Review of Sharknado 2: The Second One (2014) by Harry W — 29 Oct 2014

While the first Sharknado was not entertaining enough for me to classify it as good, I figured a sequel wouldn't be worth a miss.

When it comes to films like Sharknado, I know what I like. I like an overkill of CGI monsters, plenty of kills and enough ridiculousness to make it funny. There is a certain level of so-bad-it's-good that I like, and Sharknado just barely missed that. Since Sharknado 2: The Second one received lesser reviews than the first, I figured my chances of enjoying the feature were somewhat slim. Sharknado 2: The Second One was one of the few cases where my expectations were so well defied that I was overjoyed to have watched the film by the end of it all.

The intro for Sharknado 2: The Second One is promising because it cleverly plays on the famous episode of The Twilight Zone where William Shatner portrayed Bob Wilson, a man shattered by his fear of a gremlin on the side of a plane which was titled Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. The difference is that this time instead of a gremlin there is a Shark, and then suddenly there is a storm of them. The deadpan humour in this scene is actually brilliant. The moment contai the monster theme of the disaster with the trope about landing a damaged plane in an emergency which combines cheesy elements of two forms of disaster cinema into a single narrative. The moment is excellent and gives the film a really fine setup. Even the subtle references to Airplane! with the presence of Robert Hays as the pilot add to making the film one packed with cultural references. Sharknado 2: The Second One even makes a reference to the sitcom Taxi by having Judd Hirsch cast as a taxi driver. Sharknado 2: The Second One is packed full of smart pop culture references which different generations of people can appreciate. Considering that I'm a sucker for that kind of thing, Sharknado 2: The Second One was full of my kind of humour. And when it borrows from Evil Dead II, that is where it hits an endravour. So the film makes a great intro by establishing the disaster, the deadpan humour and the atmopshere. A exploitation horror film gets the atmosphere going fast and never lets up, and it takes little time before it becomes clear that Sharknado 2: The Second One has established that which gives it a great setup.

Surprisingly enough, Sharknado 2: The Second One manages to continue maintaining the energy of the intro for the entire feature. This is because the writing in the film is a lot more creative and the makers of the movie really manage to take advantage of the ridiculous concept they have. In Sharknado they largely played it off as a gimmick without enough fun in the experience and it largely fllowed a familiar formula from many basic sharkmovies by The Asylum. In Sharknado 2: The Second One there is a all new level of potential which audiences need to experience. The story always has a sense of progression to it and it always goes off in directions which are unpredictable and fun. There is no telling what comes next in Sharknado 2: The Second One, but it is a film aimed to become a direct cult classic which easily succeeds at doing so..

One of the problems with Sharknado is that it was too focused on running from the sharks to be exciting. Sharknado 2: The Second One is much more about fighting off the sharks. This allows or a lot more creative potential, while the survival element of the film remains there. But again, there is greater versatility. The characters surive the sharks, a plane crash and floods. There is a lot of survival they have to put up with in the film, and this includes a lot of engagement with the titular Sharknado. The sharknado itself is a lot more threatening this time around as the general scale of the film is no longer limited to the few main characters and instead branches out its focus onto the entire city of New York in various different settings. Seriously, with the amount of creativity in Sharknado 2: The Second One, if it was given a large budget it would have been a magnificent cult classic spectacle. But as it remains an intentionally cheap looking film produced by The Asylum, that is what audiences have to expect from it. In actual fact it is the finest film that The Asylum has ever produced, triumphing Mega Shark vs. Crocasaurus for the title. The thing is that the film is everything that Sharknado wasn't. It's fun, it's heavier on exploitation and it's far more self-aware of being a sequel where audiences will have high expectations. It truly delivers on more than I could have hoped for, and while it still is not a perfect feature, as far as low-budget monster movies go, Sharknado 2: The Second One stands out as the finest I have seen in many years. The work of director Anthony C. Ferrante is seriously in need of praise because he gives the film all the great energy and visual elements that it needs with plenty of poor visual effects and effective scenery boosting the film, as wel as the fact that he handles the script very easily.

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Some of the lines in the script are brilliant, such as one refence to "Jumping the Shark". The majority of the dialogue is appropriately cheesy and full of cheap character stereotypes who are more likable this time because of their actual involvment in the story. Instead of putting the focus on protagonist April Wexler like Sharknado did, Sharknado 2: The Second One branches out and while it maintains the fact that Finley "Fin" Shepherd is the hero of the story yet gives a lot of other characters a chance to get involved in the action. Sharknado 2: The Second One plays on a lot of great movie tropes. It uses clever predictable disaster movie elements as well as some from varying other genres, ranging from horror movies to sports movies all while maintaining a sense of exploitation fun. And luckily enough the characters are far better and the actors have a lot more fun with their roles this time around.

Ian Ziering makes a great cheesy hero for the story, and Vivica A. Fox has a sense of determination to her. The cameo appearances of Robert Hays and Judd Hirsch are both hilarious as well, and the performances of Al Roker, Matt Lauer, Daymond John and Stephanie Abrams are all a good touch as well.

So due to having a wide variety of creative story angles, and increase in blood and gore and a whole lot of deadpan humour stemming from pop culture references, Sharknado 2: The Second one is the single greatest film The Asylum has ever produced which serves as a fine example of one of cinema's great examples of a far superior sequel.