Jumping the shark is the point

SHARKNADO 3: OH, HELL NO! (2015)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

As you sit down to watch "Sharknado 3: Oh, Hell No" you can't expect anything more than an onslaught of puerile scenes that just might make you say, "Oh, Hell No!" I can't say I enjoyed this one as much as the over-the-top cartoonish mentality of the last foolhardy sequel, but nobody should resist this one for the relentless onslaught of inspired cameos and gags.

There is not much plot. Fin (Ian Ziering) is pretty much a celebrity now for having killed more sharks in those dreaded climate-change-sharknados with his trusty chainsaw than anyone else. He is presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by the President, naturally, played by Mark Cuban! Okay, I won't do this but every cameo in this movie should be followed by an exclamation point. Needless to say, a storm of sharknados destroys the White House, the Capitol, the Washington Monument and other historic landmarks in less than ten minutes. Ann Coulter appears as Vice President (even her Democratic friend Bill Maher would smile at that one), Lou Ferrigno is a Secret Service guard who takes a selfie with Fin (a big no-no!), Michelle Bachman plays herself, Robert Klein is the D.C. mayor, and so on. If the whole film took place in D.C., then it might have been more engaging. Instead Fin has to meet his pregnant wife, April (Tara Reid), and their daughter, Claudia (Ryan Newman - forgettable at best) at the Universal Orlando Resort, along with April's mother (thanklessly played by Bo Derek). Kim Richards is the VIP guide at the Resort who is gone far too soon.

There are a host of incredulous cameos in "Sharknado 3." My favorite might be disgraced political figure Anthony Wiener as a National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration Director...it is too funny to dismiss and possibly one of the more inspired cameos ever. Everything else in "Sharknado 3" is by rote and it doesn't have the level of cartoonish mayhem as expected from the previous films. Still, David Hasselhoff as Fin's father, who has NASA experience that leads to using the Space Shuttle to demolish a series of sharknados, proves that nothing is off-limits for complete silliness. The repeated gag from the first film of someone surviving after being swallowed by a shark is taken a few Emeril notches into absurdity. Jumping the shark in these movies is the point.

Footnote: My wife suggested that "Sharknado 4" should feature the Split Enz song "Shark Attack" by Tim Finn. Let's make it happen SyFy.