Oh yes I went there!

If could I would go to a movie every 3-4 nights and review it. However I am currently saving every penny that the government pays me for our impending wedding. And saving means sacrifice and compromise, and watching a movie every 3-4 weeks.  However once and a while a cinematic event will come along which means I throw economic caution to the wind and I have to attend. Films that are important, socially, politically, historically or have Scarlett Johansson or Monica Belucci in them.

I am talking about movies that posh people refer to as cinema, creative aesthetic masterpieces that are evocative and compelling. Those films are terrific.

Sadly none of them were on so we went and watched sharknado at Reading.

When I told my lovely film mad partner that I had spent my hard earned pennies of two tickets to the only screening I instantly knew how Jack felt when he told his mum he swapped a cow for some magic beans. Except I think my fiance would have preferred that I spent the money on beans,. And not even magic beans, jelly beans would have made her happier than two tickets to this "movie".

A synopsis which contains several spoilers:

Fin Shepard (The actor some guy form 912010 who I can't remember but who all the women have fond teenage memories of) is an ex surfer who is surfing with his Tasmanian mate Baz (a guy who was once in Bay Watch)  when A hurricane filled to the brim with Sharks hits the coast.  Then despite the clear Sky's, sun and pancake flat sea, LA is swamped with waves filled with more Sharks than a Cronulla league team. These Sharks cruise the drains and roads hunting for Californian commuters.  Baz, Fin, Nova a barmaid from Fins bar and George (John Heard who is in fact a real actor) join together to try and rescue Fins ex wife (Tara Reid) daughter Claudia and son Matt.  These kids are so old I think Fin and Tara must have conceived them at West Beverly High School. But of course this ignored as once Fin battles through Shark  infested down town to discover that his son Matt is not at home, but training to be a pilot. The Sharkey gang take off to find him, saving a school bus filled with kids along the way. Lucky ex surfers and bar managers keep abseiling gear in their cars. They get to the aerodrome just in time before the Hurricane (which has turned into three tornadoes) hits them. 

The Aerodrome is wrecked, except for a helicopter which was completely untouched. It is decided that they can stop the tornadoes by blowing them up! So Matt and Nova (who has gone off Fin due to his adult children and has decided to go after Matt, one of Fins adult children) get in the helicopter and blow up two of the Sharknadoes with IEDs.  But Nova is eaten by a flying great white and the Helicopter spins out of control. Fin then gets into the hummer and drives it into the last Sharknado saving the city from this spinning Selachimorphic threat.  he then leaps through the air to defeat the final shark with a chainsaw, rescuing Nova from it's belly.

Fin

The acting is appalling, it is in fact so bad it is like a cliche. Watching Tara Reid and Ian Ziering is like a after school special for why cocaine is bad.  But competing for why this film sucks so much you have the terrible special effects versus the footage stolen from documentary footage of Sharks from the last forty years. I am fairly sure I saw Jacques Cousteau at one point.

Cousteaus cinematography added drama to the film.

The special effects were worse than a secondary school student project, the acting was fourth rate, the story was beyond ludicrous and for the most part made absolutely no sense. I obviously needed to drink more, because there were several parts where I had no idea what was going on. Not the suspension of disbelief, but just basic narrative holes you could drive a truck through.

But it was fun and I will tell you why. One of the great cinema traditions you don't often get in New Zealand is a bad movie night. Oh sure you can invite a few friends around and laugh at a terrible film on the 40 inch Plasma (take that metric system!), but nothing compares to doing the same thing with a hundred people on the big screen.  You shout out witticisms, certainly wittier than the script writers came up with, eat popcorn, share popcorn with strangers and enjoy a poorly crafted movie as a community.  My girl was surprised by how she enjoyed the experience, and the only thing I can compare it to is those sing along  Grease and Rocky Horror  movie nights where people dress up and sing along. It is a unique experience and one we should have more of.


But let me be clear this is the only way to enjoy this drivel. It is a shockingly bad movie and while there is a certain kind of wonderful in a film this bad, it is still awful.

Two Monkeys from me.

If you want more monkeys watch Baboonami, yuuuus