A review of "Sharknado 2: The Second One"

Confessions of a Film Junkie: A review of “Sharknado 2: The Second One”

By: Brian Cotnoir

Can you believe we live in a world where we have not one, but two films about a tornado made of sharks???  Well, we do.  I’ll be honest with you; I was very unimpressed with the first “Sharknado” film.  I know, right, how could I think that this is a bad film, but I did.  Actually, I didn’t think it was a “bad” film, I just found it to be very underwhelming.  All the hype being built up around “Shaknado” got me excited that this was going to be a “so-bad-that-it’s-good” film like “Troll 2”, but much to my disappointment it was really boring.  So when I heard there was a sequel being made my thought on it was, “Meh...why not? They can only go up from here, since the first one was so boring”.  So is “Sharknado 2” better than its predecessor or did it somehow manage to be a lot worst?      

SyFy's Favorite Dysfunctional TV Movie couple

    So “Sharknado 2” opens on a plane flying from California to New York, where we join our two main characters from the first film Fin Shepherd and April Wexler (played by Ian Zierling and Tara Reid).  All seems to be going well on the flight when the movie decides that it wants to pay homage to the classic Twilight Zone episode “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”.  However, instead of a giant hairy gremlin on hiding on the wing of the plane we have a school of sharks being swept out of the ocean on to the plane.  The sharks tear a hole in the side of the plane and sucks out some of the other passengers while the others seem be planted firmly in their seats.  Some of the sharks even go on to eat Will Wheaton (who has a cameo as a passenger on the plane) and Kelly Osbourne (who is playing a stewardess on the plane).  April ends up hanging on for dear life and tries to fire a hand gun (that she stole off the U.S. Marshall), but ends up getting her hand bit off by one of the sharks.  Fin manages to land the plane as safely as possible, and he warns everyone who will listen of another impending sharknado that is about to strike Manhattan...to which most people blow off his warning as nonsense. To which I ask, why?  Everyone knows of and remembers the sharknado that hit California a few years earlier, and then Fin survives another one heading towards New York City—not to mention the countless other people on the plane who miraculously survived—so why the hell do people not believe him or head his warning?                                   

I can't believe I quit Sugar Ray to do this!

Any who...with April in the hospital, Fin goes to meet up with his sister Ellen, and her husband Martin Brody, who has left the shark infested resort town of Amity Island to move to New York City and be played by Mark McGrath of Sugar Ray instead of Roy Schieder. So Martin is on his way to see a New York Mets game, with his son, Fin, and Fin’s ex-girlfriend Skye???  Okay, I just want to clear something up:  Movie you know you already did the subplot about the films protagonist getting back together with his estranged lover, right?  You did that in first film with Fin & April, so why did you feel the need to throw another woman in there, with no intentions of a 3-way scene?  I mean, yes technically he and April are still divorced, but everyone wanted to see him get back together with Tara Reid’s character instead of Vivica A. Fox’s character.  So Fin arrives at the Mets Game just in time to warn his brother-in-law, and nephew that the impending sharknado, and calls his sister and niece who are visiting the Statue of Liberty to warn them.  Now it’s a quest for survival as a sharknado hits the most populated city in the United States.        

AND the film features Dr. Billy Ray Cyrus 

        Let me just start by saying that I actually enjoyed “Sharknado 2: The Second One”.  To me, this is everything that the first one should have been.  It has over-the-top action, it has laughs, it has plot holes out the whazoo, and so many quirky celebrity cameos that you could make a drinking game out of.  “Sharknado 2: the Second One” is one of the Most Ridiculous films I have ever seen and I highly recommend it.  Especially if you’re like me and thought that the first “Sharknado” film was stupid and overrated...I mean you’re still going to think this is a stupid film, but it’ll be a good kind of stupid, like so bad its good-stupid like in “Troll 2”.  I can’t wait to see what the “Sharknado” Franchise and The Asylum Film Studios have in store for us next!