Sharknado 4: The Fourth Awakens
Originally Reviewed 15th November 2016
–+-+– Sharknado 4 –+-+– By Martin
Let us start by saying you know exactly what you are going to get from a film called Sharknado. It’s got sharks, it’s got ‘nado’s and they don’t often disappoint in either respect.
The film starts 5 years after the end of Sharknado 3 and with an advert for a new hotel called Shark World in the heart of Las Vegas’s strip… a recipe for trouble if ever there was one. The world is now protected by Astro X’s patented anti-sharknado protection devices and this has allowed Fin and family to get over the loss of April who was crushed by the Space Shuttle in the last movie, which may sound ridiculous but was one of the more normal things that happened in Sharknado 3
What obviously occurs next is as predictable as Sharknado movies get; a tornado ravages Las Vegas, destroying Shark World, once again subjecting the world to the terror of Sharknado.
And that’s just the first act….
From here on in it’s a roller coaster of laughs and cameo’s that don’t disappoint. I’d guess there’s probably close to 50 different celebrities clamouring to get a line in whilst being tossed wilfully about by the Sharknado. Honourable mentions go out to Gary Busey who is just completely nuts, Steve Guttenberg in a Lavalantula cross-over cameo (Will we see Fin in Lava2Lantula2?), Alexandra Paul (looking a bit ropey) and Gena Lee Nolin (FYNE!) both in their Baywatch costumes. And that’s not even covering all the nods to other films, The Wizard of Oz and The Sword in the Stone to name but two.
“But” we hear you say, ”just one Sharknado, is that really enough?” Evidently not as the story writers obviously want to up the tension 400%. Cue Boulder-nado, Oil-nado (eventually becoming a Lava-nado), Lightning-nado, Nuclear-nado and my personal favourite… a Cownado! (There could be a whole spin-off on Cownado – see what we did there, spin off? Get it? Ahem….)
When Astro X’s new-fangled technology fail to resolve the new ‘nado’s we’re left with Fin and co. having to race around with everyone’s favourite superhero, Colonel Shephard played by The Hoff, to help out until Reynolds (owner of Astro X) can come up with a way to stop all the destruction.
It’s at this point however things get a bit more serious as Cyborg April comes back from the dead to rescue her family complete with new robotic arm and multiple attachments, like a cross between Iron Man and Inspector Gadget. I did wonder if, in a Star Trek:TNG kinda way, whether she was like Lt.Commander Data, fully functional in every department, but the sight of the lightsabre coming out of her arm socket sort of put an end to those thoughts – an obvious nod to the film’s title.
Gary Busey plays her mad scientist father who has painstakingly put her back together from the wreckage of the space shuttle and although you never explicitly see the two of them together on screen at the same time (there’s some really good cut scene editing going on and we speculated that he is too volatile to be in the same studio as everyone else and was filmed in isolation in his own studio!) he rather steals the scenes with his bat-shit craziness. Needless to say (and without spoiling the end of the film) things work out in the end with what I can only describe as a 10 shark roast and little Gil (April and Fin’s son – who incidentally is huge for 5 years old, to the point where he is almost a fully grown white man) gets a touching reunion with his mum; another classic ending to a classic Sharknado film. Oh and did I mention the CPR yet?? Fan-bloody-tastic!!!
So what could easily have become cluttered, clumpy and just a series of one line gags (similar to Airplane) turns out to be a huge rout of fun and giggles, not taking itself too seriously (there’s no Sharks on the International Space Station this time) and delivers laugh after laugh along with some great cameo’s.
The writer has already said that he’s got plans for another 3 films if SyFy channel want to do more and I can only hope they do especially with how the film ends.
(almost perfect!)
