SHARKNADO: THE 4TH AWAKENS

CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS

More industrial strength idiocy from The Asylum, the world's leading purveyors of unconvincing shark-based rubbish. No budget too low, no idea too dumb: even if the first Sharknado had been any good at all (and it certainly wasn't), a fourth trip to the well reveals a depressing attitude of contempt: the Friday night sixpack and takeaway audience knows it's rubbish but laughs along with it in MST3K fashion; the makers also know it's rubbish but as long as it's selling they don't really care, and they're not going to actively raise their standards and risk making a decent movie by mistake. Well, I'm very sorry, but I just don't get the joke.

In order to fully appreciate the deep intellectual profundity of Sharknado: The 4th Awakens, I actually sat and watched the second and third instalments on Netflix the previous evening on a tiresome double-bill. The Jaws series went from Great to Good, Bad and Awful, but the Sharknado series flatlines at a much lower level than even Jaws: The Revenge, because there's only so far you can go before the wink to camera collapses on itself. Having defeated sharknados in Los Angeles, New York, Washington and Orlando (and outer space), the oh-so-hilariously named Fin (Ian Ziering) is back battling shark-infested tornados, sandnados, bouldernados and lightningnados, with the assistance of a global system of tornado-zapping machines.

Tara Reid is back as Fin's wife April, last seen flattened by a lump of space shuttle debris at the end of the third film but revived (as a cyborg) by her plainly bonkers Dad (Gary Busey), following a Twitter hashtag battle between #AprilLives and #AprilDies. No, really, that's how they write screenplays these days. David Hasselhoff is also back from the moon (don't ask) as Fin's dad for narrative reasons too pointless to go into - but in many ways that's the whole problem. The Sharknado franchise had only a tenuous connection with the real world right from the start, but you can just about get away with endearing silliness as a one-off. However, as successive instalments have sought to out-stupid the earlier ones, it's quickly reached the point where it couldn't get any more stupid if it did a crossover with My Little Pony.

The CG effects are mostly terrible, apparently pasted onto the screen in Microsoft Paint, but who cares? The endless clunky movie gags (randomly riffing on The Wizard Of Oz, Christine, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Network) don't work, but who cares? Lloyd Kaufman, Wayne Newton, Carrot Top and Dog The Bounty Hunter show up for bits, but who cares? This is no longer a Sharknado sequel, it's another Scary Movie entry and no better than the very worst of that franchise. Constructed bad movies, like constructed cult movies, always miss the mark: these things can only happen by accident. Deliberately pandering to the so-bad-it's-great audience chortling at dumb dialogue and rotten monster and gore effects, Sharknado: The 4th Awakens never thinks to aim higher, because who really cares? Like Spinal Tap's critic dismissing their Shark Sandwich album, I'll settle for the (slightly less offensive) cheap shot of Junknado.

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