TV Review: Syfy’s ‘Sharknado 3’

Ian Ziering, Tara Reid and Cassie Scerbo star in Syfy’s third installment of the Sharknado franchise, Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! , set to premiere July 22 at 9 p.m. ET. David Hasselhoff, Bo Derek, Ryan Newman and Jack Griffo join the trio as Sharknados cause mass destruction on the Eastern seaboard. The following are reviews from TV critics around the web, compiled by B&C.

“Whatever was cute about the first Sharknado — how a factory-made Syfy exploitation movie improbably took off, organically, as a Twitter and social-media meme — has been blown away amid a tide of corporate synergy, as well as pointless sort-of celebrity cameos.”
—Brian Lowry, Variety

“For connoisseurs of wonderfully bad television, there is a fine line between stuff that's so bad it's great fun to watch and stuff that's just bad. And Syfy's latest Sharknado movie — the third one based on tornadoes filled with killer sharks terrorizing America, if you can believe it — has finally, unfortunately, fallen into that last category.”
—Eric Deggans, NPR

“Having now watched Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!, which premieres Wednesday on Syfy, I find myself in the position of having to write about it. And I am not sure which is worse, really, or even how to proceed — what standards to hold it to when an utter lack of standards is its raison d'etre.”
—Robert Lloyd, Los Angeles Times

“Yes, it is once again the season when sharks rain from the sky. Last year’s first sequel to Sharknado was kind of meh, but S3 cranks up the absurdity level to hilarious proportions. In the first two movies, Los Angeles and New York were left in ruins. Here, Washington suffers the same fate, but that’s just an appetizer; soon the entire East Coast is in jeopardy.”
—Neil Genzlinger, New York Times

“Syfy knows we come to this only for the sharks, cameos, chain saws, acting -- the worse, the better -- and dialogue so sublimely inept that even the sharks wince when they hear it. By this measure, Oh Hell No! scores and scores often.”
—Verne Gay, Newsday

“Each gust of Sharknado-fueled destruction is reported by the cast of the NBC-owned Today show, who obviously phone it in — with the exception of Daily News columnists Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb, who can do no wrong. Ever.”
—Don Kaplan, New York Daily News

“This year’s film is actually better than last year’s, and, no, I can’t believe I’m saying that, either. But when I went to Little TV Critics’ School, I remember some wizened wise guy, with a wreath of cigarette smoke circling his head, telling us that the basis of all criticism is determining what the artist was aiming for and then deciding if he or she got there. The makers of Sharknado 3, including director Anthony C. Ferrante, were aiming to make a terrible movie and have succeeded brilliantly.”
—David Wiegand, San Francisco Chronicle