Originally published October 20, 2017. Updated April 14, 2018.
Geostorm, 2017.
Directed by Dean Devlin.
Starring Gerard Butler, Katheryn Winnick, Jim Sturgess, Abbie Cornish, Andy Garcia, Zazie Beetz, and Ed Harris.
SYNOPSIS:
When the network of satellites designed to control the global climate start to attack Earth, it’s a race against the clock to uncover the real threat before a worldwide geostorm wipes out everything and everyone.
There is absolutely no reason for Geostorm to exist. It’s bunkum and plays like The Day After Tomorrow for those who feel intellectually inferior to Roland Emmerich. It’s Armageddon for those who thought it subtle, 2012 for those with a hankering for trashy political intrigue, it’s an end of the world pic that demands the audience to beckon for the end of days. It’s dull, imbecilic, grossly misjudged, yet momentarily, as towers fall, great floods thrash ravines and fires burn through snow, it distracts – briefly – from an impending doom that you’ll be desperately yearning for.
Gerard Butler is a derpy derp scientist who invented Dutch Boy, a derpy derp machine that controls weather. His brother and boss Jim Sturgess, derpy derp politician have a fractured relationship. When the machine causes global catastrophe, derpy Jim sends derp Gerard back up to Dutch Boy to stop Armageddon. All this as Jim and derp girlfriend Abbie Cornish derpy derp plan to kidnap President Andy Garcia and VP Ed Harris.
Is it allegorical? Is it a grand call to arms to countries across the globe to tackle climate change with a vengeance? Is it a deeply meaningful study of excess and corrupting power? No. It’s grossly, meaninglessly excessive whilst being about as enjoyable as locking your thumbs in a car door.
Gerard Butler, looking like Russell Crowe if he was trapped in a swimming pool overnight, has the charisma of a urinal and his accent, for all intents and purposes “American,” is more an example of your local drunk dossing out his worst Bruce Willis impression. Jim Sturgess does what little he can as he kidnaps President Andy Garcia who, and I really can’t place emphasis enough on this, does not want to be there. In fact, no one does. It’s a reluctant Shutter Island-lite experiment to appease Butler’s bloated ego. Only Zazie Beetz valiantly tries and she could do far better than this.
In fact, there is no cohesion between characters, let alone plotting. Merging a mind-numbing end of the world film with whatever Andy Garcia and Jim Sturgess are doing is to be beholden. To then have each character wander in as if off a handful of different sets is a stroke of madness. Having the gumption to demand the sympathy of an audience for a group of characters with the emotional, personal and intellectual intelligence of a horny, hungry Neanderthal is just plain brazen.
At least Lorne Balfe’s score is enough to distract from the ever-growing idiocy.
Geostorm is the cinematic equivalent of a post-hangover meal at Wimpy. The lasting impact of climate change has never been more welcome.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★
Thomas Harris
