Movie Review: Sharknado 2: The Second One (2014)

The movie stars Ian Ziering, Tara Reid, Vivica A. Fox, Mark McGrath and Judd Hirsch.

I was a bit reluctant to watch this movie because, while the first film ended up being a pleasant surprise, I had a considerably number of doubts about the sequels. However, my wife and I wanted to watch a movie last night and, since neither of us could make up our minds about what to watch, I ended up picking out this one. Unfortunately, my doubts were justified.

Movie sequels typically fall into one of two categories. Either they have a completely new story that is loosely tied into the first film. Or, they re-hash the same basic story in a different setting. In this case, it was definitely the latter and, because of that, the film struggles to be even remotely interesting.

My biggest problem with this film is it was very predictable. As I mentioned before, it was simply re-hashing the same basic plot from the first film. The only differences were they were in New York and the storm was bigger.

Even the characters were basically the same. While this normally wouldn't be a bad thing, the fact Fin (Ziering) already knew how to stop the storm (though he did, admittedly, have to modify his strategy a little bit) just didn't have the same impact a brand new character, starting from scratch, would have.

Probably the only redeeming thing about this movie, in my opinion at least, had to be Judd Hirsch as the taxi driver Ben. He was actually somewhat interesting, especially the way he managed to get Fin to where he needed to be and would happen to be in exactly the right spot when the heroes needed a ride. That's the kind of character I want to see more of but, in this case, he didn't even make it halfway through the movie, adding to the overall disappointment.

I liked the first film but this sequel honestly wasn't anything special. I wouldn't recommend wasting your time watching it.

My Grade: D