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Forgive me for the long title, but it was absolutely necessary. I am very excited about this project, as I feel like it has the shot to be really fun and give those reading this a good list of weather movies to see. The majority of weather movies are absolutely awful, but that is what will make this fun!
I have had at least 2 bigger projects planned, and haven’t followed through on them, so doing this is big. Like huge. I gotta come through! I’ll try to find enough weather movies to review one per week; and currently, here is what I have laid out:
- Sharknado
- Sharknado 2
- Absolute Zero
- Metal Tornado
- Age of ice
Granted, all of these movies look incredibly awful. However, that is okay. That makes this a lot more fun!
Synopsis: Sharknado is not as self-explanatory as it seems. The movie essentially begins with no plot development, no character development and really no development. You basically jump right into the plot with no real background. To tell you how much of an impact this movie had on my life, I had to look up the character names on IMBD.
Fin Shepard (of course his name is Fin) is the owner of a bar directly on the beach in LA. He employs someone who has a crush on him, named April. She essentially goes way out of her way a lot to try to protect him, and he seems very unthankful. He is kinda mean throughout, and seems to have some emotional issues. His wife did leave him, which we would find out later in the movie.
Anyways, the premise involves a Hurricane forming in the eastern Pacific and rolling into southern California. Along with it, this brings sharks and massive (MASSIVE) storm surge. So massive that it was unrealistic. I am pretty positive that the storm surge was upwards of 50 to 60 feet. The region was having an issue with a lack of Sharks, but that was not an issue for long. The approach of the hurricane was pretty quick into the region, and began to wreak havoc.
Sharks were flying everywhere, and were in tornadoes and hurricanes and the water. I mean, there was so much water in the city of LA itself that sharks were swimming through the city. THROUGH IT. This caused mass panic, and naturally, it was up to three people to try to stop an entire hurricane. Good luck.
Well, the hurricane kept approaching, and then there were 3 EF-4 tornadoes that formed in the city. Each carried a truck load of sharks with it, making the job tougher. To make a long story short, Fin goes and saves his ex-wife and their daughter. They take off with April to go and find Fin’s son, Matt. He is off learning how to fly airplanes, and they get there and a tornado hits. Somehow, despite having little shelter in a hurricane and an EF-4 tornado, they live easily. Way too easily.
So, Matt and April have this grand idea to fly a helicopter to the tornadoes and drop bombs into them! They are very successful in this case, and make sure that the tornadoes are gone. Fin slices a shark in half and the movie ends with basically everyone alive.
Review: ★☆☆☆☆
This movie was awful. There are so many things about this movie that I would do differently. First of all, I wouldn’t waste $1,000,000 on this movie. Yes, I know that most movies have budgets waaaaaay higher than that, but this movie should have cost about $15 and a Dr.Pepper to make. That is what I think of it.
Moving along, this movie is about as meteorologically inaccurate as they come. First of all, this movie was released in July of 2013. California sea surface temperatures were between 53ºF and 60ºF, which is well below the threshold for sustaining a hurricane this strong.
Additionally, the hurricane shown in the movie was barely big enough to cause even significant storm surge, let alone the type of storm surge that this movie produced.
Then, there is the issue of the tornadoes. First of all, you can’t rate tornadoes before you see the damage. In the movie, the specifically referred to the tornadoes as “EF-4’s”, which is impossible. Secondly, having 4 tornadoes that strong in such a close proximity to each other is a ridiculous idea. They would cut off each other’s inflow, and they would die. Yes, there have been large tornadoes close to each other. However, it is incredibly rare to have more than one violent tornado within that close proximity to another.
Then, there is the idea that upper level winds wouldn’t be supportive of a tornado that strong. To get violent tornadoes, you typically need stronger low, mid and upper level winds to create substantial wind shear, which helps to create the tornado. However, any level of wind shear tends to inhibit hurricane formation, and thus you can only have one or the other.
Outside of the meteorological fallacies, this movie had incredibly bad character development. You basically jump right into what feels like the middle of a story. The exposition is way too quick, and you don’t really get a sense of what is going on with the plot. I was lost off the bat (mainly because I was in a car, but that set aside, I was still lost), and really still don’t know what the point of the opening scene was.
When we get into the beef of it, they seem to rush the plot, yet, its kept too repetitive. People are being eaten by sharks. Sharks are flooding the city, etc. Get some realism. Please. Any. I just want to feel like it could happen.
My point is, if you are bored this weekend, don’t watch Sharknado. You get lots of Sharks and lots of nado, but no real enjoyment. Unless you really like Sharks.