Geostorm BD + Screen Caps

THE MOVIE — 1.75/5

Note: This review does contain many PLOT SPOILERS so readers beware!!!!

Geostorm, based on the premise and trailers, is exactly the movie I thought it would be but so much less. Listen, I love cheesy disaster movies that usually aren’t terribly well written (The Poseidon Adventure might be the exception) but were incredibly fun. There was no fun here…

The year is 2025 (I think) and due to global warming 17 nations have banded together to develop a mega-satellite system that can control the weather systems, preventing massive storms and saving lives across the world. Jake Lawson (GERARD BUTLER) engineered and oversaw the creation, nicknamed Dutch Boy, but being defiant and his annoyance of politicians, is fired by his own brother, Max (JIM STURGESS), who works for the State Department and is now in the charge of overseeing the system.

Soon enough “Dutch Boy” has supposedly malfunctioned deep freezing an entire village in Afghanistan. Well, it is decided by the President (ANDY GARCIA) and his cabinet, which includes Secretary of State Dekkom (ED HARRIS), that they need to send someone up to supervise and fix the problem. Yep, there is only one man for the job: Jake! Of course, the brothers’ relationship has been strained but after some initial (basically) f-off, Jake ultimately accepts the mission leaving behind his daughter (TALITHA BATEMAN) whose none too pleased since he’s not exactly the most attentive father.

What was thought was an anomaly with a broken satellite turns out is a virus infecting the system destroying multiple cities around the world in “creative” ways like Hong Kong being torn apart in a blaze of fire, Dubai being pummeled by a tidal wave or Rio de Janeiro’s beaches and its visitors getting frozen to death.

Now it’s up to Jake up in the space station working with engineers and other experts — Commander Ute Fassbender (ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA), Al Hernandez (EUGENIO DERBEZ), Karl (BILLY SLAUGHTER) and Rico (DAVID S. LEE) — to find the virus as well as the saboteur onboard while back on earth Max works with his girlfriend and Presidential Secret Service Agent Sarah Wilson (ABBIE CORNISH) to unlock the mystery especially when Max’s friend from China, Cheng Long (DANIEL WU), uncovers some information but, as you’d expect, gets killed before he can deliver it.

Oh boy, as I said, I love disaster movies from the greats like The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure and Airport to the cheesy and flawed such as Earthquake, Volcano and Dante’s Peak. Geostorm, however, is cheesy for sure but not the good kind with stilted and bad dialogue coming out of what are otherwise good actors and a smorgasbord of above average visual effects and absolutely ridiculous logic even in a movie about weather satellite technology gone haywire.

As with any self-respecting disaster movie, it must have at the very least recognizable cast. Obviously they can’t afford Dwayne Johnson – besides he’s got his own disaster franchise with San Andreas, a movie I did enjoy – or the other A-list stars (Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, etc) so they instead got the desperate: Gerard Butler plays it well in the lead and gives the material his all; Jim Sturgess is, fine, I suppose; Abbie Cornish was hardly a believable Secret Service Agent or competent one leaving her post (in fairness, I think she was the lead agent); and then there’s Ed Harris who is absolutely a trustworthy fellow and Andy Garcia as one of the more bland American Presidents in cinema history, perhaps besides the one from In the Line of Fire.

Geostorm was directed by Dean Devlin, mainly known as a producer, makes his directorial debut and, well, let’s just say after seeing this one finds modest appreciation for Michael Bay, as inane has his direction might’ve been on the Transformers franchise. Here, the action is chaotic, and not in a good way, and moments just make zero sense even if one accepts the premise of weather-altering satellites.

In the end, I had hoped this would be a stupid but entertaining enough, turn-your-brain-off kind of movie but instead it’s just lame and will be forgotten.

SPECIAL FEATURES – 2.25/5

This release comes with a matted slip cover and inside is a redemption code for the Digital HD copy. Not much substance to these featurettes totaling maybe 16-minutes worth of material.

Wreaking Havoc (6:30; HD) – This featurette examines the creation of ecological destruction using visual effects.

The Search for Answers (4:13; HD) – Director Dean Devlin retraces the journey that led to the creation of Geostorm.

An International Event (5:40; HD) – The cast and crew talk about Geostorm’s cinematic global collaboration.

Preview – Ready Player One

VIDEO – 4.5/5

AUDIO – 4.5/5

OVERALL – 2.5/5

Overall, Geostorm was rightfully basically in-and-out in theaters, domestically anyway since it did do okay overseas, as the script and dialogue was downright awful and even the normally charismatic Gerard Butler, who did save Olympus Has Fallen and London Has Fallen movies, couldn’t help, same going for the supporting cast. The visual effects at least weren’t terrible or SyFy level but hardly worth sitting through this forgettable disaster film.