Sharknado 2: The Second One

Sharknado 2: The Second One

Sharknado 2 poster

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Anthony C. Ferrante
Produced by David Michael Latt
Written by Thunder Levin
Starring Tara Reid
Ian Ziering
Vivica A. Fox
Kari Wuhrer
Mark McGrath
Music by Christopher Cano
Chris Ridenhour
Cinematography Ben Demaree
Editing by Ana Florit
Vashi Nedomansky
Production company The Asylum
Syfy Films
Country United States
Language English
Original channel Syfy
Release date
  • July 30, 2014
Running time 95 minutes

Sharknado 2: The Second One is a 2014 American satirical disaster film horror sci-fi and a sequel to the 2013 television film Sharknado and the second installment in the Sharknado series. It was directed by Anthony C. Ferrante, with Tara Reid and Ian Ziering reprising their roles from the first film; also joining the cast are Vivica A. Fox, Kari Wuhrer, Kelly Osbourne, Judah Friedlander, and a host of celebrity cameo appearances. The film premiered on July 30, 2014, and was the highest-premiering film on the SyFy Channel.[1][2]

Plot

Fin Shepard and his ex-wife April Wexler are flying to New York City to promote How to Survive a Sharknado and Other Unnatural Disasters, a book April has written about the Los Angeles sharknado. As the plane comes in for a landing through a storm, it is battered by airborne sharks, losing an engine. Sharks enter the plane, killing passengers and crew, including both pilots. While Fin successfully lands the plane, April's hand is bitten off by a shark while she attempts to shoot it with an air marshal's handgun.

Fin's sister, Ellen Brody, is sightseeing in New York with her family. Her husband, Martin, a childhood friend of Fin's, takes their son, Vaughn, to a Mets game at Citi Field along with Martin's and Fin's friends Skye (who is also Fin's ex-girlfriend) and Brian. Ellen takes their daughter, Mora, to the Statue of Liberty where she meets with her friends, Polly and Chrissie, who tell her about Fin's flight.

At the airport, Fin warns the crowd of the impending storm, but no one takes it seriously. After accompanying April to the hospital where she undergoes surgery, Fin receives a call from Ellen and tells her to get back from Liberty Island as soon as possible. He agrees to retrieve Martin and Vaugn from the ball game, hiring a cabbie, Ben, to take him there. At Citi Field, Fin first encounters Skye. She kisses him, but he explains that he and April are back together. Fin gets them all to leave with him just as the storm arrives at the park. The sharks kill people as Fin and his group use various improvised weapons and make their way to the subway.

Ellen's group takes the ferry to Manhattan, but a shark jumps onto the deck and kills Chrissie en route. The three remaining women escape into the city but must flee from the Statue of Liberty's severed, rolling head, which crushes a businessman and two garbage men.

The subway floods, imperiling Fin's group as their train is chased by sharks. Brian is killed, but the others manage to escape onto a platform. Fin calls Ben to pick them up, and they go in search of weapons and explosives. They arm themselves, but the taxi is then caught in a flood. Fin rigs a rope swing that takes Skye, Vaughn, and Martin to safety, but Ben is killed in his attempt. Fin then jumps across the sharks, using them as stepping stones to reach the others.

Two sharknadoes are converging into a more powerful storm directly above the hotel where Fin and April were planning to stay. Arriving at the hotel, Fin and Skye go to the roof to destroy the sharknadoes with their makeshift bombs. Polly is killed when a whale shark lands on her, but Ellen and Mora successfully reach the hotel, reuniting with Martin and Vaughn. Fin and Skye launch their bombs into the tornadoes, but the storm system is too cold for this to be effective; the bombs only force them to flee downstairs, away from the flaming sharks that are now falling on them. They meet the Brodys, who are fleeing upstairs due to a rising flood of sharks. They break down a door to escape the stairwell and are able to get out of the building.

Meanwhile, April rescues a young girl at the hospital and sets out to find Fin. She arrives at the hotel in a fire truck and takes the group to the Empire State Building where a third tornado is merging with the other two. The mayor is there with a task force, and they welcome Fin's help. He plans to detonate a tank of Freon at the top of the building by connecting it to the structure's lightning rod, freezing the storm. Fin tells a crowd of New Yorkers to prepare to fight the sharks that will fall from the sky after he destroys the tornadoes. He and Skye implement the plan, while April, who has affixed a circular saw to her stump, saves Fin from a falling shark. They successfully destroy the storm system, which sends both Fin and Skye in the air where, Skye is killed by 2 sharks and ripped in half. Fin grabs his chainsaw and uses it to kill any sharks coming to him. He grabs on to a great white shark using chains and gets the shark impaled on the antenna of the Empire State Building. Fin retrieves April's hand from a shark's mouth and uses the gun to defend them against the falling sharks. The New Yorkers in the streets below arm themselves and charge into battle against the sharks, killing them all. Fin takes the ring from April's severed hand and uses it to propose remarriage, and she accepts.

In a post-credits scene, Fin goes to a pizzeria he and the group went to earlier and eats a piece of pizza.

Cast

Ian Ziering, Vivica A. Fox and Dante Palminteri prepare to jump the sharks.

Many of the cameo appearances made nods to previous roles the guests had played. Robert Hays was previously a pilot in Airplane!; Judd Hirsch was a cab driver in Taxi, Daymond John is a panelist on Shark Tank, Jared Fogle is a longtime spokesman for Subway restaurants, and Billy Ray Cyrus was a doctor in Doc.[3]


Lauer and Roker appeared as themselves, hosting The Today Show; Abrams appeared as an anchor for The Weather Channel. Both of those properties, like Syfy, are owned by Comcast.[5] In contrast, Gelman, Strahan and Ripa all reprised their roles from Live with Kelly and Michael in the film; that show is not a Comcast property, instead directly competing with The Today Show.

There are multiple in-jokes about Jaws (1975). Polly (Peggy Scott) was Mr. Brody's secretary, Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) was the chief, Ellen (Lorraine Gary) was his wife, Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) was the mayor's last name, Quint (Robert Shaw) was the shark hunter, and Chrissy was the name of the first victim.

Reception

Promoters of Sharknado 2 at the San Diego Comic Con International in 2013

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 59% rating based on 27 critics; the consensus states: "The schlock factor for Sharknado 2: The Second One is not as entertaining as its predecessor's, though fans of the brand will likely enjoy it."[6] On Metacritic, the film has a rating of 50 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[7]

Brian Lowry of Variety said the CGI sharks looked terrible.[8] Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times said that it seems nothing more than dumb fun.[9] Verne Gay of Newsday said the film doesn't take itself as seriously as the original. He also said the film is not as good as the first.[10]

Don Kaplan of the New York Daily News said the film was "a slightly better, more watchable movie than its predecessor."[11] Caroline Framke of The A.V. Club gave the film an 'A', stating the "over-hyped sequel has zero business being this much fun".[12]

Broadcast

The sequel was broadcast on SyFy on July 30, 2014. In the UK, Australia and other countries, it was broadcast just minutes behind the US premiere, in most cases on each country's respective SyFy channel. Upon airing, the film was watched by 3.9 million viewers, with 1.6 million in the 18-49 demographic.[2]

Fathom Events released the film for one night in theaters across the United States on August 21, 2014.[13]

Tie-in merchandise

Two pieces of tie-in merchandise were released to coincide with the release of Sharknado 2. Sharknado: The Video Game, an endless runner video game, was released on July 20, 2014 to mostly negative reviews.[14][15] A comedic survival guide entitled How to Survive a Sharknado and Other Unnatural Disasters (the book that Tara Reid's character was to promote in the film) was released through Three Rivers Press on July 8, 2014.[16][17][18][19]

Sequel

SyFy has announced that there will be a Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!, which will premiere on July 22, 2015[20] and take place in Washington, D.C.[21][22] & Orlando, FL.[23] A major twist in the series is that it will reveal that aliens are somehow involved with the Sharknados.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Ng, Philiana. "'Sharknado 2' Premiere Date and Cameos Set". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved July 3, 2014.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Pennington, Gail (2014). "'Sharknado 2' smashes ratings records". St Louis Post Dispatch. Retrieved July 31, 2014.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16 3.17 3.18 3.19 3.20 Packle, Lori (2014). "Warning: ‘Sharknado 2′ pool of celebrity cameos runs deep". Chicago Sun Times. Retrieved July 31, 2014.
  4. ↑ Murray, Benjamin (31 March 2014). "‘Sharknado 2: The Second One’ Is Coming This July". Liberty Voice.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Oldenburg, Ann (2 April 2014). "Matt Lauer, Al Roker land 'Sharknado 2' cameos". USA TODAY.
  6. ↑ "Sharknado 2: The Second One". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved March 15, 2015.
  7. ↑ "Sharknado 2: The Second One Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved September 14, 2014.
  8. ↑ Lowry, Brian (July 28, 2014). "TV Review: ‘Sharknado 2! The Second One’". Variety. Retrieved July 30, 2014.
  9. ↑ Genzlinger, Neil (July 29, 2014). "Jaws Open, Monster Storm Hits East Coast". The New York Times. Retrieved July 30, 2014.
  10. ↑ Gay, Verne (July 29, 2014). "'Sharknado 2: The Second One' is not as good as the first one (sorry)". Newsday. Retrieved July 30, 2014.
  11. ↑ Kaplan, Don (July 15, 2014). "'Sharknado 2: The Second One': TV review". The New York Daily News. Retrieved July 30, 2014.
  12. ↑ Framke, Caroline (July 31, 2014). "Sharknado 2: The Second One: This over-hyped sequel has zero business being this much fun". The A.V. Club. Retrieved July 31, 2014.
  13. ↑ Gilman, Greg (August 5, 2014). "'Sharknado 2' heading to theaters for one night only". Baltimore Sun.
  14. ↑ Block, Alex Ben. "'Sharknado' Video Game Arriving With Syfy Sequel". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved July 10, 2014.
  15. ↑ "Sharknado:TVG". Metacritic. Retrieved 8 August 2014.
  16. ↑ Charles, Ron. "‘How to Survive a Sharknado’". Washington Post. Retrieved 8 August 2014.
  17. ↑ Lieberman, Mark. "'How to Survive a Sharknado' offers apocalypse advice". USA Today. Retrieved 8 August 2014.
  18. ↑ DesJardins, Jordan. "Book Review: ‘How to Survive a Sharknado’". ScienceFiction.com. Retrieved 8 August 2014.
  19. ↑ Busis, Elizabeth. "Learn 'How to Survive a Sharknado' in this useful excerpt". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 8 August 2014.
  20. ↑ Sharknado 3 Officially Titled; Release Info Announced
  21. ↑ Dvorkin, Ashley (July 30, 2014). "'Sharknado 2' star Ian Ziering: 'Sharknado 3' is a go!". FoxNews.com.
  22. ↑ Campbell, Chuck (Sep 13, 2014). "Report: Syfy to take aim at D.C. with next 'Sharknado'". WCPO. The Syfy channel has announced it will roll out a “Sharknado 3” in 2015
  23. ↑ "Sharknado 3 is filming in Orlando".

External links