It’s A Tornado…Of Sharks

Get it?!

I actually watched that stupid movie, mostly because my mother is a mean, sadistic person who forced me. Her excuse was “I can’t watch bad movies alone! I’d have no one to make ironic comments to!”

She used ironic like that, not me.

Anyway, here’s a rough play by play of the movie, filled with the actual observations we made while watching it.

The movie begins on a boat in the middle of, I assume, the Pacific Ocean, with a scene that has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the movie. An unscrupulous Asian business man is making some sort of shady deal with an unscrupulous captain. I have no idea what it’s about because apparently these actors haven’t heard of enunciating, but after a few minutes they start chasing each other around on a boat during a storm because that seems like a good idea. Unscrupulous Asian business man has unscrupulous captain cornered when a shark flies across the screen and takes a bite out of his leg. The storm gets worse and sharks start coming up on deck and eating people even though sharks are fish and would probably be flopping as they suffocated and not focused enough to swallow a guy whole, seriously that happens. Unscrupulous captain is the last to get killed. He just kind of stands around in the storm and, I don’t know, gets eaten piece by piece by sharks whipping by. Or something. I don’t know. It made no sense.

Anyway, the movie really begins after that, with the opening credits. Tara Reid is first because while she’s not the main character, she is the most recognizable name. Then a bunch of people no one’s ever heard of. Then…

Me: Oh, look, John Heard is in this movie.

My mom: He is?

Me: Aw. He used to be an actor. Sad.

My mom: Sad.

Then the movie’s at a beach. It’s California, but there are reports of hurricanes coming despite the fact that water temperatures and wind currents make that impossible. Anyway, there’s a guy on a jet ski hanging around, he’s like Australian or something, and a man and a woman on surfboards. When the woman on the surfboard is attacked, the jet ski guy does nothing. Sits there and watches, I guess. The other man on the surfboard, the actual main character, frantically swims over to rescue her and is way too late. When jet ski guy actually decides to go over, a shark flops up and starts gnawing on his leg.

My mom: Sharks don’t jump out of the water like that. They have to keep it flowing over their gills or they die.

Me: It was your idea to watch this movie.

Back to the movie. There’s a lot of yelling and people running out of the water. Some guy who is standing in water that only comes up to his calf is somehow nabbed by a giant shark. There’s a lot of yelling, blah blah blah. The scene switches to a bar owned by the main character, who is fawned over by his twenty year old waitress and given a generous amount of character shilling by jet ski guy. The main character’s name happens to be “Finn” because I hate the people who made this movie.

The hurricane that should not exist hits and wrecks the bar, and when it floods, a bunch of sharks come spilling in and eating more people and just a bunch of other stuff that makes no sense. The main character (I refuse to call him by name), the waitress (her too), jet ski guy (I think his name was Paz or something equally weird) and John Heard all run out together. The waitress clearly has a thing against sharks and tries to shoot them every chance she gets, although I never see anyone reload the rifle she uses. John Heard grabs a barstool and somehow manages to impale a shark with it.

A shark explodes after it gets shot.

Me: Apparently sharks are explosive.

My mom: Who knew?

The four characters get into a car and the main character insists on picking up his family, although from what we’ve seen of his ex-wife Tara Reid, she’s kind of a bitch. The waitress is all shocked to hear that the main character has an ex and a kid, as though they were best friends instead of him being her boss. As they drive down the street, more streets flood and gigantic sharks are somehow able to swim down them and into the sewers. They stop in the middle of an unflooded street, but somehow the people ahead and behind them are attacked by sharks.

Me: How is that happening? How is that happening? There’s no water, but then there is water, it shouldn’t be deep enough for sharks…ow…ow.

My mom: What’s wrong?

Me: Brain…hurts…makes no sense…

John Heard and the rest of his career are eaten by a shark and the rest of the characters finally get back in the car and start moving again. They make it to Tara Reid’s house and she and the daughter she has with the main characters are total assholes. Tara Reid’s boyfriend comes in and flips out at the main character for his audacity of wanting to check on his kid. Before they can be thrown out, sharks start raining down on the house. It floods just enough so the sharks can come in and eat the boyfriend, but good news! The car is still dry so they can all escape. And then the house explodes with water.

Apparently, the daughter isn’t an only child. There’s a son, too, but he’s off at flight school in another part of Hollywood (where they live) and now they have to rescue him. They all get in the car and start driving away when they notice a clearly empty bus in the middle of a flooded street. The main character insists they stop to check to make sure no one’s in there and suddenly the bus is full of kids. They park on a bridge above the bus and rappel down and pull up the kids one by one, and then the bus driver. Once the kids are safe, the storm starts up again and knocks over the Hollywood sign which kills the bus driver, but none of the kids because they’re kids. The main characters then leave and the kids leave in a single ambulance that is in no way big enough for all of them. As the main characters are driving, more sharks start raining down and they all scream like big babies.

Me: Oh, come on. They’re outside the car. It’s not like the sharks can chew through the roof and get to them.

And then I’m stunned into silence as exactly that happens. Seriously, it was uncanny.

The car is now ruined, but they manage to find a store that is for some reason open during a hurricane. Then jet ski guy actually does something: he goes and steals a Humvee from a movie memorabilia lot because looting rules apply. They rush a police block for some reason and even though it’s a freaking Humvee and should in no way be able to out maneuver a half dozen police cars, they escape and finally manage to reach the flight school.

The son is there and still alive, although seconds after the main characters arrive his teacher is sucked into the sky. Now tornados are approaching and they have somehow alive sharks spinning around with them. They have to do something to get rid of the tornados because…they’ll destroy the city? I don’t know. I’m not clear on that. California can withstand earthquakes. Anyway, to stop the tornados, they decide to use the bombs the flight school has for some reason. The son’s six weeks of training means he can easily fly the helicopter into the storm, and in a blatant crime against physics, dropping bombs will dissipate the tornados. It’s at this point the waitress and the son are left alone together and she clearly stops crushing on her boss in order to crush on him. She also reveals why she hates sharks so much with a story that’s basically a retelling of Quint’s story from Jaws, but without the WWII angle. Or the good acting.

Waitress and son go up in a helicopter to drop the bombs into the tornados and the others grab chainsaws to use on the sharks. A bunch of people get eaten, including jet ski guy, but the main character manages to cut a shark right in half like he’s freaking Odin or something. Meanwhile, up in the skies, they only manage to destroy two of the three approaching tornados. Waitress falls out of the helicopter because she hasn’t heard of seat belts and she is immediately swallowed whole by a shark flying around up there instead of dying. Then the main character does some real fierce expressions (acting as hard as he can!) and drives the Humvee, rigged with more bombs, into the storm. Now the sharks are all falling from the sky and not splattering on the ground like they should but eating people. They then run over to a nursing home unsubtly pointed out earlier and save a bunch of old people. The main character pours gasoline in a pool and lights it on fire. Then it explodes.

Me: Come on! That’s not how chemistry works!

One final shark comes swooping down even though it should be dead from being out of the water and he runs at it with a chainsaw. Then it swallows him whole. And dies. And he cuts his way out of it. Then he reaches back in and pulls out waitress.

My mom: It’s the same shark?

Me: And she’s alive, so being swallowed by the shark didn’t kill her.

My mom: Look how big it is. And they were both in there, swallowed whole. The shark must be hollow inside.

Me: Yep. Plus he managed to chainsaw his way out of it.

My mom: Ow…brain…hurts…