Sharknado 4: The 4th Awakens

Years have gone by without a Sharknado, apparently thanks to bespectacled rich guy Tommy Davidson and his “atmospheric stabilizing system”. He’s also responsible for bringing Gilbert Shepherd (David Hasselhoff) back to Earth. Now Davidson has decided to open a Vegas theme park with a Sharknado bent, which is environmentally-friendly, yet also contains lots of sharks. Oh, this is a good idea. A sandstorm hits and before you know it we have sharks swooped up in them, and people being chomped left, right, and centre. Thankfully Fin Shepherd (Ian Ziering) just so happens to be visiting Vegas at the time with his cousin (Masiela Lusha) ready to save the day again. Meanwhile, Fin’s wife April (Tara Reid) turns out to have made it out of the previous film after all, albeit in a more hi-tech form thanks to her well-meaning but mad scientist father, played inevitably by Gary Busey. That’s former Oscar-nominee Gary Busey, I might add. The guest stars this time include Wayne Newton and Vince Neil as themselves in Vegas, Cheryl Tiegs as Ziering’s mother, Stacey Dash as a bitchy mayor, Aussie dancer Kym Johnson is part of Davidson’s team, and Carrot Top plays an Uber driver (He looks frightening, by the way. Pennywise-level frightening).

The franchise has officially jumped the Sharknado with this lame, incredibly boring 2016 entry from director Anthony C. Ferrante and screenwriter Thunder Levin (who are the ‘geniuses’ behind the previous entries). A lot of the cameos are from ‘stars’ so minor that a lot of them eluded me (Practically no one outside of the US has a clue who Todd Chrisley is, and who the fuck is Jillian Barberie? Actually, I don’t care who she is), the puns are especially painful, the FX a mixed bag, and the storytelling especially poor. The cute (yet unfunny) opening “Star Wars”-like text crawl tries to provide some set-up info, but even then I found a lot of the early part of the film to be particularly choppy. Fin’s cousin comes into the franchise out of nowhere, the April character is confusingly integrated into the film, as is Tommy Davidson’s character. Even if you’ve seen the previous films, you’ll still feel like you came in late.

The previous “Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No” was the mild series highlight for me, this one is not only lesser, it’s probably the worst film in the series so far. Maybe they should’ve quite while they were barely ahead. This one’s not terribly amusing and even Ziering looks bored out of his mind. Tommy Davidson is absolutely awful, whilst a returning Tara Reid spends the whole film acting like her skull is having a bad allergic reaction to her face. The lightsaber on her robotic arm was cool, though (As are the ‘dust devils’, probably the only decent FX in the whole film). Meanwhile, I still haven’t forgiven Cheryl Tiegs for those comments, and when David Hasselhoff gives one of the film’s better performances, you know you’re watching something pretty terrible. At least he gets what is required of him here, though Steve Guttenberg appears to be enjoying himself (referencing his own SyFy movie cred in “Lavalantula”), even if I wasn’t. As for Gary Busey, so long as you think of him as crazy “Celebrity Apprentice” Gary Busey and not Oscar-nominee Gary Busey (that was a long, long time ago), he’s actually a lot better than you might expect. At least he’s not rambling on about a robot dog in this, so it’s good to see that he appears to be doing alright, all things considered.

The best of the ‘guest stars’ by far is Gilbert Gottfried (the film is full of Ziering’s “Celebrity Apprentice” alumni) as a TV news chopper reporter, and even then it’s only because it’s Gilbert Gottfried doing his usual screaming thing. Hey, it’s quite funny for a few minutes and rather good use of his minor talents. Less funny is Dog The Bounty Hunter and his ‘family’ making a bunch of seriously lame “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” puns. Even worse is recent Republican convert, actress/Fox News ‘contributor’ Stacey Dash as a bitchy mayor in a dopey interview with a news anchor named Howard Beale. Yes, they do make the jokes you think they do, and for some reason a “Wizard of Oz” reference too. Awful. As for Wayne Newton singing a little “Sharknado” ditty, he certainly fares better than Motley Crue front-man Vince Neil, who may not even be acting. Perhaps he just wanted to play craps at the casino and didn’t notice the cameras. I’ll admit the appearance by former “Baywatch” actresses Alexandra Paul and Gena Lee Nolin was a little amusing, and WWE Superstar Seth Rollins (AKA Colby Lopez) fares better in his role as an Astro-X team member than Chris Jericho did as a rollercoaster ride attendant in the previous film It’s also cute he plays a character with his real last name of Lopez, even though his character’s threats to ‘Superkick’ the sharknados are kinda stupid given the Superkick isn’t really in Seth’s move set. I know no one else will get it, but it bugs me, OK?

If you ask me, any film that considers Jedward and reality TV fame whore Dr. Drew as ‘celebrities’ is pretty pathetic, and I actually didn’t recognise former “Married…With Children” co-star David Faustino, so that cameo was a bust (Hey, I haven’t seen the guy in 20 years, OK?). That’s a big part of the problem with the film, there’s way too many lame-arse wannabe celebrities who I just didn’t recognise, and since star-spotting is part of this franchise’s ‘thing’, it’s a big problem. The finale is pretty amusing, though, where it appears that the same shark appears to have swallowed about ten fucking people. I’m pretty sure that’s biologically impossible. Then again, Sharknados are impossible too.

The wheels have fallen off this already subpar franchise. I just don’t think that intentionally making bad movies is ever a good idea, and this time out even the celebrity cameos are lame. The original might’ve had worse FX, but I’d argue that this is the worst “Sharknado” film thus far. This one’s frequently boring, and poorly scripted. Please don’t make a fifth one, I’m begging you, SyFy…

Rating: D