"Sharknado 2: The Second One" (2014)

Starring Ian Ziering, Tara Reid and Vivica A. Fox
Written by Thunder Levin
Directed by Anthony C. Ferrante
Unrated - Violence, language
Running Time: 90 minutes
Trailer

Fin (Ian Ziering) and his wife April (Tara Reid) are headed to New York City for a book signing. En route, their plane encounters a storm... full of sharks. Forced to take action again, Fin takes control of the plane after the pilots are killed, but April is injured in the ensuing chaos.

Arriving in the city, Fin seeks to locate his family including his sister Ellen (Kari Wuhrer) and her husband Martin (Mark McGrath). But of course, all hell is breaking loose. With superstorms approaching the city, New York finds itself under siege by sharks falling from the sky. With Manhattan in a panic, Fin must take control and figure out how to save everyone... including Matt Lauer.

I don't even know where to start with this one. For this bigger, badder sequel, everyone is clearly more in on the joke. The absurdity level, already high in the first film, is ratcheted up to eleven along with the budget and celebrity cameo levels.

The acting, as you'd expect, is atrocious. The only person who even comes close to giving a performance that's not outright bad is Judd Hirsch as a grumpy but lovable cab driver. Everyone else... Well. Ian Ziering leads the show, giving a Scott Bakula-level performance. Kari Wuhrer hasn't improved since her days as a second-stringer on "Sliders."

And Tara Reid. Well. Tara Reid. Let's just say she looks like a bad special effect. Her acting is worse than the CGI sharks.

But let's be honest here, this is not a movie you watch because you think it'll be good. You know it'll be bad, the trick is whether it'll still be fun. In fact, it is. However, I need to say that one of the things that made it so much fun was the community aspect of live-tweeting it with others. My twitter feed was exploding with #Sharknado2 tweets, and it was a blast riffing on it with people. I suspect that watching it with a group of friends would be the same, especially if there's some beer involved.

Flying sharks. Flaming sharks. A complete and utter lack of physics. Jokes ripped off from other, better movies. The only difference this time is that everyone is obviously playing along. The end credits are a joke in and of themselves.

Don't watch "Sharknado 2" alone. Not because it's a legitimately scary horror film. No, you want to watch "Sharknado 2" with friends or with a crowd because that's how you're going to have fun.