Sharknado: The 4th Awakens is a 2016 American made-for-television science fiction action comedy disaster film and the fifth installment in the Sharknado film series, following Sharknado, Sharknado 2: The Second One, and Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!. The film was directed by Anthony C. Ferrante with Ian Ziering, Tara Reid, David Hasselhoff and Ryan Newman reprising their roles from the previous installments. New people joining the cast in the film include Tommy Davidson, Masiela Lusha, Imani Hakim, Cheryl Tiegs and Gary Busey. In the film, Fin Shepard and his allies, five years after the last sharknado, contend with a group of sharknado variants, such as a "cownado" and a "lightningnado".
The film premiered on Syfy in the United States on July 31, 2016. Though the film title, poster, and intro are a parody of the 2015 film Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it is not a mockbuster.
The seventh film, Sharknado 5: Global Swarming, was released on August 6, 2017.
Contents
Plot
Tech company Astro-X has used their revolutionary energy system to prevent the formation of sharknadoes, using cheap, clean reactors dubbed Astro-Pods. To celebrate the five year anniversary of the eradication of sharknadoes, Astro-X founder Aston Reynolds announces that he will be hosting the grand opening of a shark-themed hotel in Las Vegas.
Fin Shepard has moved to a farm in Kansas named "April's Acres", where he lives with his mother Raye and his young son Gil. Fin travels to Las Vegas with his cousin Gemini to meet up with his son Matt, who has recently returned from deployment in Iraq. When Matt and his fiancée, Gabrielle, marry and skydive from a plane, a sandstorm develops, which cannot be defused by Astro-X. It absorbs the water and sharks from a giant tank located in Reynolds' hotel, creating a sharknado that floods the streets of Las Vegas. Fin, Gemini, Gabrielle, and Matt work together to survive the storm until it retreats into the desert.
At Astro-X, Colonel Shepard works on a weaponized mech suit with his granddaughter Claudia and head scientist Wilford Wexler. However, Fin and his family are unaware that Wilford has reconstructed his daughter and Fin's wife, April, into a cyborg in order to save her life, following her death in the previous movie, and falsely claims that her family was killed in the storm to keep her safe. Fin and the group take a train back to Kansas, but the Las Vegas sharknado follows them. They meet with Reynolds at an Astro-X facility, where Reynolds unsuccessfully recruits Fin to his side in order to recover from the negative publicity created from Astro-X's failure to stop the Las Vegas sharknado.
Meanwhile, April learns of Wilford's lies and escapes his lab. A "lavanado" forms in Yellowstone National Park, while a "hailnado" touches down at Astro-X's headquarters in San Francisco. April rescues Shepard and Claudia and reveals she's alive, leading them to become furious with Wilford for lying to them all. Fin and the group travel to April's Acres, where an approaching sharknado forces Raye and Gil into their underground bunker. Fin and the group arrive to fend off the sharks, but Gabrielle is killed. Fin, Gil, Gemini, and Matt seek shelter in the farmhouse, which is carried by the sharknado to Chicago. Reynolds uses new isotopes in his Astro-Pods to destroy the lavanado and the hailnado.
Reynolds flies Shepard, Claudia, and April to Fin's location in Chicago, where they rescue everyone from the rubble. April reunites with her family, allowing her to meet Gil for the first time. Meanwhile, Reynolds struggles to diffuse a "lightningnado" due to its electricity blocking their attempts. The situation worsens when the lightningnado strikes the Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Ohio, transforming it into a deadly "nukenado" filled with radioactive sharks. Reynolds realizes that the only way to diffuse the nukenado is to transform it back into a regular sharknado so that the Astro-Pods will work on it.
Cast
Principal cast
Ian Ziering as Fin Shepard
Tara Reid as April Wexler
Tommy Davidson as Aston Reynolds
Masiela Lusha as "Gemini", Fin's cousin
Ryan Newman as Claudia Shepard
Cody Linley as Matt Shepard
Imani A. Hakim as Gabrielle, Matt's newlywed wife
Cheryl Tiegs as Raye Shepard, Fin's mother
Gary Busey as Wilford Wexler, April's father
David Hasselhoff as Colonel Gilbert Shepard
Supporting cast
Other notables, credited as background
The Chippendales
Production
The film was confirmed to follow upon Sharknado 3's premiere. Sharknado 3 concludes with a cliffhanger regarding whether or not April is killed by falling wreckage. An ad after the film promoted a Twitter campaign offering fans the chance to decide her fate with the hashtags "#AprilLives" or "#AprilDies", with the results revealed in the forthcoming Sharknado 4 which aired in July 2016. Ian Ziering, Tara Reid, Ryan Newman, and David Hasselhoff were announced to reprise their roles from previous films. New cast members include Masiela Lusha as Gemini, Fin's cousin, Cody Linley replacing Chuck Hittinger as Matt Shepard, Imani Hakim as Gabrielle, a soldier and Matt's girlfriend, Gary Busey as Wilford Wexler, April's rich father, Cheryl Tiegs as Raye Shepard, Fin's mother, Tommy Davidson as Aston Reynolds, playboy tech billionaire and Astro-X, Kenya Moore as Monique, a hotel manager working for Reynolds, Cynthia Bailey as Addison, a tech analyst, and Maya Stojan as Romy, Wilford's assistant and Anthony Rogers as Gil Shepard.
The title, poster, and opening crawl of the film is an homage to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Sharknado: The 4th Awakens takes place in Chicago and Las Vegas.
Reception
The film received mostly negative reviews. Rotten Tomatoes reports a 14% score with an average rating of 3.4/10, based on 14 critics. The consensus reads: "Sharknado: The 4th Awakens loses the ridiculous charm of its predecessors, leaving only clumsy social commentary and monotonous schtick that's lost its bite." On Metacritic it has a score of 35% based on reviews from 7 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".
The film was watched by 2.77 million people.
Sequel
Rumors of a fifth film, to be titled Sharknado 5... Earth 0, first surfaced in October 2016. On February 2, 2017, The Asylum confirmed via their official Facebook page that the fifth film had entered production under the working title Sharknado 5, with Ian Ziering, Tara Reid and Cassie Scerbo reprising their roles as Fin, April and Nova, respectively. In Sharknado 5, Fin and his wife April travel around the world trying to save their young son who is trapped inside a sharknado. On June 1, 2017, the title was unveiled to be Sharknado 5: Global Swarming with the tagline "Make America Bait Again". A year later, The Last Sharknado: It's About Time! was announced.
