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The Gratuitous B-Movie Column: Sharknado 5: Global Swarming
The Gratuitous B-Movie Column Issue #464: Sharknado 5: Global Swarming
MAYhem: Week 5
Hello, everyone, and welcome once again to the internets movie review column that has never had to repel down the side of a building or into a giant hole in the ground for any reason, The Gratuitous B-Movie Column, and I am your host Bryan Kristopowitz. In this issue, issue number four hundred and sixty four, MAYhem concludes with the fourth sequel in the Sharknado franchise, Sharknado 5: Global Swarming, which made its debut on the Sci Fi Channel on August 6th, 2017.
Author’s Note: I am reviewing the version that originally aired on TV. The version that’s available on home video is, as I understand it, unrated and uncut, so it’s probably different in terms of the on screen violence. At least I’d imagine that’s the way it is.
Sharknado 5: Global Swarming
Sharknado 5: Global Swarming, directed by Sharknado auteur Anthony C. Ferrante, is easily the most grim of the five movies made so far. It’s fun and ridiculous, sure, like the other ones, but Global Swarming has a slightly different kind of edge to it. It’s almost like the mission our heroes find themselves struggling to complete is ultimately kind of pointless because, in the end, you can’t really stop these killer tornadoes with the sharks in them. They just get bigger and bigger, nastier and nastier.
Ian Ziering once again stars as Fin Shepard, the world renowned sharknado expert, on his way to Europe to talk with NATO about sharknado preparation. Along with cybernetic wife April (Tara Reid) and young son Gil (Billy Barratt), the trip to Europe is supposed to be generally quick and painless, as there are no sharknados set to hit anywhere in the world, at least as far as anyone knows. However, when Fin joins up with fellow sharknado fighter Nova (Cassandra Scerbo) on a mission to retrieve a weird artifact from underneath Stonehenge, their action sets off a chain of events that develops into a major sharknado catastrophe. See, this artifact somehow initiates the creation of a massive, worldwide sharknado that just grows and grows. At the same time, we find out that the sharknado phenomena isn’t something new. No, instead, sharknados are things people all over the world have been dealing with since the beginning of time.
And while that particular bit of knowledge is out there, gigantic sharknados also have the ability to create portals that allow people to travel from place to place on Earth in the blink of an eye. How? I don’t quite understand it all, but if you know about it and jump into a sharknado you can do the whole “portal jump” thing.
And while all of that is going on, Fin and April are engaged in a kind of race against time to rescue their son Gil who has been sucked up into a sharknado and is traveling all over the world as a result. Gil can survive inside the sharknado because of a special helmet he’s wearing that he got from a British scientist played by Clay Aiken. Gil can also be tracked using the helmet. Fin and April get close time and again to retrieving Gil, but they also get transported to various random cities around the world, cities that have some kind of sharknado connection in world history and end up getting destroyed as the main sharknado grows and grows.
This is where the story gets darker and darker as it goes on. Fin, April, and Nova do all they can to rescue Gil, save people, and stop the growing sharknado, but their effort turns out to be a fruitless endeavor. No matter what they do, no matter what new sharknado secret they uncover, they can’t stop anything. The celebrity cameos are funny at first (Chris Kattan is the UK Prime Minster, Charo is the Queen of England, Fabio is the Pope, Nichelle Nichols as the head of NATO, David Naughton is some kind of ambassador) but then, as the movie goes on and the situation becomes more dire and it becomes obvious that Fin isn’t going to be able to save the day, the cameos that we do get are sad and kind of depressing. Al Roker hitting a shark with a baseball bat should be a fun moment. Instead, Al Roker hitting a shark with a baseball bat is a kind of act of desperation.
The whole “sharknados have been with humanity for centuries” is weird since no one seemed to know about them in the first movie (did they? I seem to remember most everyone being surprised by them). How could knowledge of them be suppressed/forgotten if they happen all of the time? The “ancient sharknado relics” thing was kind of cool, mostly for all of the Indiana Jones homages that leads to. However, where did that whole “sharknado sisterhood” thing come from?
And what about this: where the hell are all of the sharks coming from that are in the sharknados? How many sharks could there possibly be in the oceans for the sharknado to suck up? Look at how large the sharknado is in Global Swarming. It’s like it has every shark in the world in it. Where the hell did they all come from?
I like that the global locations Fin ends up at actually appear to be the actual locations, and it doesn’t look like director Ferrante used an abundance of green screen for those locations. You just don’t see that kind of thing in low budget movies all that often, if ever. Usually everything ends up looking like Canada or somewhere in Eastern Europe.
I would have liked to see a little more gore, but then there might be in the home video version. Some of the decapitations are quite good, though, just bloody enough. The sharknado effects are generally good throughout, too. The Stonehenge destruction sequence is just expensive enough looking to work.
The main performances are decent throughout. Ziering seems to be taking things a little more seriously here this time as Fin. His one liners don’t come off as ridiculous as they have in previous sequels, and he’s a little more committed to what’s going on. His only real “tongue-in-cheek” moment is when he gets a sweet as fuck looking chainsaw from the Pope (Fabio). Otherwise Ziering plays Fin as a “regular” action hero. I think that strategy is pretty cool. It’s sort of what he did in the first movie.
Tara Reid does a good job as the bionic April. Some of her line readings are awkward, and she looks uncomfortable running around in a few scenes, but then she is a cyborg and I think it’s possible that cyborgs can be uncomfortable in their own skin.
Cassandra Scerbo does a fantastic job as Nova. She’s a badass with all sorts of secrets she’s trying to maintain all the while helping Fin and April rescue Gil. She also has a thing for Fin, which annoys April. It’s damn sad what happens to her, although, I’m going to assume she’ll be back for the next one.
Of the celebrity cameos, the Chris Kattan as the UK Prime Minister is pretty good. The Bret Michaels cameo is funny (funnier if you don’t particularly care for him). Nichelle Nichols does a good job as the head of NATO. And the horrendous human being Abby Lee Miller has a nice cameo (you’ll know why when you see it). And you can never go wrong with Gilbert Gottfried in anything. My absolute favorite cameo is the last one. Dolph Lundgren. Yes, the Dolph Lundgren shows up at the very end of the movie as the older Gil (you have to watch the movie to understand it). Lundgren looks like he’s having a blast in the part, smiling awkwardly the whole time. How often do we see that in a Dolph Lundgren performance where he isn’t playing the bad guy? I hope he comes back for the next one.
The weirdest cameos? It’s a toss-up between Fabio as the Pope and Geraldo Rivera as a scientist. It probably would have been funnier if Geraldo had been the Pope and Fabio the scientist, but then no one asked me. I mean, Fabio is probably a smart guy and all, but the idea of a male model as a scientist, to me, just fits better. And Geraldo as the Pope? That’s just insane. And I really didn’t care for the Olivia Newton John cameo.
I liked this Sharknado quite a bit. The whole “portal jumping” thing confused me, but I was way more entertained with this one than with the last one. When it was over, I really wanted to see what was going to happen next. With the entire world in ruins, how the heck is Fin going to fix it all? On to the next one.
See Sharknado 5: Global Swarming. See it, see it, see it.
So what do we have here?
Dead bodies: Untold billions.
Explosions: Multiple, big and small.
Nudity?: None. It’s a basic cable TV movie.
Doobage: A woman repelling down into a hole in the ground, map folding, London, Stonehenge, a pen missile, a shark fin helmet, talk of a shark God, a stone shark fin with a green jewel in it, multiple attacking sharks, multiple sharknados, flying sharks, chopper attack, a secret briefcase, bloody leg removal, bionics, total landmark destruction, machine gun hooey, a blimp that can apparently fight sharknados, a person killing sharks with an umbrella and plates, hand eating, Switzerland, avalanche, a figure skater cuts a shark in half with her skates, cyborg destruction, cyborg reconstitution, shark through the torso, solar power hooey, an iconic battle station, laser attack, artifact stealing, a gut wrench suplex, a car chase, a blessed chainsaw, a giant rolling ball of sharks caused by toxic waste contamination, saw lasers, a safarinado, Egypt, baseball bat attack, a massive tsunami, exploding cyborg, complete and total worldwide destruction, and the promise of another one.
Kim Richards?: Considering the likely body count, yes, there would have to be.
Gratuitous: Multiple Indiana Jones references, Ian Ziering, Tara Reid, Chris Kattan as the UK Prime Minister, a shot at Tom Cruise and Mission Impossible, Clay Aiken as Q, Good Morning Britain, a red double decker bus, a Monty Python reference in the opening credits, Nichelle Nicholas the head of NATO, Abby Lee Miller, Charo as the Queen of England, Geraldo Rivera as a scientist, an Al Capone’s vault reference, snowboarding and skiing, a dog sled, a Terminator reference, Tony Hawk skateboarding on top of the Sydney Opera House, Johnny Nitro, a smart car, the Roman Colosseum, Fabio as the Pope, an Xfinity Streaming app “hidden” commercial, Dan Fogler, Hoda Kotb, Kathie Lee Gifford, Al Roker, Pokémon, Gilbert Gottfried, Al Roker telling the world it’s fucked, a tsunami, Dolph Lundgren, Dolph Lundgren smiling, and a Back to the Future reference.
Best lines: “Thank you, Mad Magazine,” “I thought Nova retired after she rode the Eiffel Tower across the Atlantic,” “You’ve done this before? I’ve done everything before,” “Remember, this isn’t about sharks, this is about family,” “What’s really going on here? The writing’s on the wall,” “Sharks. Why does it always have to be sharks?,” “Stonehenge is gonna blow!,” “Did you just shush me?,” “We got it. Yeah. But I think we started world war shark,” “What the hell’s going on? Same shark, different day,” “Listen to my Mom. She knows what she’s talking about,” “London Bridge is falling down!,” “I love you. Are you kidding? It’s about time,” “Oh my God! I just killed Bret Michaels!,” “Queen takes pawn, bitch!,” “I’m sorry I’m only human, April!,” “We never should have gone into that cave. That’s when this all started,” “Back home we’re trying to make America great again. But if you follow my lead we can make the world great again,” “Get ready for a massive scientific event. The vault is empty. I swear there was something inside,” “Come on! We need to get inside that sharknado!,” “I’m a lot of things, Fin, but I am not a human helicopter,” “Surf’s up!,” “What are you looking for? Sharks?,” “How the hell did we get to Australia?,” “You recruited my cousin? This is a cult!,” “I don’t think one kiss is going to overload her circuits,” “We may not be blood but we are family,” “Throw another shark on the Barbie, eh?,” “I can create a sharknado?,” “Who else wants to go to slam town?,” “Forgive me, Father, for I am Fin,” “You know how much I love playing with your balls!,” “It’s hard to believe that a stone can start a sharknado,” “Thank you, Pope!,” “That’s a huge shark. That’s not a shark. That’s a sharkzilla!,” “That is messed up,” ”Remember, when you see a shark grab’em by the fin,” “They’re gone. They’re all gone,” “This is definitely not England,” “Is anybody out there?,” “Is that really you, Gil?,” and “So you turned a sharknado into a time machine?”
Rating: 8.5/10.0
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Things to Watch Out For This Week
–Annihilation: I missed this sci-fi flick when it was in theatres, and it looks like a good chunk of the movie going public missed it, too. Some of the reviews I read for it were pretty scathing, but then there were people who really seemed to like it (and plenty of people said that they were just going to wait for it to hit Netflix, and some people who did see it said it looked like a movie that should have debuted on Netflix in the first place). Apparently it’s also not much of an action movie, either. I always thought that it looked like one of those genre movies that would “find” its audience on TV and home video. I’m not even sure why I thought that but I did. Definitely want to rent it first, just to see If it’s “as bad” as some seem to claim it is. Anyone out there see this?
–Trailer Park Shark: This is a Sci-Fi Channel movie that, I believe, aired last year as part of the channel’s Sharknado 5 coverage. Apparently it’s all about a trailer park that gets flooded after a hurricane and a big ass shark shows up and starts attacking people. Sounds pretty cool, if you ask me. Tara Reid and Henry Gardenhoser hisself, Thomas Ian Nichols, are in it (ha! It’s an American Pie reunion of sorts) as is Dennis “Mr. Belding” Haskins. Probably worth buying, as it’s likely only going to be like ten bucks at Walmart. Anyone out there see this?
–Shocking Dark: Directed by the immortal Bruno Mattei, this is a low budget Italian sci-fi post-apocalyptic movie that was known at one point as Terminator II. I’ve never seen this movie, I’ve only heard about it, and I have to say that it looks pretty damn cool. Insane, too. It’s a sort of amalgamation of The Terminator and Aliens. The fine folks at Severin Films are putting the movie out on Blu-ray, and if you’re a big time low budget Italian sci-fi this is a must have. Perhaps I need to do a marathon of these kinds of movies at some point.
–Zombie 3: The fine folks at Severin Films are also releasing this on Blu-ray, and it also has to be considered a must have. Lucio Fulci directed, with Claudio Fragasso and Bruno Mattei contributing, too, this is a B-movie classic and a weird ass zombie movie. This is, I believe, the uncut version of the movie (there are at least three versions that I’m aware of, but with the way these kinds of movies tend to get cut up and censored who knows how many actual versions there are out there). Shriek Show put this out on DVD years ago but it had no special features on it. This Blu-ray will have several special features on it.
-https://flic.kr/p/26hKtfa
Zombie 4: After Dark: Yet another Severin Films Blu-ray release, After Dark isn’t held in quite the same insane esteem as Zombie 3, but it has its fans. I’ve never seen this, either, but I did own it for about three hours before I had to return it because the DVD didn’t work (the store I bought it in didn’t have any more copies and I got something else instead). Anyway, based solely on its reputation and the reputation of Severin Films this is a must have home video release. When the heck are we going to get Zombie 5: Killing Birds? Robert Vaughn is in that one.
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Blindsided: The Game starring Eric Jacobus available now for free on YouTube!
Check it out! (And check out my review of the movie here)
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B-Movie News
–We now have a title for the final Sharknado movie: And what is that title? The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time. Pretty cool and to the point, right?
According to this article, this final Sharknado will involve time travel and have our hero Fin going back through time in order to stop the first sharknado from ever happening. Hopefully the movie will explain how no one had really heard of sharknados before the first movie and yet they’ve apparently been happening throughout history. How the hell did that happen?
The story also indicates that we will once again get a bevy of celebrity cameos, with Tori Spelling, Dee Snider, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Darrell Hammond already confirmed. Now, will Tyson be playing himself or will he be playing a character similar to himself? And will he be chomped on by one of the flying sharks? I’d say there’s a 90% chance of that happening.
Will Dolph Lundgren be back in any capacity? His name isn’t listed as in the cast on the movie’s imdb page, and Lundgren’s own page doesn’t show anything, either. I’d imagine he would be coming back to play the older Gil, at least at the beginning of the movie, but who knows?
Don’t forget that The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time will hit the Sci Fi Channel in late August (August 19th to be exact). I’m not sure when I’ll actually review the movie, but rest assured that it will be appearing at some point in The Gratuitous B-Movie Column. So, you know, be on the lookout for that.
Anyone else stoked for this next one? Anyone at all?
–Mark Dacascos is going to be in John Wick 3: Parabellum!: Is that goddamn awesome or what? You know it’s awesome. I mean, odds were already good that part 3 was going to be awesome anyway, as the first two movies kicked ass, especially part 2. Reeves is back, director Chad Stahelski is back, so already right there you know it’s going to be great. Adding Dacascos just makes it that much more awesome. Dacascos is a bonafide action star in his own right, and it will be great to see him on a big screen, in a movie theatre, in a major movie. That just doesn’t happen enough these days.
Apparently, Dacascos is set to play an assassin named Zero, (that’s what this article shows), and it looks like he’s going to get in at least one badass hand-to-hand brawl with Reeves’s Wick. Check out this article for some behind the scenes images of Dacascos in action.
Anjelica Huston, Halle Berry, Asia Kate Dillon, and a few other people are also going to be in it, too, but, for me, Dacascos is the big one. Hopefully the Zero character is a major presence in the movie.
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Who is the Douchebag of the Week? Go here and find out!
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Next Issue:The Night Stalker!
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Well, I think that’ll be about it for now. Don’t forget to sign up with disqus if you want to comment on this article and any other 411 article. You know you want to, so just go do it.
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Sharknado 5: Global Swarming
Ian Ziering– Fin Shepard
Tara Reid– April
Cassandra Scerbo– Nova
Billy Barratt– Gil
Yanet Garcia– Chara
Porsha Williams– Andromeda
Chris Kattan– UK Prime Minister
Clay Aiken– Llewelyn
(check out the rest of the cast here
Directed by Anthony C. Ferrante
Screenplay by Scotty Mullen, based on characters created by Thunder Levin
Distributed by The Asylum and Syfy
Rated– TV-14 for violence and language
Runtime– 93 minutes
Buy it here
