Fin Shepard, and his former wife, April Wexler, are traveling to New York City to promote How to Survive a Sharknado and Other Unnatural Disasters, a book April has written about the Los Angeles sharknado. As the plane comes in for a landing through a storm, it is battered by airborne sharks, losing an engine. Sharks enter the plane, killing passengers and the crew, including both pilots. While Fin lands the plane, April's hand is severed while she attempts to shoot a shark with an air marshal's handgun.
Fin's sister, Ellen Brody, is sightseeing in New York with her family. Her husband, Martin, a childhood friend of Fin's, takes their son, Vaughn, to a Mets game at Citi Field along with Martin's and Fin's friends Skye and Brian. Ellen takes their daughter, Mora, to the Statue of Liberty, where she meets with her friends, Polly and Chrissie, who tell her about Fin's recent appearance.
At the airport, Fin tries to warn the crowd of the impending storm, only for no one to take him seriously. After leaving April to the hospital for surgery, Fin is able to contact Ellen, and tells her to get to the Bales Tower Hotel on Manhattan as soon as possible. He agrees to retrieve Martin and Vaughn from the ball game, hiring a cabbie, Ben, in the process. At Citi Field, Skye surprises Fin with a kiss, but Fin explains that he and April are back together. The game is cancelled because of the storm, but when sharks start falling from the sky and killing people, Fin and his group improvise weapons to fight them and go to the subway.
On the ferry ride back to Manhattan, a shark kills Chrissie. The remaining three women flee from the severed head of the Statue of Liberty. Meanwhile, the subway tunnels flood, sending sharks to break into the train's rear cabin and kill Brian. Ben, who anticipated Fin's escape, takes Fin and the others to shops in search of weapons and items to make explosives. When the taxi is caught in a flood, Fin forms a rope swing to take Skye, Vaughn, and Martin to safety. When Ben is killed in his attempt and the rope falls away, Fin uses the top of the sharks as stepping stones to reach the others.
Two sharknadoes are converging into a more powerful storm directly above the hotel. Fin and Skye head to the roof to try to bomb the sharknadoes. Polly is flattened by a whale shark, but Ellen and Mora reach the hotel, and reunite with Martin and Vaughn. Fin and Skye sling bombs into the tornadoes, but as the storm system is too cold; only a few sharks are knocked down, and they are forced to flee down a fire exit stairwell. They meet the Brodys, who were fleeing up the stairwell that is flooding with sharks. They break down a door to escape the stairwell and leave the building.
April flees the hospital, taking a fire truck to meet Fin and the others. At the Empire State Building, a third tornado is expected to merge with the other two. Fin plans to detonate a tank of Freon at the top of the building by connecting it to the structure's lightning rod to halt the storm. He rallies a crowd of New Yorkers, including the mayor and his task force, to battle the sharks. As he and Skye implement the plan, April, who has affixed a circular saw to her stump, arrives and saves Fin from a falling shark. Skye sacrifices herself to help connect the cables; the Freon explosion throws them in the air where sharks rip Skye in half. While in the twister, Fin grabs onto and rides a great white shark using chains, eventually impaling it on the building's antenna. He reunites with April and finds her lost arm in one of the fallen sharks, using the handgun to kill another one. He then takes the wedding ring from April's severed hand and uses it to propose remarriage, and she accepts.
Cast
Ian Ziering, Vivica A. Fox and Dante Palminteri prepare to jump the sharks
Many of the cameo appearances made nods to previous roles the guests had played. Robert Hays was previously a pilot in Airplane!; Judd Hirsch was a cab driver in Taxi, Daymond John is a panelist on Shark Tank, Jared Fogle was a longtime spokesman for Subway restaurants, and Billy Ray Cyrus was a doctor in Doc.[3][9]
Wil Wheaton had an uncredited cameo as an airline passenger along with his real life wife Anne.[3]Jason John Beebe also makes an appearance in the film.[10]
Lauer and Roker appeared as themselves, hosting The Today Show; Abrams appeared as an anchor for The Weather Channel. Both of those properties, like Syfy, are owned by Comcast.[7] In contrast, Michael Gelman, Strahan and Ripa all reprised their roles from Live with Kelly and Michael in the film; that show is not a Comcast property, instead directly competing with The Today Show.
There are multiple in-jokes about Jaws (1975). Polly (Peggy Scott) was Mr. Brody's secretary, Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) was the chief, Ellen (Lorraine Gary) was his wife, Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) was the mayor's last name, Quint (Robert Shaw) was the shark hunter, and Chrissy (Susan Backlinie) was the name of the first victim.
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 61% rating based on 31 critics; the consensus states: "The schlock factor for Sharknado 2: The Second One is not as entertaining as its predecessor's, though fans of the brand will likely enjoy it."[11] On Metacritic, the film has a rating of 50 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[12]
Brian Lowry of Variety said the CGI sharks looked terrible.[13] Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times said that it seems nothing more than dumb fun.[14] Verne Gay of Newsday said the film doesn't take itself as seriously as the original. He also said the film is not as good as the first.[15]
Don Kaplan of the New York Daily News said the film was "a slightly better, more watchable movie than its predecessor."[16]Caroline Framke of The A.V. Club gave the film an 'A', stating the "over-hyped sequel has zero business being this much fun".[17]
Broadcast
The sequel was broadcast on SyFy on July 30, 2014. In the UK, Australia and other countries, it was broadcast just minutes behind the US premiere, in most cases on each country's respective SyFy channel. Upon airing, the film was watched by 3.9 million viewers, with 1.6 million in the 18–49 demographic.[2]
Fathom Events released the film for one night in theaters across the United States on August 21, 2014.[18]
Tie-in merchandise
Two pieces of tie-in merchandise were released to coincide with the release of Sharknado 2. Sharknado: The Video Game, an endless runner video game, was released on July 20, 2014 to mostly negative reviews.[19][20] A comedic survival guide entitled How to Survive a Sharknado and Other Unnatural Disasters (the book that Tara Reid's character was to promote in the film) was released through Three Rivers Press on July 8, 2014.[21][22][23][24]
It aired on the promised date, followed by Lavalantula, which debuted July 25, 2015, the Saturday after Sharknado 3's Wednesday premiere.[30]Lavalantula featured Sharknado's protagonist in a cameo wearing a white T-shirt with crossed chainsaws. This indicates that it takes place in a shared universe. As he says he has "shark problems right now", this may indicate that the events of Lavalantula take place just before or concurrently with Sharknado 3.
