It’s Memorial Day Weekend! A time for remembrance of those who have died for the freedoms we take for granted everyday.. and I can’t think of a better way to honor them than to watch a movie about freaking weather sharks snacking on B and C list celebs and extras.
Ok so.. if you don’t remember Sharknado you can read my synopsis here. But in a nutshell the main character Fin “saves” his family and loses some friends to Sharks, Fin eventually stops the threat by using some homemade bombs to stop the Sharknados in LA and that happened because of a hurricane that was in the ocean off the coast hitting a giant pod of sharks.
We open to a plane flying on a dark stormy night, and an immediate Title Card.
Once we see in the plane we get our first “celeb” cameo., This time it’s Kelly Osbourne.
She approaches Fin and April who are holding hands and are happy about “going home” she’d like an autograph for the book she thinks Fin has written about the Shaknados in LA, but he tells her that April wrote it and that she should sign it.
When she does sign it we see that’s it’s actually Camera Instructions 😀
But here is the fake cover, also it clearly has her name so I guess Kelly Osbourne is blind.
They have a little exposition, they are headed to New York which they both call “home” although it’s not clear they’ve moved, and they are going to be seeing family. Fin is not happy about the attention from the Sharknado, April is having fun with it.
While they are flying Fin thinks he sees a shark in the sky but believes it to be his imagination.
Capt Bob Wilson who is played by Robert Hays (of Airplane) tells the passengers they are about to start their decent. And he and his copilot..
Who I think is Rachel True (of The Craft) chit chat about the food. They run into some turbulence as they decend..
Meanwhile Fin is now certain he is seeing a sharks, and one smacks the plane. He yells that something is on the Wing!
But all this does is annoy other passengers like Will Wheaton here.
Well pretty quickly the annoyance turns to fear.. as sharks surround the plane and start smacking into it.
They rip a whole in the side of the jet and get inside eating passengers like Kelly Osbourne..
And they manage to somehow make the pilots both fall out of the front of the plane. This leaves no one flying the plane.
Will Wheaton also gets shark snacked on during this time.. but you already know where this is heading..
Fin of course.. is the only person who heads up to fly the plane..
And that’s somehow what he does, he lands the plane regardless of the fact he’s a bartender and it was his son who flew a helicopter with only a few weeks of flight training in the last movie.
Also April manages to get her hand chewed off because she was trying to shoot a shark with a gun an air marshal gave her as she also tried to avoid getting sucked out of the plane 😀
The plane actually lands… uh.. safely?
Whatever the shark is happening it’s not reached New York yet which seems to be doing it’s normal thing, Fin’s relatives which includes his sister (her name is Ellen) and her husband (Martin) get creepy in front of their kids talking about who had sex with who first because that’s what everyone wants to think about, anyhow they make it a point to show you that the dad turns off his phone because “no work today”, right as news plays overhead that they also do not see about the planes emergency landing. They separate, Ellen and the daughter going to the Statue of Liberty and Martin and Son heading off to a Mets Game.
Fin is interviewed on TV telling everyone a Sharknado is a coming, and they need to get the mayor and the national guard and some bombs to take them out and that he’s 100% Not Crazy. No one (including Officer Andy Dick) believes him about the sharks on the plane.
I guess he breaks away from the paparazzi to get to the hospital with his wife.
Nurse Downtown Julie Brown tells him everything is going to be ok and the Doc will be out to see him.
And as advertised, Doc Billy Ray Cyrus tells Fin that his wife is ok and that in time she will be able to do more than she thinks she can. So he goes in to see her.
April tells Fin that the Shark that attacked her had a scar on it’s face and was “stalking her” all Jaws the Revenge style, I promise that when this happened it did not look that way. Even he thinks this is crazy buillshit. He tells her not to be so literal when she’s going to lend a hand. If they strap a chainsaw on her nub like Ash from Evil Dead 2 I’m setting fire to something.
Just then on the news we are told a “Monster Storm is approaching New York” and we are also shown they have Sharks in the graphics.
Meanwhile Fin’s sister and daughter run into 2 people who are probably cameos but I don’t recognize them and they tell her about the plane landing and that Fin’s wife is in the hospital. (I later learned one of them is “Pepa” of Salt and Pepa.)
Back with Fin and April, we get our first “Fin’s got to do something to save someone”. Fin gets a call from his sister Ellen and he tells her she has to get to the city because I guess hiding in the statue isn’t enough, and she tells him that her husband (who Finn doesn’t get along with) isn’t picking up his phone so Fin needs to find them.
So Fin kisses the leather purse he calls a wife bye and heads off to rescue his Brother in Law.
It’s cameo city while Al Roker tries to explain to Matt Lauer the sudden weather…
And Judd Hirsch drives Fin to the Ball Park in his Taxi while he asks him what the inside of a shark smells like, Fin tells him it’s indescribable, and Judd tells him he thought it would smell like chicken.
Fin’s brother in law is Mark McGrath if that wasn’t obvious before and he’s sitting with Vivica Fox who is a one time ex of Fin’s named Skye and Judah Friedlander who is a mutual friend named Bryan. They all know Fin because Mark and Fin used to be buddies, and all of them seem to think he’s coming but in truth he didn’t even know about it and only just got his ticket from April now that he’s on the way to “save them”. They also make comments on the “beef” between Mark and Fin until they notice it’s getting really cold suddenly.
That’s because a cold chilly shark storm is headed right towards them.
Fin shows up at the Ball park but he’s not in time to get anyone out, he’s only in time for Skye to awkwardly kiss him before he tells her he’s still with April
By the time he does get to his friends it’s Sharknado Time!
So everyone from Team Fin grabs a bat, including Bryan who grabs this comically huge bat and runs out of the stadium.
They decide their next move should be to get into the city and the best way is the Subway. They even say they hope it’s not flooded and we are immediately shown some engineers talking about how flooded it is.
Team Ellen decide to get the heck off Liberty Island and on to a Ferry.
Which seems like a dumb idea considering how Sharky things look in the bay.
Staying closer to the middle of the boat is the best idea they have but it doesn’t last for long because just as soon as they get close to the water to take a look..
One of her C List buddies gets shark smooched, and just like that Team Ellen is down one person. Ellen actually uses a tazer on the shark and you see the friends face and it’s actually probably the goriest kill yet that wasn’t a shark.
While Team Fin are riding on a weirdly un-crowded subway during the sharkstorm, he and his brother in law chat about how the only reason Fin doesn’t like him is because they were both man whores when they were younger and he didn’t want a man whore dating his little sister, you know toxic shit like that.
What they don’t know is some workers who have been trying to prevent the subway flooding have been eaten by Alligators, which I guess was always a possibility even if you aren’t having Shark Weather outside.
So naturally the water brings Subway Sharks! and they eat some people off the back of the train.
Including Bryan who got the large bat which he never did get to use.
Also since they used the subway they decide to cameo future child sex predator and now former Subway spokesmonster Jared Fogle. That didn’t age well. :/ sadly you don’t see him get eaten by a shark.
They eventually just stop the train and get out on the streets where everything is still business as usual because NYC gives 0 fucks in the Sharknadoverse. They get back in the same cab Fin took earlier. Fin tells his remaining companions that he needs a hardware store and wants to make some bombs to blow up the sharknados. Fin’s nephew tells them they should go to his school because it’s a fortress.
Team Ellen has finally made it back to the mainland, and they don’t know where to go so they run around the streets for a bit.
They run into this friendly stock broker guy who tells them they should go to the Stock Exchange. (which is not where they are heading)
But as good as that idea is, it’s not happening, because when he heads back for his important briefcase full of business papers..
The CGI head of the statue of liberty breaks free from it’s body which is all the way out in the bay and flings itself all the way to where he’s standing.
Lady Liberty isn’t done yet because she chases Team Ellen down a street in a trash truck they stole, but they manage to get out of it’s way by slamming head on into a telephone pole with no injuries. The two garbage men end up being killed by the head which is sad considering one of them found a free bowling ball.
The Head comes to rest here, which I’m sure is recognizable tunnel entrance to someone but not me. 😀
Al Roker again tells people there is a sharknado coming, and calls it a Tornado with Teeth. But no one on the streets is doing anything other than the usual.
The movie hasn’t checked in with April in a hot minute, but apparently she decides to escape from the hospital rather than be moved someplace safer.
Then she saves some 12 year old girl who is looking for her mom..
And gives this look for way too long when she comes face to face with a shark before she finally does exit the hospital to find her husband. It’s also implied she steals an ambulance.. which might have been useful to you know.. to people in an emergency.
Team Fin exit the cab, and go searching for supplies to fight the sharknado since they can’t find a hardware store like in the last movie.
Fin gets some propane from his buddy Biz Markie (RIP) and reminisces about dating his wife at Biz’s pizza place.
Mark and his son get water guns filled with lighter fluid and some road flares.
Also a single sword. And back in the cab they go to hunt a sharknado. They decide the best thing to do is find the tallest most convenient building they can to “toss a bomb into the sharknado.” They decide a hotel they are staying in which is the “Bales Tower Hotel” happens to be the second largest hotel in North America, although it’s clearly not the largest building in the city.. So that’s where they go, surely the tornado will stop by.
The cab trip is cut short because some CGI water fills this overhead shot of the mean streets of New York City..
They get stuck in the cab surrounded by shark filled water, and in order to escape they tie a rope to a light pole and swing across to some kind of safety.
Or at least they try to, Judd Hirsch gets eaten by a hammerhead when he tries to jump which leaves Fin with no way to cross because Judd takes the rope with him as he’s gobbled up.
So Fin.. jumps from shark to shark to safety because I don’t really fucking know.
They do manage to make a “Jump the Shark” reference.
They make it to the hotel and Fin and Skye head to the top of this building which we are told is very tall.
Tall is 65 floors in our story. Surely a Sharknado will be right on it’s way.
Team Ellen decides to rent some bikes because their careers in GTA where cut short by that telephone poll.
But while they are biking for fun and survival, Pepa falls behind.
Only to be flattened by a Whale Shark.
But Ellen and her daughter do make it to the Hotel and their family is reunited.
The forecast looks pretty bad as we finally get some good shots of the 2 confirmed Sharknados
As they head towards one another in Central Park.
Fin and Skye try to bomb them because they do indeed meet up right in front of the hotel, and Al Roker warns if they do they will become a giant Tornado that will wreck steel buildings.
After multiple tries of launching tiny Coleman branded mini propane tanks into the Sharknado they manage to maybe kill one of them, but it makes the building flood somehow and rains fire sharks on everyone.
Fin and Skye head back down and Ellen and her family head up and they get trapped in the stairs with fire sharks coming down and not fire sharks coming up after them..
So they break into another floor and head down a fire escape to get past the barely interesting drama and head out of the building on to the street which is supposed to be flooded considering there are sharks on the 6th floor.
So of course, it’s not flooded outside and instead we see they are greeted by April who has not stolen an ambulance as was previously inferred. Instead she is in a Firetruck in the passenger seat, and she asks them if they need a ride since the firemen are her personal taxi now.
We see widespread damage as sharks come through the windows and into Grand Central Station..
And they slam into the signs in Times Square.
And again Al Roker reminds everyone about how bad the storm is.. and he also relays that there are actually still 2 Sharknados and not one so I guess Fin only delayed the possible joining of the two tornados. They also tell us that the Sharknados are headed to the Empire State Building.
So Fin and the fam head to Empire State, and he’s mostly concerned with just getting everyone to safety.
But the Mayor tells him “he’s the expert” and spouts a few New York-isms at him and tells him everyone is behind him and blah blah.
And they immediately somehow have a plan.
For no good reason there is a bunch of freon on top of the Empire State Building, and the spire is a lightning rod. Fin wants to use all this to somehow freeze the Sharknado because in the Sharknado-verse a body in motion doesn’t stay in motion.
Throughout the movie there are these weather girl b-roll clips of weather graphics and she tells people that sharks will be dropping at 2inches an hour. I’m not sure how many sharks that is but it’s a lot I guess.
The Mayor hands Fin an NYFD official chainsaw which comes in handy in just a moment.
Because right after Fin gives a rousing speech to the people on the ground about being New Yorkers and being strong or whatever.. a giant shark flies towards him.
So he slowly chainsaws it in half.
And it seriously takes forever.
But he doesn’t get any blood on that Husqvarna so it’s all good no rusted chains tonight.
The Sharknado is approaching the building now and everyone is trying to get into place.
While Skye goes inside the building to get the wires hooked up Fin sees a shark break away and it heads his way
So he tries and fails at getting his Chainsaw started. I guess he should have refilled the infinite gas tank.
As the shark heads down to get him things start to get momentarily worrisome.
Just then.. Fucking April shows up to save the day.. and how is she going to that you ask?
because she now has a circular saw attached to her stub.. THEY DID IT. THEY FUCKING EVIL DEAD 2’d this shit.
Christ.
He asks her where she got it and she tells him.. “She had help” Thats it. That’s all the explanation you get. Skye comes back after hooking up the wires and gets April back downstairs but has to come up again to sacrifice herself because the wires end up too short.
She and Fin have to make themselves part of an electrical circuit in order to blow the freon because as we all know dangerous chlorofluorocarbons are explosive.
Fin and Skye make a bunch of grunting noises and shake a lot, then suddenly they are launched into the air as the Freon explodes.
Skye is immediately eaten by sharks.
Fin just CGI ragdolls way up in the sky and it must be very far up because he falls for like 5 minutes.
The Sharknado Freezes and falls apart and just dissipates.
And Sharks again Rain from the Sky.
We get several scenes of New Yorkers killing the Sharks as they fall to the ground.
One guy even throws running chainsaws into the air and they chop up the sharks. Those are going to be fun when they finally fall down.
Like everyone is in on it.
Even Kelly Rippa.
To stay busy Fin finds his chainsaw which magically works again and he saws up some sharks as he falls to his doom.
Then he gets tired of that and steers a shark as he rides him and it’s not obvious what’s going on just yet but it looks a little like Dr Strangelove for a moment.
He manages to impale the shark on top of the Empire State building because I guess that’s how high up he was.
Then Fin gives his wife a wedding ring off a disembodied hand. It doesn’t look like it’s same hand she lost and I don’t recall them trying to make that connection.. but she lets him put the ring on her finger.
And that’s fucking it.
I did not list all the cameos but you can find those here.. god help you if you want to see this movie lol.
Next Week is Sharknado 3. I may need a stiff drink now.
