I'm happy for The Asylum as they have been
slaving away at this movie making thing for quite a while now
and have been subjected to almost complete derision since Day
1. Not from me mind you, but by an awful lot of folks
out there, and sure, the vast majority of this derision might
be deserved… but still. 'Sharknado' changed all of that…
in a way. It was still a terrible movie, but it got my
boys some much needed publicity and I assume a revenue uptick,
and as such we are pleased for them. And like any
company that makes movies, if one was marginally successful,
then its time to hit them with a sequel. So here we are
with 'Sharknado 2: The Second One', and while it too is
terrible, I think it is better than the first one. I
guess?
A few years have passed since the sharknado tragedy in Los
Angeles, but Fin (Ian Ziering) and April (Tara Reid) have
found a way to turn that frown upside down by writing a book
about it. In fact, they are on their way to NYC to
attend a book signing, but dang if Fin ain't tripping for
real. He thinks, upon approach, that he sees sharks
floating around in the atmosphere. That's crazy,
right? Of course it isn't because the name of the movie
is Sharknado. What's crazy is that Kelly Osbourne is on
board as an air waitress and this plane is being flown by
Robert Hays. Thus we have what will be a staple of this
particular episode of Sharknado... the cameo. The
Co-Pilot was Rachel True with whom we've had an unrequited
love affair with ever since 'The Covenant'.
Fortunately, the plane land safely thanks to Fin's badassery,
since it's pilots were eaten by sharks… don't think about it…
though April did suffer a rather severe injury during the
attack. Now Fin has to jump back into action to warn the
Big Apple of the impending sharknado. This time helping
Fin are his ex-girlfriend Skye (Vivica Fox) and some other
people like his sister Ellen (Kari Wuhrer). That almost
a hundred years of hotness between Vivica and Kari right
there. Fin and Skye were in love in high school back in
the day, but alas it was a different time with different
expectations for different people, so their love could not be…
and while this exposition between Fin and Skye took all of 45
seconds while the pair was riding up an elevator to battle
swirling sharks, it still managed to be plenty long enough for
me to throw in my mouth repeatedly.
Since this Sharknado is attacking New York,
we need news updates and normally we'd expect some obscure
fake news updates, for this movie, one owned by NBC /
Universal we get The Today Show with Matt Lauer and Al Roker,
not to mention Kelly Rippa and Michael Strahan. Al
looked like he was completely on board with this madness… not
so sure about Matt.
The last time, Fin threw a bomb in the Sharknado to save L.A.,
this time that's not gonna work because of some nonsense Al
Roker told me that I forgot. This time, Fin, with the
help of his girlfriend from high school, all by themselves,
have to slice and dice air sharks and save New York. One
of them ain't gonna make it. One of them is Black.
Gee, which one would that be?
Directed again by Anthony C. Ferrante, I guess Sharknado has
become a real live cultural phenomena, since the word is there
will be a third one heading our way in the near future.
Is this a good thing? Probably not, but it's here, so
let's embrace it.
The first Sharknado, at least as much as could be expected,
took the occurrence of a Sharknado kind of seriously.
This one, however, looks like it could really care less and
just plowed forward, semi-making it up as it went along, while
trying to find a way to justify the numerous cameos that are
going to show up. Billy Ray Cyrus once again playing a
doctor, VJ Downtown Julie Brown not introducing bad 90's
music, legendary rapper Pepa not rapping, Biz Markie also not
rapping, Will Wheaton not uttering a single line, but at least
genre vixen favorite Tiffany Shepis did get her face ripped
off by a shark. Gotta appreciate that.
But what makes this version better? Hell I don't
know. It's bigger and dumber and less consequential, as
if that's even possible, but it does move faster than the
original and has a lot more ridiculousness. We did think
that after Skye gave her life and got Sam Jacksoned in the
process while rescuing New York, you would hope someone
would've at least tipped a hat to the sister and her selfless
sacrifice, but alas it was like she never existed.
That's not cool.
The movie is called 'Sharknado 2'. What can be said
about it? It is what it is.
