Let’s be honest, movie trailers aren’t always reliable. We’ve all seen trailers that excited us for movies which would eventually let us down. We’ve also watched trailers that didn’t impress only to find the movie to be a pleasant surprise. Neither is true for “Geostorm”. The trailer advertised something dreadful and the movie delivered it. At least they didn’t mislead us.
It’s the distant future of 2019 and the United States has developed an elaborate satellite system as a response to a series of devastating weather disasters. The climate-controlling space contraption is affectionately known as Dutch Boy. The mastermind behind it is none other than Gerard Butler. I guess it makes sense. I mean who else would you call to face hurricanes and typhoons head-on?
Butler plays Jake Lawson, the mastermind behind Dutch Boy until being dismissed due to his problems with authority (reminiscent of every Gerry Butler action movie character). Since then three years have passed and his estranged brother Max (Jim Sturgess) now oversees Dutch Boy. Under his watch a series of deadly weather anomalies occur including a frozen village in Afghanistan and tornadoes of flames in a sweltering Hong Kong. Fearing worst disasters, Max convinces Gerry, errr Jake, to come back and sort out why Dutch Boy didn’t catch the anomalies.
The government launches Jake into orbit where he boards the International Climate Space Station (yep, that’s what it’s called). There he meets his pointedly diverse team of techs to figure out what’s wrong with his baby. Both Jake and Max uncover clues which point to tampering, political corruption, environmental terrorism, blah, blah, blah. And if our brave brothers can’t root out the culprit and fix Dutch Boy in time, a global weather disaster known as a (you guessed it) Geostorm will decimate the planet. Good thing Gerry is on our side.
All of that silliness sets up Gerry’s race against-the-clock space station adventure. Director and co-writer Dean Devlin leans heavily into Butler’s stale action-movie persona not even daring to offer anything new. He’s a tough guy, an anti-authority type, with a good physique and plenty of teeth-grinding one-liners.
It’s not much better on earth. Max follows a trail of information that could implicate someone in the president’s cabinet whether it be the Secretary of State (a seemingly bored Ed Harris) or even the Commander-in-Chief himself (an equally disinterested Andy Garcia). Thankfully Max has the help of his Secret Service girlfriend (Abbie Cornish) and her ridiculously deep security access.
While “Geostorm” doesn’t offer an ounce of intrigue (not even accidently), it does give us plenty of big city CGI destruction, corny dialogue, bland stock characters and unintentionally hilarious plot turns. It plods along failing to muster even the slightest bit of energy. That’s usually the death knell for this type of movie. Turns out it’s one of many crippling flaws that contribute to this being a $120 million disaster. At least Gerry’s consistent.
VERDICT – 1.5 STARS
Keith & the Movies 
To be honest , I only watched these type of movies for the mass destruction. Most end of world movies are dreadful except a few , like The Road which was amazing and not about special effects . But this movie really took the cake . It was pretty bad. The effects were alright but beyond that, wow what a piece of drivel. Never getting back that almost 2 hours of my life .
It truly is bad, isn’t it? I too have a bit of a soft spot for these kinds of silly, over-the-top thrillers. But this thing is just dreadful. Even when it tries to be funny it completely fails. I swear, Butler‘s career fall is astonishing.
I saw a trailer for this and once I saw Gerard Buttwad’s face, I was like “oh no… not again” and it looked bad. Gerard Buttwad is a wanker and needs to just stop. He’s not that compelling as an actor. Maybe he was a long time ago when he did films like Dear Frankie but that was a long time ago.
You initial reaction was 100% the right one! 😂 It’s an awful movie.
Why would I want to waste my time watching some Buttwad scream and look smug for 2 hours?
It’s a valid question, yet I squandered those two hours. At least I got several unintentional laughs with my son!
I watched it one day and then after that I saw Bright and I’m like….why am I trying to kill my brain?
HA!!! Those are two brain-cell destroyers. I just turned Bright off. Couldn’t take it!
I usually have a soft spot for these movies, solely because I like seeing what’s new in CGI 🙂 I didn’t make it to this one, maybe the next one! (Because you know there will be another one haha).
Ha Ha! You’re definitely right. There will be another one. And trust me, you missed nothing with this one. It’s every bit as bad as it sounds.
Excellent. Lol.
Oh man I love disaster movies even the cheesy ones but this one was terrible lok
There is a certain charm to the cheesy ones, right? This thing though…UGH!
So disappointing
I also can’t recommend this film but was never bored. it is ridiculous but i liked some aspects of it like Gerald Butlers performance and the premise of a satellite system being secretly handled by conspirators. Keith, doesn’t this film seem more like a conspiracy thriller?
Hmmm, maybe so. I can definitely see ‘conspiracy thriller’ fitting. As for Butler, it seemed to be a rehash of a character he has played several times before. I think that’s one reason I found him so predictable. 😄
I really enjoyed the movie.
The “unintentionally hilarious plot turns” carried the day for me. I laughed all the way through this one because it was so so stupid. It ended up in the so bad it’s awesome category for me.
I was hoping to get to that point man! I ended up moving from laughter to staring at the screen shocked that nearly $150 million had been spent on THAT!
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Had to link to this post after watching Devlin’s latest in Bad Samaritan. Slightly better I guess, lol? Mainly for David Tennant but he can only do so much.
Ouch! “I guess”? Not a ringing endorsement! 😂
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