Review of Geostorm (2017) by Mike Z — 01 Jul 2018

We have to talk about disaster movies, we really do. Disaster movies have been a staple of Hollywood since, really, film's earliest days. The Titanic disaster proved to be a popular topic for these earlier disaster films.

But, of course, the golden era of the genre would have to be the 70s, where movies like Airport, The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno were the order of the day. Disaster movies, to this day, still prove to be relatively popular.

Not always, of course, but it has proven to bring in the people. Because there's nothing that audiences love more than to enjoy the suffering of others. In all seriousness though, I can't remember the last time I saw a disaster movie.

I really can't. Not that I have anything against these movies, but they're not necessarily my cup of tea. Character is usually put aside in order for it to be a spectacle for the eyes and sense.

There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but it's just not for me. These movies follow a very simple formula and they very rarely deviate from that. Comedy/action/drama/romance/thriller/mystery/sci-fi movies have evolved throughout the years as times change.

Yet disaster films always stay the same. I'm not saying that some of these movies can't provide adequate B-level thrills, but these movies are usually not particularly smart. This is ironic in most of these movies, where there's some sort of scientist character trying to figure out what's wrong and how to fix things.

Same thing applies to this movie. Where do we start with this movie? I think it should be obvious that this is not a particularly good movie. It's also a movie that has very little, if any, quality control.

The reason I bring this is up is due to one particular scene near the end. Sarah, a Secret Service agent is driving away in this car with her boyfriend Max, a State Department official, and the President of the United States.

They're being shot at by one of the lead villain's goons, other Secret Service agents. Sarah decides to drive at them. Naturally, the men jump out of the way. One of the goons jumps out of the way and is supposed to land on the floor.

But, oh no, he does not land on the floor you see, for the landing mat is perfectly visible when he lands. And it's not like it's a slight glimpse either, like something in the corner of the screen, you can legitimately see most of the landing mat.

I had to rewind it several times to even believe what I was seeing. How is it that a movie that cost $120 million to make (yes, really) could let something like this slip by? This actually made it onto the final cut of the movie.

And, I'm fairly certain, that they didn't shoot this fall just one time. I'm certain they shot it several more and THAT was the best they could actually come up with? Holy fuck. That should tell you something about this movie.

The narrative of this movie is as follows. We see this cowboy American Jake (played by proud Scot Gerard Butler) attempt to fix these malfunctioning satellites that threaten to cause a massive and catastrophic series of weather events.

The satellites, however, were designed to prevent storms, hurricanes, monsoons, tornadoes, etc, etc. An international coalition aligned themselves together in order to put up these satellites after a series of natural disasters.

But, of course, it's not so simple as just a series of malfunctioning satellites. No, there's somebody sabotaging these satellites while making it look like accidents. The question is who is behind this and what their purpose is.

Did I tell you that Ed Harris is in this movie? Because it's Ed Harris. He wants to, basically, kill millions of people with this geostorm, as they call it, which is sort of a domino effect of natural disasters, so he can kill everyone who's ahead of him in the line of succession for the presidency of the United States.

Control of the Dutch Boy, as the series of satellites are referred to, is about to be handed over from the U.S government to an international group. I think one of Dekkom's (Ed's character) goals seems to be keeping control of the Dutch Boy.

A bit of a logic flaw in that. I get that he wants to be president, but can't he just kill the president and the Democratic National Convention and be done with it? Do the malfunctions have to take place all over the world? I mean it's a little convenient that a "malfunction" in the satellites would lead to the president's death, but still.

Dekkom, basically, has committed large amounts of genocide since, I'm sure, millions of people have died as a result of his actions. Doesn't make much sense. Nothing much in this movie makes sense.

Max and Jake (brothers) have a contentious relationship, given that Jake is a bit of a loose cannon, doing things his way regardless of the consequence and Jake plays it by the book. Max fires Jake at the beginning of the film, but practically begs for his help three years later in order to keep more innocent people from dying.

This is fine and dandy. What's not fine and dandy, however, is later. Max and Jake get into an argument and Jake defies Max's authority over the 'mission'. Max, essentially, tells Jake to ask for authorization or, if he doesn't, he'll be on the next (space) flight home.

Dude, less than ten minutes ago you were BEGGING him to go up to the space station to figure out what was wrong with the Dutch Boy and now you're threatening to fire him again and, basically, doom the entire world to the worst series of natural disasters in its history.

Talk about a dick-measuring contest. I know that this review is all over the place, but I'm doing this off-the-cuff and saying, literally, the next thing that comes to mind. My reviews are usually like this anyway, but this one is definitely a more extreme version of it.

If there's one thing that could definitely have saved this movie is some epic destruction. And, while there's plenty of destruction, I don't know if I could call it epic. This is as a result of the special effects not being particularly good.

A movie like this needs impressive special effects or else who's gonna care. You know the special effects are bad when they fail to even pull off the White House driveway convincingly. If you fail at something as simple as that, how is there any hope for the more elaborate set-pieces.

The driveway just looked bad, it lacked detail and polish. The scripting is another thing, it's illogical people doing illogical things because it's the only way they can move the narrative forward.

Perhaps it's not the ONLY way, but it's the easiest way to get to where they want to go. It's also the way that takes the least amount of effort. The character development is nil. I mean, I guess there's something between Max and Jake becoming closer again in the face of the world's biggest series of natural disasters, but I didn't really care in the slightest.

The acting is ok, but this isn't the sort of movie where you should expect high-caliber acting. I don't think I have much else to say. The characters in this movie are not good, the dialogue isn't much better, the special effects are kind of trash and the story doesn't make much sense when scrutinized.

Anyway you slice it, this is a very bad movie. Though I suppose some enjoyment could be had with this movie in a so bad it's good kind of way, because it definitely made me laugh at it. But the laughs weren't enough to make this an enjoyably bad movie.

It's a bad movie with some laughably terrible moments. So, yea, I wouldn't recommend this.