Let’s be clear. The point of Sharknado is not to laugh at how silly it is. The point of Sharknado is that it is awesome. It is about finding every possible opportunity for something awesome to happen, whether that’s a shark leaping out and biting someone’s head off, or Ian Ziering jumping head first into a shark with a chainsaw because it’s awesome. I thought Sharknado was this generation’s Volcano, which if you know me is a huge compliment. Sharknado 2: The Second One was the perfect sequel to Sharknado.
After saving L.A. from sharknados and reuniting with his wife April (Tara Reid), Fin (Ian Ziering) flies to New York for April’s book signing and to visit family (Mark McGrath, Kari Wuhrer). Sharknados hit the plane in midair, leading to another Sharknado disaster in New York City. How do you top Sharknado? When Sharknado 2 opens with sharks on a plane, it only gets crazier from there.
Related: Ian Ziering & Tara Reid on ‘Sharknado 2’ (Exclusive Video)
The New York locations give the sequel some legit production value. It can’t help looking like a big movie when Ziering, McGrath and Wuhrer are running through streets we’ve seen in Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese movies. It looks great on Blu-ray with the crisp detail of pavement, historic buildings and the colors of Times Square blinking in HD.
Since the visual effects are never going to look photoreal, Sharknado 2 doesn’t have to waste any time pretending it’s real. It can just focus on awesome shark attacks. I mean, I know that visual effects artists work really hard on this and they did a great job conveying the images. We always know we’re looking at sharks and tornados. Big budget movies don’t look real either, but they spend so much time on the gravitas of pretending they’re realistic that they don’t have any fun. It doesn’t matter if it looks like a CGI shark. It’s awesome and funny every time they bite someone’s head off. The idea of what we’re seeing is more potent than the realism of the visual effects.
It’s not just the sharks, but there are a lot of sharks. Sharks on a plane, sharks in a stadium, sharks in a subway are all fun. Missed opportunity: Someone, it could have even been Ziering, should have screamed, “I’ve had it with these motherfuckin’ sharks on this motherfuckin’ plane!” The best set piece though is a tornado damage sequence involving the Statue of Liberty’s head. For the finale, they managed to come up with something even crazier than the finale of the first film.
While the plot may be irrelevant, it is sincere. When Fin has a moment with an old flame (Vivica A. Fox), it’s the same sort of moment that’s always shoehorned into a big budget disaster movie. Sharknado could easily get away with not developing its characters, and will bear more scrutiny if the drama fails, but the sincerity lands just enough in between shark attacks. April also pays off a great badass arc, recovering from an injury early on in the film with the improvised weapon we’re all hoping she takes on.
One thing that adds to Sharknado 2 is the amount of cameos. Since Sharknado was a hit, everyone wanted to be in the sequel. It’s not like they got De Niro to show up in a New York shark attack, but the pilot of the airplane is a pretty great film nerd cameo, and Jared the Subway guy is fun. Matt Lauer and Al Roker really give incredible performances.
Yeah, one commentary track isn’t enough to explain the total majesty of Sharknado 2, so there are two. Ferrante is featured on both, one speaking with Reid and Ziering about their take on the performances and set pieces, the other with screenwriter Thunder Levin and members of the visual effects and editorial team. They are truly full of enough information for two full runs through the movie.
More bonus features include behind the scenes segments about shooting on location in New York, creating the visual effects, and casting all the celebrity cameos. They’re rather insightful about pulling things off with limited means, particularly when it comes to giving the guest stars something meaningful to do. There’s also a host of deleted scenes which aren’t very funny, except for the exclusive scene for Canadian audiences which is hilarious.
Sharknado 2 gets its own joke, but reins it in enough that it’s still Sharknado. Yes, I’m now talking about restraint in the Sharknado franchise. We’ve all seen sequels that get so far up their own butts they stop representing the world of the original. Sharknado 2 strikes that balance, giving the fans what they want and having fun with it.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
