SHARKNADO 3: OH HELL NO!

The third film in the FX Channel franchise of intentional so bad they're good thriller/adventures

Someone ill-advised Eddie Murphy and his once-perfect TRADING PLACES and COMING TO AMERICA collaborator John Landis to set the third BEVERLY HILLS COP vehicle in an amusement park, and yet, that's where the most action-packed SHARKANDO 3 scenes occur, at a Universal Theme Park where once again, Ian Ziering's Finn Shepard, followed around by his zero-chemistry (and seemingly tacked-on) wife in Tara Reid's April but this time with their beautiful grown-up daughter and Reid's pretty blonde mother who was, at once time, a perfect 10... That's right, Bo Derek is about the peak of the star cameos, wherein the last (second) outing goes through has-beens and news reporter cameos all over the place...

Bo Derek

Returning again, and with almost an equal amount of scenes as Ziering himself (this is an exaggeration, but the dude bugs) is newscaster Matt Lauer, and there's even a cameo by 'NADO's biggest backer's mascot, the now infamous Jarod Fogle, which was supposed to be cut after his suddenly overwhelming unpopularity (meanwhile, some folks hated the stupid idiot before the arrest). And while the first movie mostly took place inside a car (in L.A.) as sharks swam around where the water were literally gaining ground, and THE SECOND ONE (in New York City) seemed limitless, OH HELL NO! is nothing gained/nothing lost.

Return of Nova

The Sharks begin their attack much too quickly. It's as if they're not even part of their very own tornado anymore, and just drop down to eat people within the early 1990's Computer Animation style of very Special Effects. And back in action is Cassie Scerbo as Nova Clark...

In the original she had a little girl crush on Finn, and now she's a full-out hottie Sharknado survivalist (along with a short-lived Frankie Muniz); a gorgeous young female Robert Shaw living out of a steely RV (much like the vehicle in TWISTER) created specifically for locating and battling the flying dorsal beasts, and yet the machine, initially seeming pretty important, is forgotten by the middle, which, as mentioned, basically peaks at the amusement park and then, much too quickly after the central bloody fun is had, the third act of "now we gotta kill all these things" (and there are three times more) occurs, having to do with Finn becoming what Roger Moore's James Bond was in MOONRAKER, an under-qualified astronaut who learns quickly in order to... for the third time in this case, as opposed to Roger's fourth outing... save the world in the interstellar nature.

Ian Ziering returns

Thus, beginning in Washington D.C. and winding up in Florida, the locations are pretty dull, not providing a limitless amount of camp value... but there is a plot, actually... For when the storms merge, they'll need an equal amount of heat and pressure to destroy them, and that's where Florida's Cape Canaveral, along with Finn's dad, played by beach icon David  Hasselhoff, who just happens to be a Space Shuttle expert, lends an 11th hour hand: way up in the air where air turns to space, which drags on and on, and is too separate from the sharks, all but forgotten for a while, compared to when the title, "OH HELL NO!" i.e. "WE DIDN'T JUST WITNESS THAT!" comes true after landing back onto the sand – where the unbelievable comes true. And so, wherever the inevitable fourth takes us, let's hope maybe the locale is... somewhere besides America. It's getting a bit dull, although still packing a wonderful wallop of time-filling intentionally awful fun. And looking on imdb, the next film's stock old-timer is Gary Busey... terrific news, but he better be a soul surfer for true nostalgic's sake, a bigger role than John Heard and especially Judd Hirsch, and can use his teeth against the antagonists!

CAMP VALUE: **1/2
TRIVIA: In the second film, wherein the best, or rather, worst example of plastic surgery isn't an aging woman... but a middle-aged man, that being Sugar Ray's Mark McGrath, who, as Finn's brother and named after the main character in JAWS, is a mere cameo (as opposed to one of the stars) and while both Bo Derek and Hasselhoff look good despite being obviously worked-on, it's a complete unnecessary cameo by magician Penn from Penn & Teller who looks the most bizarre: Penn's got Mick Jagger lips now and, why would he need a facelift at all – he never was good looking, and wasn't even supposed to be • And intentional or otherwise, but Hasselhoff's "fate" is extremely similar to that of Tommy Lee Jones at the end of SPACE COWBOYS