Sharknado 5: Global Swarming

The fifth instalment of the Sharknado franchise is another ridiculous and over the top experience. This film seemingly takes bits and pieces from other popular films such as the Indiana Jones films as well as making several references to other films (as expected).

As a whole, this film felt confusing in its plot. Was slightly hard to keep up and understand exactly what was occurring. A lot of Juno scarves abs back and furry to different locations (felt like an Avengers film).

The main plot revolves around Fin and April (Tara Reid has her most screentime here out of the series) trying to rescue their youngest son Gil (played by a different actor than in the 4th film) from a Sharknado or vortex of sort.

Similar to the 4th film, this film sees April being retransformed and put back together in more depth as a cyborg/terminator type. It was a different look and looked odd at first but we got used to it.

Sharknado 5: Global Swarming looked like it had the biggest budget of the series compared to the previous 4, as they travel to Europe and Australia. It is essentially the same plot involving massive shark waves with Fin and crew trying to stop the Sharknados just in other countries.

Nova also returns as she shows a lot of depth and is given the most to do here. We see her storyline revolving around her group of "Sharknado sisters". Cassandra Scerbo delivers her best performance in the series and is lost notably one of the highlights.

The cgi does look cheap and as bad as Sharknado 4. This film didn't feel as overall fun and something was missing. Having a hard time remembering memorable or key moments. Though the infamous line by Fin stood out "Same shark, different day".

This film seemed to have the most drama and depressing moments where the fun was somewhat gone. It was more serious in tone yet of course over the top in what occurred. The very ending was entirely confusing yet of course set up the next film (now known as the final film of the franchise).

If Sharknado 5 is the worst of the franchise to date, it is not entirely much worse than Sharknado 4, or on par in a sense.

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).

Sharknado 5 is by far the wackiest, craziest and most over the top movie in the franchise. But here is the problem, that isn't a good thing.

The action sequences are still dumb and look awful, the wall to wall "Jokes" simply aren't funny and the movie has absolutely no redeeming features.

Movie references, various celebrity cameos and Tara Reid grunting like a pig in heat in every other scene.

I do hope, I do pray (And I don't even believe in that nonsense) that this is the end but considering the cliffhanger ending I fear we'll see more shortly.

The Good:

Chris Kattan as the British Primeminister is still better than Theresa May

The Bad:

Sam Fox, really!?

Tara Reid

Still a Sharknado film!

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.

I love the ridiculousness of these films. They are clearly for a specific fan base. The only problem I have with all the movies is BORING and LIFELESS Tara Reid. She has minimal lines for a reason I guess. Still she brings no energy to the film and I think they would be better off without her.