The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time premiered on SyFy last night to millions of eager viewers in what is said to be the final film of the franchise. I doubt anyone actually believes this will be the last we’ve heard from the Sharknado series but it will be strange to know that another Sharknado isn’t just around the corner. Like Marvel movies or the Fast & The Furious franchise, people just assume there is always another Sharknado movie in development. Call it an end of an era or an overdue exit, The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time is (apparently) the final time fans will see Ian Ziering and Tara Reid go toe-to-toe against the weather pattern with teeth.
To recap things a little: an impossibly impossible cyclone swoops up hundreds of man-eating sharks before making it’s way into downtown Los Angeles. People are being chomped right off the street and the one thing standing in there way is former surfer, current bar owner, and future shark-slayer Fin Shepard. With the help of his family, Fin defeats the sharks and saves the day. Everything seems fine until they find themselves fighting sharks in New York while April is out promoting her book “How To Survive A Sharknado and Other Unnatural Disasters”. Did I mention that the sharks attack an airplane, eating passengers as they swim from economy to first class? Cause oh-boy do they!
Fin’s wife April (Tara Reid) severs her hand while fending off sharks, but it’s cool because she also gets to go into space and come back from the dead, as a robot, after being crushed in the biggest cliffhanger of the series. Let’s see, what else happens? Oh- Skarknados, have become as common as pesky house flies,and they’ve squirmed there way into every natural disaster from a Lava-nados to Lightning-nados. There’s a Nuke-nado that’s causing a whole lot of problems for everybody, and even a Japanese Shark-zilla that somehow manages to bend time and space, hurling Fin‘s son Gil into the past. Don’t worry though. He spends the rest of his life mastering time travel to return to his father, and also, he grows up to be Dolph Lundgren so win-win.
The Last Shaknado: It’s About Time drops our hero Fin Shepard in prehistoric Santa Monica after the events of the previous film. According to his son who has been travelling through time his entire adult life, Finn must stop the first Sharknado in order to prevent the future Sharknado from occurring. You know, like killing head vampire to reverse the curse of every vampire below him. Finn quickly finds himself corned by a whole host of man-eating dinosaurs, and dinosaur eating Megalodons, but luckily he’s not alone. In an effort to save everyone that has met a tragic end at the hands of these bloody Sharknado, Fin’s son has rescued every killed co-star to help Fin put an end to these pesky Sharknados once and for all.
Along the way they run into a whole host of side-characters including astro-physicist Neil Degrass Tyson as Merlin, drag queen Astro Thunderfuck as medieval mad-woman Morgana, and Twister Sister’s Dee Snider as a wild-west town sheriff who I’m sure had a name. Oh and I hope you love Tara Reid’s performance as the nuclear-powered shark stomping Robo-April because, The Last Sharknado has Tara Reids as far as the eye can see! As Vivian A. Fox exclaims, it’s a literal Planet of the Aprils.Â
The Sharknado series can’t be judged by the same standards we’ve set for other movies. Like every over-the-top B-Movie, Sharknado is supposed to be a vacation from your average film experience. Call over some friends, turn off your brain and enjoy. Similar to previous installments, The Last Shaknado: It’s a About Time is over-loaded with absurd plot lines, cameos-a-plenty, and shark puns that would impress even your dad. In other words, it’s everything you’re looking for in a movie about a time travelling shark-infested tornado.
There is only questions people as when you recommend they watch something like Shaknado: Is it good? A reasonable question, but it implies that you can only classify movies as Good or Bad. Sure, we’ve all see a few movies that aren’t worth watching a 2nd time, but I prefer to classify movies as Good or Fun. A family struggles with the loss of their matriarch, who may have secretly offered their souls to a demon? Good. Aliens resurrect the dead to stop humanity from building a doomsday device? Fun!
Not that you need to start approaching movies with a more positive attitude, but I’ve found that I started having a lot more fun after I stopped assuming what I was about to watch wasn’t worth my time. The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time is by no means the best movie you will see this year, but it is a heck of a lot of fun if you’re willing to give yourself over to it. And what are we all looking for in a movie but to have a little fun.
Did you watch The Last Sharkado: It’s About Time? Did you spend all weekend binge-watching the previous 5 Sharknados in shark pajamas, eating shark themed foods? Let us know what you thought in the comments below, over on Twitter, or in our Horror Group on Facebook!
