Sharknado: My first SyFy movie!

"Enough said!"

That’s the film’s official tagline. Because really, what else is there to say? When you venture out to watch a film about a deadly tornado full of swirling, flying sharks, there’s not much you can expect or say about. You just have to sit back and enjoy the absurdity of it all. The film, written by Thunder Levin and directed by Anthony C. Ferrante, is just another in a long string of cheap, big monster films distributed by The Asylum and aired by SyFy. Their output features titles like Mutant Vampire Zombies from the Hood!, Boo, and Atlantic Rim, which pretty much gives you an idea of their frame of mind and what they're going at.

Even though things like plot and character development have no place in this film, I’ll try to explain the general idea behind it. Ian Ziering plays Fin Shepherd, a former surfing legend that owns a bar in the beach of Los Angeles. When a strong hurricane hits the coast, Fin finds himself trying to escape along with his waitress Nova (Cassie Scerbo), his best friend Baz (Jaason Simmons), and a drunk friend/patron (John Heard). The hurricane is causing massive floods, but more importantly, throwing sharks around the city, and swirling them around in tornadoes. Fin decides to look for his estranged wife April (Tara Reid) and daughter to take them to safety.

And that’s really as far as the plot goes. I don't think there was a lot of effort in writing beyond that. To be honest, most of the film seems like it was made up on the fly. Most of what happens makes no sense, and the actions of the characters are ludicrous – to say the least. For example, roads are flooding and sharks are flying around, yet still the characters find time to argue about petty domestic issues.

Not only that, but the way the relationships develop makes no sense either. First, Nova (the waitress) is drooling over Fin. But he doesn't seem interested and seems to still be in love with April (his wife). But then, as the film goes on, we find out April is a bitch as she and Fin have some frictions. Plus, at times he seems to be all hug-ish with Nova, causing April to give frequent looks of jealousy and disbelief at them. Fin even mutters one of the silliest lines of the film as they are in the car and Nova cocks her shotgun ("I'm not gonna lie. It's kinda hot when you do that.") But still, as soon as they find Fin's adult son, who is one of the goofiest looking characters in the show, Nova ends up falling for him. It made no sense at all.

The way people behaved in the city didn't make sense either. City is flooded, houses destroyed, sharks are flying around eating people... even the Hollywood sign is destroyed because of the hurricane and the tornadoes, and still convenience stores are open and people are driving around as if nothing was happening. It is the kind of thing that makes you wonder “How the hell does this thing got made?”

But the plot making no sense, and the characters behaving in the stupidest ways possible aren't the only issues with the film. The directing was crappy, the special effects were shoddy, the dialogue was cringe-worthy, and I couldn’t stop chuckling at everything that was happening on screen. When you see a film called Sharknado, that features sharks flying around, and characters shooting at them, you have to be in the same frame of mind as the filmmakers and laugh it off. But seriously, although the acting was universally awful, I have to say Ziering was decent, all things considered.

And I couldn’t stop writing about this film without commenting on the ending. Wow, easily one of the most absurd and nonsensical things I’ve seen on a film. And I’m not talking about how the characters agree to drop homemade bombs into the tornadoes to “destroy” them, or that they even try to explain why "scientifically", or that it works!... but rather about the very last part which defies all boundaries of logic and plausibility, even for a film about a tornado made of sharks.

All in all, I had fun! :-)