Sunday 12 October 2014

Sharknado (2013 TV Movie)


"We can't just wait here for sharks to rain down on us!"

I couldn't resist watching this and, yes, I had to blog it: a TV movie on SyFy with the most gloriously and semi-ironically B movie premise. It's exactly what you expect, really, a movie that knows how silly it is and revolves entirely around some hilarious CGI. 

We open in California, on a bar by the seafront. There are a handful of characters to get to know if you can be bothered; they're all just ciphers and the film is all about the Sharks. There is some hilarious exposition and much equally hilarious dialogue.

It's not long before we see the first attack from some very aggressive sharks, with only short glimpses of actual physical models; the rest is all CGI.

From now on it's all about the set pieces, with an early highlight being sharks attacking the bar, and one being killed with a pool cue. Yes, it looks a bit shit, but it's cool. And I love the Ferris wheel that's sent rolling across the ground.

Inevitably, there's a road trip. The sharks Attack Beverley Hills, and the film takes a glorious pleasure in being cruel to the rich: this is unmistakably a film made post-2008. Probably quite wisely there is no real attempt to explain away the "sharknadoes".

Sharks launch out of manholes. A particularly arrogant character dies horribly. The set pieces just keep on coming. There are CGI waterspouts, chainsaws, and Heath Robinson contraption. But the film really (ahem) jumps the shark when the hero uses a chainsaw to liberate his recently swallowed girlfriend from a dead shark's stomach.

Yes, it really is that good/bad. And there is, I'm afraid, a sequel...




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