Sharknado 2: The Second One
With the success of Sharknado, it’s no surprise they came out with Sharknado 2: The Second One. What is surprising is just how many people wanted to be in the second movie. A lot of well known people are in this movie. Either as themselves or just unnamed. But, not surprisingly, the movie is not as good as the original.
Photo Credit: The Asylum
Released: Jul 30, 2014
Runtime: 95 mins
Director: Anthony C. Ferrante
Writer: Thunder Levin
Actors: Ian Ziering, Tara Reid, Vivica A. Fox
PLOT
Even the Sharknados are tougher in New York.--Fin
Fin and April are on their way to New York City, until a huge hurricane spawns heavy rain, storm surges, and deadly Sharknados.
MY THOUGHTS
He jumped the shark.--Martin
Since Sharknado 2: The Second One is set in New York City, it is much bigger and with a lot more kills. Mostly unnamed people. Most kills are by sharks, but there are a few other reasons. We get people sucked out of a plane at the beginning and the poor city workers who were crushed by the head of the Statue of Liberty. Yes. The Statue of Liberty was knocked over and her head went on a rolling rampage. There was even an alligator in the sewers! It was eaten by a shark though.
The acting is typical for this type of movie. Only this time there are several celebrities who either play themselves or just unnamed people in this movie. (You can tell the first Sharknado must have been popular, because everybody seems to be in this movie. LOL)
As far as the main cast, we get Ian Ziering and Tara Reid returning in their original roles. Additional cast includes Vivica Fox, Mark McGrath, Kari Wuhrer, Judd Hirsch, and Tiffany Shepis.
Vivica Fox (known for Independence Day, Independence Day: Resurgence, Idle Hands, Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2, and the Last Sharknado: It’s About Time. She’s in a ton of Movies and TV shows.) plays Skye, an old friend (and possible love interest) of Fin’s. Mark McGrath (known for being the lead singer of Sugar Ray, Scooby Doo, and in Sharknado 3 & 6) plays Martin, Fin’s brother-in-law and former best friend. Kari Wuhrer (known for Thinner, Anaconda, Eight Legged Freaks and Hellraiser: Deader) plays Ellen, Fin’s sister.
Judd Hirsch (known for Independence Day, Independence Day: Resurgence, and Taxi) plays Ben, a taxi driver, who always shows up when needed. And Tiffany Shepis (known for being a Scream Queen in a ton of horror movies. Some include Tromeo and Juliet, Toxic Avenger IV, Delta Delta Die, Abominable, and Night of the Demons remake) plays Chrissie, Ellen’s friend.
We start Sharknado 2: The Second One on an airplane with Fin and April. It hasn’t been long after the first movie, just long enough for April to write a book and it’s successful. Fin doesn’t like the attention. A storm hits and (just like in the Twilight Zone movie) Fin thinks he sees sharks on the wing of the plane. Fin is right and the sharks take out the pilots, forcing Fin to land the plane. Unfortunately a shark bites April’s arm off, but she lives.
While April and Fin rush to the hospital so April can go into surgery, we are introduced to Fin’s sister Ellen and her husband Martin. Ellen is off with their daughter to go spend the day with Ellen’s friends. Martin is taking their son to a Mets game with old friends, hoping Fin will show up.
The girls go to Ellis Island to see the Statue of Liberty. The weather starts kicking up and that’s when Fin calls from the hospital telling her to get to the hotel as soon as possible. That it wasn’t safe. She tells him that he needs to get Martin and her son from the game which is near the coast. Fin finally agrees.
Fin gets a taxi, driven by Ben, to the ball game. Ben tells him to call him anytime for a ride and he will get him anywhere he wants to go. At the game, the game gets canceled due to the weather, and that is when the sharks start attacking. Fin and his friends grab weapons and head to the subway.
Meanwhile, while on a ferry back to the city, Ellen’s friend Chrissie is killed when a shark attaches itself to her face. They start running and the Statue of Liberty’s severed head chases them for several blocks.
Fin and his friends escape the subway when it floods. They get outside and Ben is waiting in his cab to take them to some stores to get weapons. They take off again but get caught in a flood. While swinging to safety, Ben gets killed when the rope untangles and he is killed by the flood and sharks.
Fin and the rest of the group make it to the hotel. Fin and Skye head to the roof, leaving Martin and his son in the lobby to wait for Ellen and her group. Down the street, the girls almost make it when Ellen's remaining friend gets squished by a whale shark. Ellen and her daughter then make it to the hotel, reuniting with Martin and their son.
Fin and Sky try to throw the bombs on the converging sharknados, but it doesn’t work. It just sets the sharks on fire. So they start racing down the stairwell away from the flaming sharks. Martin and his group are going up the stairwell away from the flooding lobby.
April leaves the hospital and picks up the group in a fire truck. They go to the Empire State Building. They have to come up with a plan before the third sharknado converges with the other two to make a mega sharknado.
Fin gives a moving speech to get New Yorkers to take up arms and prepare themselves while Fin and Skye head to the top of the Empire State Building. He plans on connecting a bomb to the the lightning rod that somehow will connect to the storm. Something obviously goes wrong and a shark is about to kill Fin when April shows up and saves him. She has affixed a circular saw to her stump and saws the sharks.
Skye reconnects the bomb, and when it goes off, she is thrown and sharks tear her apart. Fin is also thrown, but he grabs ahold of a shark and rides it down, impaling the shark on the lightning rod. The bomb works and the sharknado disapates and sharks fall from the sky. Fin finds April’s bitten off arm and takes the wedding ring off and proposes to April again.
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Overall, I find Sharknado 2: The Second One an entertaining movie. Not as good as the original, and cheesier than the first movie. It also has way too many cameos in it. You can tell the first movie was popular since so many people wanted to be in this one. When Fin is flying around in the air, the CGI is so bad. He looks like a doll. I know it probably was meant to be that way but it was cringy. There’s also a lot of cringey dialogue that is eye rolling. Again, if you like cheesy shark movies then watch this movie.
And now for your Forever Final Girl Exclusive…Did you know?:
Robert Hays played a pilot in the beginning and said he has "been through worse" flying through a storm. This was a reference to him flying in Airplane! and Airplane II: The Sequel.
The pilot played by Robert Hays is named "Bob Wilson". William Shatner's character in The Twilight Zone episode The Twilight Zone: Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, where he thought he saw a monster on the wing (much like Ian Ziering did here with the shark), was named "Bob Wilson".
The characters played by Mark McGrath and Kari Wuhrer are named Martin and Ellen Brody. Those are the same names as Roy Scheider and Lorraine Gary's characters in Jaws. Their son is named Vaughan, which was the name of Murray Hamilton's character as the Mayor in Jaws.
Wil Wheaton's appearance in the film had originally been a joke in The Big Bang Theory, season seven, episode twenty-three, The Big Bang Theory: The Gorilla Dissolution, where he gets the opportunity to audition for it after getting fired from another bad horror film.
When the cab drives through a flooded Manhattan, the camera pans to reveal the name "Bickle" on the passenger side front door. That's a nod to Taxi Driver's character "Travis Bickle", played by Robert De Niro.
"Petunia" (a stuffed opossum which makes an appearance in each movie) can be seen in the shop where Martin and Vaughn go looking for supplies.
Director Anthony Ferrante appears as the guitar playing crooner in the subway.
April appears with a buzz saw attached to the stump where her left arm used to be. This is reminiscent of Ash's chainsaw in the Evil Dead franchise.
The scene at the end, where the hero just silently eats pizza, is an homage to the end of The Avengers.
Just some of the people who had roles in or cameos of themselves in the movie (there are many more, but this is what I could remember):
Kelly Osbourne as a flight attendant
Wil Wheaton as a passenger on the plane
The Naked Cowboy is walking around in the city
Matt Lauer as himself
Al Roker as himself
Andy Dick as a cop
Downtown Julie Brown as a nurse at the hospital
Billy Ray Cyrus as the surgeon at the hospital
Michael Strahan as himself
Kelly Ripa as herself
Biz Markie as Vinnie the owner of a pizza place
Kurt Angle as the fire chief
Pepa from Salt n Pepa plays one of Ellen’s friends.
Jared, the Subway guy
Perez Hilton as someone waiting for the subway
Daymond John from Shark Tank was man on the street
Have you seen the other Sharknado movies? Check out my other reviews here: Sharknado Franchise.
Let’s get into the rankings:
Kills/Blood/Gore: 3/5
Sex/Nudity: 0/5
Scare factor: 1/5
Enjoyment factor: 4/5
My Rank: 2.5/5
IMDB: 4/10
Rotten Tomatoes: critics: 6.1/10 audience: 3.1/10
Letterboxd: 1.8/5