Sharknado 4: The 4th Awakens (2016)

Fin, his family and the cosmos have been blissfully sharknado-free in the five years since the most recent attack, but now sharks and tornadoes are being whipped up in unexpected ways and places. Sharknado 4: The 4th Awakens literally copies both the poster and the title of 'The Force Awakens' the seventh Star Wars film and the "writers" should be ashamed plus once again big names have cameos for no reason at all and the same dumb thing happens once again for no reason other than who knows. Please don't see this film please... (0/10)

The first two 'Sharknado' movies were not great and had a lot wrong with them, but they were guilty pleasure fun as long as not taken seriously. 'Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!' however was a let-down, it lacks the fun and charm of the first two as a result of being too self-aware and trying far too hard, really wanted to not take this seriously and view it as a guilty pleasure but it was just too amateurish and tired.With 'Sharknado 4: The 4th Awakens', the amateurish-ness and fatigue are multiplied and highly indicative of that despite starting off in guilty pleasure fashion the novelty has worn off and well thin now. The previous film may have lacked charm, fun and energy, though the fun came in occasionally, but 'Sharknado 4: The 4th Awakens' is completely devoid of all three and has so many other things wrong too. Even when one tries to take it for what it's trying to be, which it manages to fail at.Ian Ziering is likable and charismatic in the lead role, he plays it straight but still looks like he's having fun with the role. There is some nice scenery, an energetic and eerie music score and some of the references are fun and inspired, when they aren't being over obvious or dumb.Very little else works. Tara Reid continues to be unspeakably awful, her facial expressions look so expressionless and very forced in the few times she tries, her line delivery is mechanical and she constantly looks ill at ease. The dizzying amount of cameos and the quality of them are nowhere near as entertaining as in the first two outings, not just the too deadpan approach but also that they're poorly written and feel too random and brief. Some also downright irritating, especially Jedward whose "annoying factor" from their joke act 'X Factor' days has not changed a bit. David Hasselhoff didn't seem comfortable and neither did Gary Busey.Even for low-budget, 'Sharknado 4' is very shoddy stuff. The scenery is pretty good but the film is shot in a very rushed-looking and drab way, editing is sloppy as well as choppy and the shark special effects are typical dreadfully artificial Asylum/SyFy fare. Regarding the shark attacks and death scenes (none being good enough to even reach "reasonably fun" level), that the sharks have little personality let alone menace hurts them and even more so the unintentional silliness comes at the expense of thrills and suspense, which are nowhere in sight, and gets tiresome. The film is directed flatly, the energy and enthusiasm in the pacing is missing and there are too many cardboard characters that are difficult to give a toss about. The first two films had some great funny lines, but the script here contains nothing remotely amusing or memorable and instead feels stale and tiresomely cheesy.'Sharknado 4' is even more of a pale retread than the third film, with very little maintaining interest and instead having numerous scenes leading nowhere It's further not helped by trying too hard being dopey fun and in the process taking itself too seriously at times that any life is sucked out, then including new ideas, like the different kinds of "nados", intended to be fresh but are just cheap and ridiculous.Overall, a less than extravagant awakening and feels tired. 3/10 Bethany Cox

The plot is pretty much the same except the sharks appear in sandnados, bouldernados, oilnados, firenados, etc etc. It also gives a nod to Lavalantua, a sister film...like Captain America to Iron Man. We already know the signature ending is something more spectacular than the last one and involves pulling something from the belly of a shark.It is okay to get the aide of plot spoilers (I know I did) in order to know all the cameo characters. I even paused the film to Google lines that sounded familiar...like "Come with me if you want to live." They borrowed from many films: Star Wars, Star Trek, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Wizard of Oz, Terminator to name a few. Characters from all kinds of films and TV shows have cameo roles, I really enjoyed Gilbert Godfrey and watching Carrot-Top get eaten by a shark.Tara Reid is back like the 6 million dollar woman on steroids. I think the most telling line was "We're not here to win an Oscar." At one point the lines got so corny, an actor remarked, "I can't believe I just said that." What national treasures that weren't destroyed in the other three films get tagged in this one.There is some Star Wars connections and lines, (Don't get cocky) but it was from the original Star Wars feature and not the new one.One of the best "So bad it's good" films out there.

It's been five years since the last sharknado event, Fin has moved to a farm in Kansas, where he lives with his mother Raye and his young son Gil who thinks his mother is a shark since he was born in one in the last film, yeah. April is believed dead after being crushed by the wreckage of the space shuttle, later on it's found out she was reassembled as a cyborg in secret by her father. Aston Reynolds, a tech mogul, has developed a new type of high-speed space travel with his company Astro-X which was used to save Fin's father from the moon. Astro-X has also developed a technology that is capable of using radio waves to diffuse tornadoes. When Fin goes to Las Vegas and a new sharknado appears, things goes balls off the walls crazy from there.Besides sharkandoes, we also get other types of crazy and unrealistic tornadoes with the exception of the firenado which is a real thing.The movie is packed with movie references all over, some examples are The Wizard of Oz, Twister (with the cows in the tornado), Snakes on a Train (when the sharks attacks the Amtrak train), and Christine. Let's not forget the new line of celebrity cameos like Gary Busey, the Chippendales Dancers, Gilbert Gottfried, Wayne Newton, and Dr. Drew Pinsky.Out of all the Sharkando films, this one is definitely the most insane. Despite the thrills this movie delivers it loses the ludicrous charm of its predecessors and consequently much of its bite.