Sharknado - Enough Said!

 Sharknado – Enough Said!

Enough said? Not yet!

The following review’s under the slogan: “It’s raining sharks! Hallelujah!“ and just like The Weather Girls classic catchy song, I want to sing along this movie. Ready? Tune your voice!      Hi Hi! I’m your reporter Ah huh And have I got news for you You better listen! Get ready, all you lonely girls and leave those umbrellas at home. Alright! Humidity's rising, Barometer's getting low According to all sources, the street's the place to go Cause tonight for the first time Just about half-past ten For the first time in history It's gonna start raining sharks.

Forget about cats and dogs! It's raining freaking sharks!

Alright, before I start to sing the whole song, 
I’ll focus on the movie. You are pulled into “Sharknado”’s story, an Asylum film that was released 2013, like a car – or in this case: a shark – into a tornado because at the beginning we find ourselves on a small boat on the ocean, 20 miles off the coast of Mexico, where two “businessmen” negotiate on a deal that involves sharks. 20000 (!) of them are out there, swimming in a school of sharks and the fisher only thinks of big bucks. Their deal, however, doesn’t come to a conclusion because a storm approaches quickly and drops the school of sharks on its way and they’re hungry! During the movie I tried to reconstruct the path of the Sharknado which, thanks to the constant live news, worked – more or less, and came to the conclusion that the Sharknado covered a distance from approximately 3000 km (about 1864 miles). That’s about 266 times of the average distance a tornado covers, so maybe “Sharknado” isn’t the right term to use here… “Sharkane” might be a better term to describe this phenomenon.

You bastard! You ruined my sandcastle!

The storm heads towards California where we get to meet the hero of the movie: Fin. He owns a bar at Santa Monica Pier and enjoys surfing and apparently climbing, but I will explain that one later. When the sharknado / sharkane hits California’s beach, nobody seems to really care – maybe because there are shots of Santa Monica at a clear sunny day in between. Yes, the editing of the film could have done better, but I will try to stick to the plot and not all mistakes here… I wouldn’t get much done otherwise. Okay.

I believe I can flyyyyyy! I believe I can touch the sky!

The sharks that fall from the sky don’t waste much time either when they bite the people they practically fall on to. It’s never actually made clear how the sharks survive the storm and/or the fall from the sky. They don’t have any parachutes. Sharks with parachutes might be a case for the military, I guess. Anyhow, arms are being ripped off, people are eaten in one move. It’s a bloody mess, so Fin, who worries about his children and ex-wife, decides to drive to Hollywood where they live with his ex’s new boyfriend. Neither of them is happy to see Fin or is keen to look out the windows where the shark-filled storm approaches. A few of the sharks manage to get into the house and get rid of the new boyfriend. Desperately, Fin and his companions try to save him which is pretty useless since the shark has already eaten him by about 90%, but it’s the attempt that counts, right? But wait, his son’s missing! Where is he? Could he be behind the door? No, it’s just a shark. Then the group go to fetch Fin’s son who is at a small airport to take flying lessons. On their way, Fin decides to rescue children who are in a school bus that is surrounded by water which is rising quickly at first but seems to wait for Fin to come to the rescue. Now remember I told you he apparently likes climbing? He’s always prepared to climb a mountain or – in this case: save poor children from a dangerous situation that somehow requires climbing utensils. One by one he saves them, including the bus driver, and the water seems to be pleased as it now rises and sharks enter the scene again.

My momma always said, “Life was like a box of chocolates.”

Alright, I may now complain again about a tiny thing. How many children can fit into a school bus? About 50? Maybe more? Even if I go and say: The bus was about halfway full, there’s still more than 20 pupils in there. Securing and pulling them up on to the bridge, even if they’re quick at doing it, will take about two minutes, so they spent at least 52 minutes to get them all up there. The son could have died in that timespan or the sharks could have eaten them, but no, everything’s fine; except for the bus driver whose mother was right: Hollywood did kill him. Forrest Gump’s wasn’t that pessimistic. To her, it was all about chocolate. Yum!

When they get to him, of course the sharks are there too and Fin’s son utters his wish to “drop bombs in the sharknado”. Well, I’m not the one to judge his wish, other young people want to be a pilot, visit foreign countries or what else their heart desires. This young man wants to drop bombs in a tornado that’s filled with alive and hungry for human flesh sharks, and he already knows where to get all that: Toys ‘R’--- No, of course not. It’s the DIY store. MacGyver’s illegitimate son knows what he’s doing as he happily builds his (presumably not) first bomb. Guess it’s just a usual weekend for him and as terrifying this matter is, strangely, his plan works. Why? We will most likely never know, but with this happy ending the movie closes with fast credit scrolls. The people working on the movie were probably too ashamed of themselves and thus decided to leave us with many unanswered questions, like: How did Fin manage to find the same shark that ate his friend? How was he able to use a chainsaw in it to escape when there’s clearly no air in a shark and thus the chainsaw should be useless? How come the sharks appear to grow and shrink in a moment? Hmm… That’s to the X-Files.

In conclusion the movie is BAD, but it’s what you get from The Asylum. Anyone expecting high quality CGI or a coherent plot, go and watch something else, “Sharknado” isn’t for you. If you’re looking for fun, silly explosions for no evident reason, and/or bad imitations of movies such as “Jaws”, give “Sharknado” a try. There are many things to discover that will leave you astonished and wonder “WTF did I just watch?

Yearning for baguettes, OR: Age Of Dinosaurs // Possible HUGE spoiler alert!! //

HAPPY NEWS: We finally got around to watch "Age Of Dinosaurs - Terror In L.A.". This movie was released by The Asylum in May 2013, and since we got to watch the German version of it, I can only speak of that version for real. Yeah, yeah, I know that's really bad!!

Also... As it was my first "official" trash movie to watch, I cannot compare it to other movies, which is sad because we had a good time watching it, and I guess it could lead the way towards more movies in this genre, holding a lantern in its hands and calling "Follow, you fools!". (Those who get the reference, I salute you!)

But back to the movie. Have some trailer first, to get a little glimpse into what could be happening:

Get the gist already? No? Well, here we go: Gabe Jacobs (played by Treat Williams) is a firefighter, and even if you forgot about this fact at first, you shall be reminded during every scene possible throughout the entire movie that this is his profession. He asks his daughter, Jade (Jillian Rose Reed), to join him to something that he hints at with the word "Jurassic". Mmh! What could this be?

As they get into a hall with a - fairly small - stage, Jade does not know what he meant, but soon it is clear that the company "Geneti-Sharp" has found a way to clone dinosaurs, and that these dinosaurs are special guests behind a glass wall that (at least in the version I watched) could bear up against a pressure of 17,000 bar (I... might be wrong!). Jade "escapes" Justin's boring speech and plays MP3s while the dinosaurs escape, whoohoo!

Now that the dinos run free, she soon suspects something is wrong, and then is chased by a dinosaur, I think his name was Larry (Played by bad computer animated... stuff. He doesn't even have a shadow, yet he does not sparkle!), into a scene that kinda, sorta reminds of a certain scene in a certain movie I won't name here, but I guess you will know which one I mean once you watch it :P. Yeah, that's mean and highly professional of me, I know!

Hiding behind a double-glazed... oven?, she now is safe from Larry. Sure. The firefighter in the meantime wanders off to search for his daughter, whose scream he has heard from afar even though the entire hall's filled with people who scream aswell, and he finds her.

Now I won't tell you any more, because I still don't want to spoil you. Let's just leave it to, "Our hero and his daughter have a rather interesting flight through the city. Also, dinosaurs don't like mesh wire fences, obviously."

What confused both Meian and me was, that the stage was, as we said already, kind of small, and many dinosaurs at once fit onto it, yet in other sequences, they were HUGE. And by HUGE I mean, woah, they are as big as skyscrapers, or at least entire sets of floors inside them. Oh wait, maybe they grew all through the movie, and then met the white rabbit from "Alice In Wonderland", who led them to the "Eat me"s and "Drink me"s...

Why the baguette reference, too? Well, there is this scene featuring a pteranodon (played by Mr Baguette), and whenever its beak was shown, it literally looked like two baguettes being waved around. "We spared no expense!", eh?

My favourite quote, in the German version, was refering to a rather small city (compared to others, at least) within Germany, namely Stuttgart. Something along the lines of, "The entire city of STUTTGART will be delighted!" ... I knew that scenes in the movie (are supposed to) play in Japan AND in Los Angeles, but what the heck does Stuttgart out of all cities possible have to do with this?! Why should it be delighted?! Why do I even think about this?!

Yes, indeed, why do I even think about this? Was the movie good or no(o)t? I think it was, indeed, worth watching, even though I guess maybe (possibly maybe?) it was NOT the intention behind the movie to make it this funny / confusing. Or maybe it was :). And this is exactly what I like about it: It can be hilarious if you pay attention to some of the things happening (especially compared to things prior mentioned / happening), to the "firefighter" always being mentioned as that (We even considered to make a drinking game ouf ot if D:!) - and to the duties he has to live with -, to random shadow and mirror fails, and towards what happens when a door is locked and somebody has a magic key to enter and leave at his own will.

Yesyesyes, I want more of this!! IF you indeed take this movie seriously, or want to watch something that doesn't highly remind you of Jurassic..., then don't watch it. Don't "waste your time". But if you are up for some really "good" trash, then watch it and let us know what you think!!

As it is right now, I'd rate the movie as "4 out of 5 dinosaurs" - it IS hilarious altogether, but I, for now, don't know whether I'd find better movies than THIS ONE yet, and I somehow had the feeling something was missing still. Altogether it was a good experience to watch it, so... Hope to see you soon?