes across as a desperate act aimed at salvaging any chance of favourable glances from long-time shark film aficionados.
Badly scripted, badly acted, with horrible SFX work, and then that ridiculous title, there really is nothing good that we can say about the film apart from the fact that some New Yorkers may enjoy the locale and spirit of the film in terms of how much it rams New York down its audience’s throat. Even then, it may be a push to get any enjoyment out of Sharknado 2.
Even as fans of bad movies, shark movies, and bad shark movies, Starburst can give zero love to this atrocity. But that doesn’t matter, for Sharknado 3 has already been greenlit. In a subgenre that seems filled with movies trying to outdo each other in terms of how bad they can be, you have to ask yourself when enough really is enough. For us, the moment that Tara Reid is shooting sharks out of the sky whilst hanging out of a plane, yeah, that’s when the “so-bad-it’s-good” concept jumped the shark.
