Sharknado - Yep, There is Such a Movie

I swear my body hates me.  All was starting to look good with the exorcism of this hellish cold that I had last week, but it turns out that one can never count out a well motivated illness.  It is a very frustrating thing, although I should be happy that I do not have a runny nose.  That's always the worst.  It keeps you up at night and the constant sniffly faces the afflicted make while trying to keep the situation in check just ends up annoying everyone.  I am glad I am not one of 'those.'  On the anxiety front, it sucks.  It was an awful weekend which lead to me watching awful movies.  Crappy movies are my comfort food.  Chips as well... I like those a lot.

Today I am looking at the film Sharknado, which is about tornadoes full of sharks.  It's not a spoiler, the name kind of implies it.  It stars Beverly Hills: 90210 cast member Ian Ziering, who plays the lead role as Finley 'Fin' Shepard.  That dastardly global warming as caused all sorts of sharks to hang out just off the coast of Los Angeles when a hurricane pops in for a visit, heaving the cluster of sharks through the air and onto the shore.  As well, there is some flooding, so sharks end up on the streets and popping up through storm drains.  Don't even think of hiding, these sharks are adept at being hurled through windows and attacking people.  When such a catastrophe happens, who will save us?

Before I continue too far, I should mention that this movie was created by The Asylum Studios for the SyFy channel in the States and aired on the Space network in Canada.  It became somewhat of an instant sensation as celebrities started tweeting about it, followed by a few hundred thousand others.  Now, not all of those people were watching the movie during this Twitter storm that saw up to 5,000 tweets per minute, but who can stand idly by why a conversations about sharks in tornadoes happens?  Sharknado quickly became The Asylum's most well known movie, and has since seen actual theatre time for limited engagements.  Normally, their movies are all straight to video.

So, instead of trying to dissect the plot and talk about themes, I am more so going to look at if it lived up to the wide acclaim it got for being a great B-movie.  Personally, I think the main talking point around this movie was simply the concept.  We love chit chatting about the quirky things in life, and what could be quirkier than the premise of Sharknado.  It is what caused many people to want to join the bandwagon without even changing the channel.

As far as the film itself goes, they really held nothing back.  I remember reading an interview with Asylum executives who were talking about their normal special effect caps for movies (to keep the budget in check) but that they went way over their limit on this film.  This decision was very smart, because it is the horrid special effects that carry half of the workload of this film as we are treated to sights we never thought we would ever see, such as John Heard bashing a land bound shark over the dome with his bar stool (while people were grabbing guns to arm themselves, Heard took his stool).  Throughout the film, we are treated to more and more absurd visuals that can cause very infectious laughter.

The other half of the workload for this film is pretty much right on the back of Ian Ziering.  He really commits to this role... seriously, he goes all in and that is what makes it fun.  The philosophy of The Asylum is to take the movies seriously even though they are intentionally cheesy, and the former student of West Beverly Hills High School does just that.  His determination to this film adds a great layer of entertainment and over dramatic moments (my favourite).

Eventually, this film falls into the same trap that most B-movies enter where it is not evenly entertaining throughout.  Because the fun of these movies are those great scenes and moments that we laugh about and talk about with friends, it is hard for the movie to still be an equally entertaining throughout.  What we get are spikes in entertainment and then drop offs.  Don't get me wrong, the spikes in this movie rival most others and is a definite must see for fans of the cheese.

In the end, high expectations let me down.  I suppose I was expecting the Schindler's List of bad movies, and the film could not live up to that.  Really, the hype comes from the fact that it is a great concept that is fun to talk about, the Twitter hype train that rocketed it into media outlets like CNN, and the incredible moments of airborne sharks who make a plague of locusts look kind of tolerable.  If you have not seen it yet, it is available for rent and still has replays on Space and Syfy.  Check it out... think of it as education.  Survivorman teaches us great survival skills, but Mr Stroud has never educated us on surviving a predatory storm.  So dim the lights, grab a chainsaw, grab a bar stool, and learn how to protect your family in a worst case scenario.

Cheesy Movie Rating - 3 out of 4 stars