Sharknado 3 picks up where part 2 left off. In the aftermath of the last Sharknado, Ian Ziering is hailed as a hero and is honored in a ceremony at the White House with the Golden Chainsaw. As luck would have it, another Sharknado is building off the East Coast just in time to attack the White House and ruin the ceremony. This storm is headed to Florida, where his family is vacationing, so he needs to shoot down there and save them. In the process, he and his team discover that this is bigger than the other ones, perhaps becoming a Sharkicane! The only person who can help now is Ziering's estranged father, played by the Hoff.
The natural go to here is to say the franchise is jumping the shark, but I have a feeling that's exactly what The Asylum and everyone involved with making this want us to say when we see this, so I'm not taking the bait. (Though I guess I already did just by writing what I wrote...) When I looked it up, this one didn't do as well as part 2 did when it aired, so we could already see the wave cresting and the enthusiasm waning, yet they still did three more. It makes sense, because, with a $2.4 million budget, if over 2 million people watched it, those are a lot of eyes seeing advertisements, which necessitates at least a 4th to see how much further they can take it. And the next thing you know we've got six. For The Asylum as newly inducted members into the 30 Club--and the only non-Hall of Famer to be in--these Sharknadoes represent their biggest successes, and while there are others, like Android Cop, that I prefer, it's still nice to see The Asylum reach these heights, coming from where they did when we started this blog, covering films like Snakes on a Train and Transmorphers. In that sense, I feel like it's worth celebrating their success overall, no matter how one feels about whether or not by part 3 they've jumped the shark--but I get it too if you don't have that soft spot in your heart and you're thinking "enough already" by part 3.
Still the most fascinating aspect of this for me is Ian Ziering. Loved Steve Sanders on 90210, despite the fact that I think I was supposed to like Dylan or Brandon more. There are still shades of Steve Sanders in Ziering's Fin here, which makes it that much more fun to watch--not to mention the added touch of the car he's driving in this having the same license plates that his Corvette on the show had. Seeing him do well in this franchise post-90210 is as good a reason as any for me to root for this series to succeed, it's just hard with the rinse-repeat nature of it to keep the novelty going. But, as you can imagine, I'll still be back here at some point for number 4, and will still be reminiscing about 90210.
We did have a Hall of Famer in our midst, 30 Club member Lorenzo Lamas has a short cameo--so short, he didn't even have a still frame of just his head in the shot for me to get a good screen. True to our rule though, except for the time we couldn't find Don "The Dragon" Wilson in Siege of Firebase Gloria, we always get the Hall of Famer's shot in the review, so here was the best I could do. If you follow Lamas on Instagram, you'll see that he's looking to become a pilot, so this cameo role was made for him. I also like that he played a character named Sergeant Rock, both in reference to the great comic book of the past, but also to Lamas's role as Chilly D (short for "Chilliam Davis" I believe) in the film Body Rock. For a short cameo, this was a fun one.
We can now add Mark Cuban to the list of names who have played the President of the United States in a film we've reviewed here on the site, joining Roy Scheider, Rutger Hauer, Vivica A. Fox, Mel Novak, Charlie Sheen, and Jerry Springer. I know of him mostly as the owner of the Mavericks, but recently he's receded a bit from being the more outspoken and controversial owner he was when he first bought the team. In 2011 his Mavericks won the NBA Championship, the biggest irony of that being, before 2011 he was the guy fans most loved to see fail; but in 2011 LeBron went to the Miami Heat to form a super team, which made them the schadenfreude darlings of the league, so by the time the Mavericks made the Finals against the Heat, sentiment had done a 180 and everyone was rooting for Cuban and his Mavs, and I don't think he ever lost that luster fully after. All of that made his appearance as the President here much more fun.
That was probably more basketball talk than anyone would have wanted, but when a film intentionally jumps the shark like this one did, sometimes you run out of things to discuss. The thing is, when I compare this to some other DTV franchises we've looked at on the site, is it really any worse? By Bloodfist VIII they had devolved into just actioners featuring Don "The Dragon" as a guy taking on the world--and not even the same guy in each film either! The Kickboxers featured Sasha Mitchell in 2-4, with two and four directed by Albert Pyun, and then 5 had Marc Dacascos. By the time you hit that fifth one, we have a baddie from Space Mutiny forming his own kickboxing league, and killing anyone who doesn't join. And with the Bloodsports, by Bloodsport 4 we had Daniel Bernhardt fighting in a Dark Kumite run by Benjamin Franklin. I think the big difference between those and the Sharknado franchise, is those other ones played it straight, where as these ones they're in on the joke. I get it, how can you play a tornado of sharks straight? It just means the shelf life may not be as long.
And with that, I think this is a good time to wrap this one up. Right now you can stream it, and the rest of the Sharknado films on Prime. I don't know if they're binge-worthy, but consumed as one-offs, they can be a fun time. As you can imagine, we'll be back here at some point in the future to cover part 4.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3899796
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