Sharknado 2: The Second One (2014)

While on a trip to New York, Sharknado survivors Fin and his ex-wife are faced with another Sharknado event. Now they must survive again and find a way to stop it before it takes a big bite out of the Big Apple.

REVIEW: To be honest, I have yet to watch the original Sharknado, but it seems to be pretty popular and you can even check out B-Movie Shelf owner Jeff's review of that one here. Despite that, I still made a point to record The Second One to watch myself when it aired on the SyFy Channel over the summer. I was planning on watching both back to back but as it happens, my mother asked if I wanted to watch this one first since she had already seen the first movie and so here I am, yet again, reviewing a movie out of viewing order. Yeah it really is getting to be a recurring thing with me it seems.

Since I haven't watched the original Sharknado yet there were at least one or two things I may not have understood concerning a couple characters from the first movie returning and some developing plot threads with them, but as I'll be trying to keep this as spoiler free as possible, I won't go into specifics, all I'll say is that while you can very easily watch this one without having seen the first and still enjoy yourself, I'm sure you'll get more out of it if you have seen the first movie.

As you can expect, the story of Sharknado 2: The Second One is pretty simplistic. The two main leads from the original Sharknado go to New York for a book signing and pretty much "Shark happens". It's as simple as you can get. The action, as with a lot of Asylum's B-Movie madness, starts right from the first scene, with them on a plane and sharks attacking their plane in midair, and hardly lets up for the duration of the movie. From there the panic about further Sharknado events starts and the movie truly begins.

The acting is about average for a B-Movie of this kind, nothing to write home about but could be way worse than it is. There's some once A-Listers involved in this one, and the cameos are all pretty enjoyable additions. I don't think I got all of them, but that just allows for future re-watchings to try to catch all the cameos, but one I did notice (though just barely) was Will Wheaton of Star Trek, Big Bang Theory, and Geek And Sundry fame in a non-speaking blink-and-you'll-miss-it role. We also have the return of Tara Reid alongside main star Ian Ziering, which is funny cause not but a few years ago she was co-starring in American Reunion, a big Hollywood picture, and now she's the co-star of two made-for-TV Sharknado movies.

The CGI is about as average as you can expect for this type of fair, especially if you've already seen the first movie. They look decent by Asylum and B-Movie standards but you can still tell it's a poor quickly-rushed CGI job, especially where the sharks themselves are concerned. And trust me, there are a lot of CGI sharks. And CGI tornadoes. But then again people don't really tune into B-Movies, especially ones titled Sharknado, expecting big budget theatrical style CGI, and it is better than I've seen in other similar type movies.

On the flip side, the action is actually really well-done and quite exciting. From sharks attacking a passenger plane, to sharks in a subway attacking an underground train tram, to sharks flooding into a newsroom and chomping down on the anchors, the action hits the street running right from the onset and never lets up, easily pulling you into the zany wild unrelenting cheesefest that is this movie, and making sure there's something there for everyone to have fun with so that nobody gets bored.

Overall, Sharknado 2: The Second One does indeed make sure that Sharknadoes strike twice, with this bigger than the first action epic that chomps down and makes sure to never let go, adding in what I can only assume is more sharks, more tornadoes, more cheese, more insanity, and more fun.

8/10 Rooms in the Psych Ward