SHARKNADO 4: THE 4TH AWAKENS

(2016) Dumb as they are, once you've watched three you can hardly keep yourself from checking out number four, in what might arguably be SyFy Channel's most popular and successful homemade film franchise.  Each Sharknado film further plummets the depths of lunacy from previous efforts, and this one (opening with a Star Wars-like screen crawl of text) not only takes but beats the crap out of the cake: starting out in Las Vegas five years after the rancid part three ends, a tech wiz has found a way to stop all sharknados (a shark-infested tornado, for those of you who've not been paying attention) from occurring, when suddenly a dust storm blows up, hitting a hotel devoted to the sharknado phenomenon that, naturally, has real sharks on display in it, which are sucked up by the dust storm resulting in a ... dustnado!  Swear to God, it gets even worse even beyond this, and the standard multiple cameos from grade-Z celebrities, as our hero Fin Shepard (Ian Ziering), barely rescuing his son and new daughter-in-law from the dustnado, heads back to his farm in Kansas to make sure his young son and mother-in-law are safe ... as we viewers are treated to oilnados, firenados, hailnados, and any other kind of "nado" the film decides to throw at us, depending on what each funnel hits (my favorite: the cownado!).  Don't worry, sharks are in every one of them, but after awhile are also kind of forgotten in the name of meteorology, as the tech wiz dude (Tommy Davidson) tried to step up his game to stop the weather phenomenons again.  I have to say, this was certainly better than part three, mainly because the franchise seems to have found its own eye-winking, self-deprecating sense of humor again, which seemed missing a bit in the previous two installments - but make no mistake, like the others in the series this one is cheap and cheesy and stupid, mindless weekend afternoon fun; the kind of film a bunch of teenaged friends would get together for at a drive-in, back in the day, just to talk and laugh and only half-watch together for the experience.  And yes, God help us all, there WILL be a part five.  (rated TV-14)  2/10 stars