Sharknado 5: Global Swarming

This cheesy and deliberately stupid franchise puts a smile on my face, so right there that means a 5-star baseline. Sure, Tara Reid (she of the famous nip slip) is terrible here; she looks bad (awful hair and costumes) and her "acting" doesn't help. It's Ian Zierling that holds things together; he plays his part straight and that's key.

Cassandra Scerbo is always fun to watch (and easy on the eyes); at least she got to wear some decent outfits. There are many cameos as one would expect; they fit with the parody (and self-parody) flavor.

The films are getting increasingly ridiculous, but realistically, what choice do they have? OF COURSE the novelty is wearing off!

Regarding the detractors; no one forced them to watch. The folks who like these films might just be sick of pretentious films (and actors).

The Sharknado films gleefully reference and/or steal from other films, but at least they do it openly. So there.

I'm giving this film a one-star penalty for being non-memorable. It made me smile, but just a few hours later, I don't recall why (in any detail). That's a problem. So that's only four (4) stars total.

DRIFTING OFF-TOPIC (for most, not all)

{Welcome to my Under the Silver Lake (UTSL) distributed essay. This is Part 3. Part 2 was attached to my (4-star) review of The Phantom.}

Under the Silver Lake (2018) is a strange film with an unsolved (audience) puzzle that references dozens of other films, often in very subtle ways. Sharknado V has many tie-ins.

One blatant reference is the Egyptian-style eye above the UTSL bunker-tomb -- it's right out of Sharknado 5. You can see the shark-gills in UTSL, but they're slightly smudged so you won't notice unless you look. The eye itself is a mirror image but otherwise identical.

Another blatant reference is Sam's pool, which is shaped like a shark's dorsal fin (from the camera angle used). Also, Comic-Man has a set of shark jawbones.

In UTSL, the afterlife cultists spend 6 months underground. Well, Ian Ziering, the star of the Sharknado movies, was in Six Months Later (2005, short).

For sake of brevity, I'll just tell you that this seems to lead to John Heard (George the barstool guy in Sharknado). His relevance is arguably supported by his role in The Nurse (2014); this could explain why Riki Lindhome wore a nurse's outfit in one scene.

In any case, John Heard was in O (2001). Take a look at the movie poster -- see the guy holding up the giant yellow letter "O"? This is referenced by the UTSL scene where the girls in the white VW rabbit get out to attend a rooftop pool party. One of them briefly holds a yellow doughnut-shaped pool float over her head. There's another pointer to this moment -- see my (9-star) review of LOTR -- The Two Towers (rw9878533).

It's kinda difficult to write a review about the fifth movie in a franchise called Sharknado. The formula is almost exactly the same as the first movie, (and the second, and the third, and the fourth movie too). There is some progression to the "story" but it's just a same formula of more over the top than the last. What keeps me watching? I wanna see how it all ends. And the puns. And Dolph. And Nova, (she looks so fine with dark hair).

Fin does a good job acting. Nova is actually a pretty good actress as well. I wish she wouldve taken over as Fin's wife. Then theres Tara Reid. Aside from the fact she looks like she's pushing 60, she can't act. Her "screaming" is just a lower volume monotone "ahhh" and she does it over and over here. And it seems like every sharknado sequel that comes out she gets these absurd transformations and enhancements. It's almost like the writers don't want her in the films anymore, so they wrote up something ludacris in hopes she wouldn't come back. But then Tara was like, "yeah sure looks good for a paycheck."

Then there's all the celebrity cameos, some are ok but most are just eye rolling and tired. We got popular newscasters reporting on the sharknado yet again. Same old same old. Over and over.

I made it this far through, so I want to see how it all ends in the final movie, (hint- it looks like it goes into Back to the Future territory). But know what you're getting into. I'm too far in. Send help.

Let me start off this review by stating that I legitimately enjoyed Sharknado 1-4. I found them to be quite entertaining with their fast-paced style, but Sharknado 5 makes the mistake of being too over-the-top without being as original as the previous films, making it a chore to sit through. Sharknado 5 starts off with an Indiana Jones parody and slowly unravels as the Sharknado is able to warp around, causing damage all over the globe as Fin and April chase after it. There are a few memorable moments but a lot of it is pretty forgettable, and the sheer ridiculousness of the whole film is it's downfall since the whole thing just feels like a bunch of dumb random moments sewn together. By the end of the film I was exhausted and just couldn't care as Fin and the Sharknado popped up in different places, unlike previous entries in the series where I was generally having fun watching the silly chaos unfold on screen until the credits rolled. I can't really recommend this film unless you are dead-set on going through the entire series, in which case you're probably going to see this anyway. But to anyone else I would recommend just watching one of the first 4 films instead.

(Fin addressing the Pope, played by Fabio): "Forgive me father, for I am Fin." The fact that this made me lol while sitting alone in my house could mean multiple things: the movie is working in its intended absurdity, the movie is so awful it's fun, or my mental stability is more in question than I realized. The most ridiculous and, therefore, best of the franchise…and yes, that is an opinion I can confidently have.

When going into a Sharknado movie, I think the first thing you have to remind yourself is that, it's going to be pretty rubbish. The whole series is just absolutely ridiculous, but that's what makes Sharknado, Sharknado. It's just a bit of out of this world fun, with terrible puns (seriously, Fin and Gil?) and just some really bad acting. And bad acting, especially is something you have to remember that is going to be going on throughout any Sharknado movie.

But the actors do really well, I wouldn't be surprised if they were told to act badly instead of taking the job seriously.

Sharknado 5 is, in my opinion, the best Sharknado of the series. We actually get to learn more of the science in the series. It was quite a leap from the last one, and it was pretty good. This one did a good job and I think it might have done the series some good.