Sharknado

Sharknado, the hit SyFy Channel original has positioned itself as critic-proof, cheeseball goofiness incarnate. The entire enterprise is a joke. Sharknado knows it is a cheesy SyFy original movie, and it doesn't apologize for it. It is tongue-in-cheek, self aware, and sarcastic. "How can you criticize this movie?" some might ask, "It's supposed to be goofy!". Well goofiness is great if it is entertaining. Sharknado is not entertaining in the least.

I'll skip the credits, skip the plot and get right down to business, this movie is a crappy made-for-TV snooze-fest, starring D-list celebrities and made by inept "filmmakers" who seem to have trouble differentiating between endearingly cheesy and downright bad. Sharknado is "critic-proof" because of the assumption that viewing the movie critically would expose its cheesiness, which is intentional. However, the problem with Sharknado is not that it is silly, it's that it is boring.

The cast has no charm, the effects are in a dead zone between not bad enough to be funny, and not good enough to be convincing, the look of the film is murky and dull, and the action scenes are incomprehensible and poorly edited. Sharknado is an absolute bore. It is an example of how a critic-proof, self-aware, tongue-in-cheek cheesefest can still go horribly wrong. Yes, I "get" Sharknado. It is meant to be a dumb B-movie, I understand, but dumb fun does require more than just conscious stupidity. Sharknado is not entertaining, a flaw that will sink any movie, whether it has shark-filled tornadoes or not.

20/100

Let me just say that I watched this movie to be entertained—not enthralled or hanging on the edge of my seat but just distracted and carefree for a couple of hours. I got what I wanted. Only, I didn't expect to laugh so much. I'm thankful for the laughter, though, because it kept at bay any sort of aesthetic sense that might have interfered with my viewing pleasure.

Regardless of genre, most movies are a construction of thoughtfully planned scenes, each of which presenting plot points and character motivations that, together, form a plausible narrative, allowing for the proverbial "suspension of disbelief." Such careful craftsmanship is never more important than at a film's beginning. The creators of Sharknado didn't bother with any of that.

There is an opening sequence involving a fishing boat on a stormy sea. On board a greedy captain in a raincoat and an Asian man in a three- piece suit squabble about money (presumably for some nefarious service performed by the captain). Handguns are soon brandished, bullets are fired, and chomping sharks are washed on deck by the waves (à la The Perfect Storm). People are shot or eaten, and a massive water spout filled with digitally-rendered sharks stretches into the sky. Then the opening credits begin rolling, and it's as if that scene never happened. Other than the brief preview of the "sharknado" to come at the end of the second act (yes, I'm taking some liberties by using standard film vernacular to describe this storyline), it was as if this scene was jumbled together from leftover footage of some other SyFy shark movie. Did this bother me? Nope. In fact, it wasn't until after the movie's end that I even remembered the ship's captain and the shootout on the water. By then, I was still grinning too much to care.

One grin-evoking moment occurs when Nova, the leading female character played by Cassie Scerbo, stabs a shark to death with a cue stick in a bar. While this isn't the first shark encounter for the protagonists or even the first shark-on-land encounter, it does seem to set the tone for the rest of the movie. Anthony Ferrante, the director, wants everyone to realize that this is not—and does not aspire to be—Jaws.

Though he need not worry about anyone mistaking this shark movie for Steven Spielberg's classic, Ferrante repeatedly makes references to it. I won't use terms such as "allusion" or even "homage" to describe these references. Perhaps "farcical" might be more appropriate, or maybe "comic relief," but even those terms lend themselves to a more contemplative critique than I am attempting.

I think Ferrante's purpose was to preemptively counter all would-be critics who might say things like "This is no Jaws." He could have just titled the movie Another Killer Shark Film That Is Not Jaws. But that would have been too self-effacing and certainly not as much fun.

In carrying out this strategy, Ferrante doesn't waste much time. Moments after the sharks begin plopping onto the streets and docks, Fin—a bar-owner, father and former pro-surfer played by Ian Ziering of Beverly Hills, 90210 fame—makes quick work of one by shooting a diver's air tank that is jutting out of its gullet, causing it and the shark to explode. Remind you of anything? Yep, there's even a corny one-liner: "That's what you get for trying to eat me."

Later we have a quasi-touching expository scene that reveals Nova's pre-established hatred of sharks. The character of Fin's son, Matt, played by Chuck Hittinger, notices an unusual scar on Nova's thigh. To get her to talk about it, he lifts up his shirt and reveals a scar on his abdomen and explains its not-so-dramatic origin. When he asks Nova how she got her scar, she says she had a tattoo removed. Not buying it, Matt prods further and Nova tells a story about going fishing with her grandfather and his friends when she was a little girl. She says that their boat sank and sharks began to circle and attack them. The men managed to lift her out of the water and onto something floating nearby, but a shark still managed to take a hunk out of her leg. In summation, Nova says: "Six people went into the water and one little girl came out. The sharks took the rest."

The scene in Jaws in which Robert Shaw's character Quint tells the tale of the sinking of the USS Indionapolis is arguably one of the most memorable scenes in film history. Ferrante knows this. Nova's scar story, in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way, serves to again make the director's statement: "I am aware of Jaws, as is everyone in the civilized world, and this is not that movie!"

Later, this same point is made again, this time even more comically and pointedly. After fabricating some propane bombs, Nova and Matt take to the skies in a helicopter to hunt the tornadoes. Matt flies perilously close to one of the funnel clouds so that Nova can toss one of the bombs into it. She sees an enormous shark coming straight at them and declares: "We're gonna need a bigger chopper."

If you want to be moderately entertained, then I don't think you will be disappointed with Sharknado. Don't expect too much going into it—and bring with you a willingness to suspend your own sense of disbelief. Most important, keep in mind that this is not Jaws. I don't think that fact will slip you mind, however. The director made sure of it.

I only wish this movie had been released to Drive-In theaters and been promoted on a twin bill with any other low rent/grade/brow cinematic masterpiece from the ill human beings at SyFy.

To paraphrase Elvis Costello- I just don't know where to begin.. Wooden acting, special effects from a Midwestern middle school science fair, a script that veers wildly from insipid to bizarre to total nonsense, actors that should face summary execution if they made only scale and still cashed their paychecks, a director that makes Ed Wood look like Ingmar Bergman. In other words a glorious triumph of B-grade movie making..

As you take in the visceral train wreck (that could only be better if released in grainy 8mm), you are reminded of what good/bad scifi is. Absolute suspension of disbelief, pure enjoyment of the insanity of it all, and a curious thought that you could not enjoy life more if you were shotgunned Thai sticks by Godzilla himself..

It is the generic Twinkie of B movies. Made all the better by the fact that it IS a cheap, sickeningly self indulgent wad of fluff that you feel doubly guilty of consuming.

God help me I do love it so....

That's it. That's my review. I can't top the title in explanation, you have Twister and Jaws in one movie with none of the budget or talent. It's the best B movie I've seen. I can't top that. I can't expand on that. I'm literally just typing to fill IMDb'S 10 line rule. See this line? This line holds no purpose! Just watch this movie. That's it. That's all. Oh look I reached my limit. I can post this now. I can post this simple stupid possibly junk review now right? Because this movie is review proof. It's perfect. It's awesome. WHY ARE YOU READING THIS AND NOT WATCHING TORNADO SHARKS!? Seriously you have no reason to read anymore, you know this movie contains Sharks and Tornados. It's exactly as stupid as you think, go watch it NOW!

When I saw this glorious film on the esteemed syfy network, I knew they had another massive, award winning hit that would get snubbed out of any award ceremonies. Now, time to be serious. I assumed Tara Reid was dead. Didn't even know she was alive so I was shocked to see her in this movie. Sharknado was like a cluster f word of things that didn't make sense. It was so bad that I couldn't stop watching this train wreck of a movie. Bad cgi doesn't cut it. While it may not have been birdemic bad, but it wasn't much better. Watching the movie all the way through is what I am assuming a brain aneurism feels like. I am sad that I watched it.