Sharknado 5: Global Swarming

Sharknado 5: Global Swarming is bad. But once you accept that the Sharknado movies are just cheesy shark movies, I think you can go into it having some fun. Good, cheesy, brainless fun. Besides, how can you not like a movie with Dolph Lundgren in it? 

<img src="Sharknado5.jpg" alt="Sharknado 5: Global Swarming.">

Photo Credit: The Asylum

Released: Aug 6, 2017

Runtime: 93 mins

Director: Anthony C. Ferrante

Writer: Thunder Levin, Scotty Mullen

Actors: Ian Ziering, Tara Reid, Cassandra Scerbo


PLOT

America is in ruins and the world prepares for a global Sharknado invasion. Fin, his family and friends are the world's only hope.


MY THOUGHTS

Sharknado 5: Global Swarming changes things up a little. We still get kills, but they cut way back on the blood and gore. I’m not a fan of that. Granted, most if not all was just bad CGI, but still. It’s a shark movie. You need lots of blood.

One cool scene is when Tony Hawk skateboards his way up the Sydney Opera House. I didn’t expect him to show up in the movie. Another is Tiffany Pollard (if you watched Flavor of Love you would know her as I Love New York) showing up as Vega. But who I really liked seeing was Chris Kattan as the British Prime Minister. I haven’t seen him in anything for awhile. 

Acting wise it’s the same for any Sharknado movie. The only exception would be Tara Reid is even more annoying with her screams this time. Returning actors are Ian Ziering, Tara Reid, Cassandra Scerbo, and Billy Barratt. They continue their roles as Fin, April, Nova, and young Gil. We do see Fabio as the Pope and Charro as the Queen of England. There were a lot of Olympians as well.

We start Sharknado 5: Global Swarming at an archaeological dig with Nova. She has a map and is in a cave with large drawings. She needs Fin and she calls him. Fin, April, and young Gil are in London at a NATO meeting, which was gathered after the destruction of the US.

Fin heads to Stonehenge where Nova was digging. They find out that the sharknado’s have happened before, and that there’s a shrine to a shark god with an artifact that can help them stop it. They go through this whole Indiana Jones type montage. Unfortunately, when they took the artifact, it created another sharknado with a strange purple beam (that turns out to be a dimensional vortex) going through it.

Fin and Nova escape to London just in time for it to hit London. They find April and little Gil, but unfortunately the sharknado picks up Gil, taking off with him. They were fortunate enough that a scientist created a shark fin helmet that makes the wearer of the helmet protected from a sharknado and sharks. Fin, April, and Nova are able to track his biometrics because of the helmet. 

April, Fin, and Nova board a blimp and follow the storm to Switzerland. Unfortunately the storm causes them to crash. They try to ski their way down but are caught up in the storm and transported to Australia. They appear in the Sydney harbor, but before they can be rescued April is cut in half by a shark.

Fortunately for April, Nova’s group the Sharknado Sisterhood, who are fighting the storms, have their base hidden in the Sydney Opera House. While there, two scientists are able to not only fix April, but improve her. This whole time Nova has been recruiting women to help, including Fin’s cousin Gemini.

Meanwhile, Gemini is on a ship with nuclear waste, and it is attacked by a sharknado. It consumes the waste, turning into a huge shark shaped blob of sharks, heading for Japan. 

Fin and April go after another sharknado to find their son but instead are teleported to Rio de Janeiro. Here they meet up with Vega (Tiffany Pollard aka I Love New York) at an old church. She explains the history and the myths regarding the sharknados. She tells them to take the artifact back to Stonehenge. Also, whoever holds the artifact can summon the sharknado.

While listening, a thief steals the artifact which causes a long car chase that ends with both cars being teleported to the Colosseum. They lose the sharknado but get back the artifact. They are at a loss at what to do when they get summoned by the Pope (Fabio). He gives Fin a kick ass chainsaw weapon and tells him not to lose hope.

April and Fin use the artifact to summon the sharknado. They get a hold of Gil, but soon lose their grip, and instead are transported to Tokyo. They learn that Gil is trapped in the shark shaped blob. Nova and the rest of her sisterhood show up. They jump into the blob, trying to save Gil but all, including Nova and Gil are killed.

After hearing that Gil is dead (from Nova), Fin gets a phone call from Matt who is in Kansas. He tells Fin that Claudia, his dad Gil, and his mom are all dead. Soon the phone goes dead as Matt is sucked into the storm.

April and Fin are devastated that their whole family is gone. They plan on returning the artifact to Stonehenge, but the storm they summon sends them to the pyramids in Egypt. There they find hieroglyphs that explain how the vortex can be imprisoned in the core of the earth. They figured out how to start the machine. It seems to be working when all of a sudden it reverses and the vortex breaks through the earth.

This basically triggers sharknado’s all over the world, engulfing it and killing everyone but April and Fin. They walk outside and see a sharknado and a shark tsunami heading straight for them. Fin uses a staff that he found to try to protect them, but it’s not enough. April takes in all of the energy of the vortex, stopping it, but it destroys her body.

The world is now desolate, and Fin is all alone. He walks the earth with April’s dead robotic head. When out of nowhere a Hummer appears. A man (Dolph Lundgren) gets out and says he’s Gil, Fin’s son. He explains how when the shark blob exploded, he went back in time. It’s taken him years to figure out a way to turn a sharknado into a time machine. But now he’s back and he takes Fin with him to the past to try to save their loved ones.

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Overall, I think Sharknado 5: Global Swarming was slightly better than the 4th movie. But just barely. My son, who was watching it with me, liked Tony Hawk's appearance and said the movie felt like the videogame Fortnite. It’s cheesy and cringy, but mindless fun. But if you don’t like cheesy shark movies, do not watch this. It will annoy you.

And now for your Forever Final Girl Exclusive…Did you know?:

  • Aired two weeks after the death of John Heard, who co-starred in the first film. An "In Memory Of" tribute is featured at the end.

  • When Fin and Nova are exploring Stonehenge, props from Halloween III: Season of the Witch are seen (the skull mask and a Silver Shamrock Novelties logo badge). The two items are seen very briefly laying on the ground within the first several minutes of the film, when the two characters, Fin and Nova, are deep within the caverns of Stonehenge. 

  • The only Sharknado to not say "Fin" before the end credits.

  • When Dr. Angel (Geraldo Rivera) opens his safe, he finds it empty and says that he'd swear there was a bottle of liquor inside. This is a jab at Rivera's own documentary The Mystery of Al Capone's Vaults, in which the vault of gangster Al Capone was located and opened, in the hope of finding his secret treasure or even a corpse. The show was so hyped in advance that it garnered one of the highest Nielsen ratings in television history, but it ended in disappointment because all that was inside the vault was dirt, an empty bottle of liquor and a roll of quarters.

  • Olivia Newton-John's character warns April and Fin not to get too physical. "Physical" was one of her hit songs.

  • "Petunia" (a stuffed opossum which makes an appearance in each movie) can be seen a few times in this one. Once on a poster for "Petunia Cerveza" at the bar in Rio and then again in Old Fin's Hummer.

  • The Secretary General, played by Nichelle Nichols (Uhura, Star Trek), tells Fin that he has gone "where no man has gone before" - this is an iconic Star Trek line.

  • Clay Aiken plays Llewelyn, a character like James Bond's Q, who was portrayed by Desmond Llewelyn in 17 James Bond films.

  • Poison frontman Bret Michaels has a brief cameo where he stays off a shark with a Sharkslayer guitar, on the front bumper of a double-decker tour bus. This is most likely a reference to the flame-throwing guitarist on the front of the vehicle in Mad Max: Fury Road.

Have you seen the other Sharknado movies? Check out my other reviews here: Sharknado Franchise.

Let’s get into the rankings:

Kills/Blood/Gore: 2/5

Sex/Nudity: 0/5

Scare factor: 1/5

Enjoyment factor: 5/5

My Rank: 2/5

IMDB: 3.8/10

Rotten Tomatoes: critics:  3/10  audience:  3.8/10

Letterboxd: 1.8/5