DATELINE: MOVIE MASHUP
Sharknado 2 proved to be a hilarious waste of time. As social events go on television and movies, this may be as close to a phenomenon as we have seen in many years.
These national amusement moments used to happen with more frequency, but probably were higher in quality. If you were expecting anything extra out of Sharknado 2, you may have been surprised by the tackiness.
It started with a bang. Borrowing heavily from the famous Twilight Zone episode with William Shatner facing a gremlin on the plane wing, we had Ian Ziering seeing sharks flying by. It didn’t help much that Robert Hays, formerly of Airplane!, was now piloting this catastrophe. You might also see Downtown Julie Brown, Andy Dick, Robert Klein, Billy Ray Cyrus, among others.
Other gems included finding Judd Hirsch driving a New York taxi. We almost expected Tony Danza to show up too, but instead were treated to Kelly and Michael and Today’s Matt Lauer and Al Roker.
The concept of a EF5 tornado/hurricane with sharks falling at two inches per hour may be hard to swallow. But, the Jaws wannabes do swallow plenty of New Yorkers.
Of course, the obligatory chainsaw to cut through the shark seems to be a crowd pleaser. Twitter tweeters were expected to explode the system. It was definitely a movie that requires friends to assist you with the shared moment.
Even if you wanted to turn away from the silliness, the film held you in a way that Snakes of a Plane could not.
Syfy has tried to recreate bad horror movies of the 1950s with bad horror movies of the 2000 teens. They have given us our basic yardstick for future reference. It was godawful.