I love disaster movies. Something about watching nature take its vengeance on humanity is very appealing to me. Then, there's also the fact that I'm never going to be able to witness the act of nature in real life. If I'm seeing a huge tidal wave... I'm dead. So, it's nice to get to see the comet hit the Earth and cause the tidal wave. It's nice to get to see the ice tornadoes hit New York city. It's nice to see the earthquake rip apart AT&T Park. I love it. Most of the time, disaster movies are pretty junky with most of the effort spent on the CGI effects of the film, than anything else. There are a couple of exceptions, but generally, you don't go to see the disaster movie for the story or the acting. However, lately, the disaster film has been populated by some pretty big names. Jake Gyllenhaal did The Day After Tomorrow. John Cusack did 2012. The Rock did San Andreas. So, at least, when the movie has to fill story around the chaos, we get capable actors who are able to handle the schlock. Oh... but then there's Geostorm. Again, your capable actors are Gerard Butler, Ed Harris, and Andy Garcia, so you'd THINK that the story surrounding the terrible weather would at least be decent enough because of these guys. I'm here to tell you... NO.
The one thing Geostorm has going for it that most disaster movies don't is the plot is actually pretty clever. In 2019, due to global warming, the planet starts going to shit. The weather is wiping out entire sections of the globe. So the world comes together to formulate a plan-- they're going to construct a massive series of weather-control satellites and launch them into space to control the weather. After three years of peace, someone has hacked into it and is now using it as a weapon, setting off storms in different countries until unleashing the worst global storm there is... a geostorm. I mean, that's a pretty decent plot concept. It's better than "the Mayan calendar ran out". However, despite this clever concept, the execution is straight up garbage.
Roland Emmerich is the master of disaster. His filmography as a director includes Independence Day, Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow, 2012, and White House Down. That's a pretty impressive resume of disaster movies. Attached to each of these films is Emmerich's long time producer Dean Devlin. Well... old Devlin finally thought he'd learned all there was to learn from the master and set out to do his first ever directorial effort. The end result... Geostorm. Let's just say ol' Devlin should've stayed in the producer's chair and given the directing to someone who could handle it. Geostorm, folks, is bad. It's really, really bad. Like, I know I said that when watching a disaster movie there is always going to be some schlock... this shouldn't be the basis of your script. The acting is ham-fisted (which is acceptable in a disaster film). The dialogue is so putrid, it's like they wrote a first draft and then decided never to edit it (which is generally acceptable in a disaster film). The CGI fluctuates from great to poor (which can happen in a disaster film). And the on-screen disasters maybe take up two or three minutes of the entire movie's runtime (this is absolutely UNACCEPTABLE in a disaster movie).
If Deviln learned anything from Emmerich it's that you need to make your disasters the central focus of your movie. You need to have one main character having to (somehow) meet up with four or five different types of terrible weather and outrun them. This isn't the case in Geostorm. Our main character is Jake, Gerard Butler. He's the one who designed the weather controller. He's up in space trying to find out what's wrong as it attacks foreign countries. Our other lead is his brother Max (Jim Sturgess) who works for the President (Andy Garcia), and is trying to figure out who has hacked it with his secret service girlfriend (Abbie Cornish). None of these people actually get into much danger when it comes to weather (minus a little lightning storm). Scroll up and look at the picture. It's Butler holding his daughter facing a massive tidal wave. THIS NEVER HAPPENS. He's in space the whole time. He doesn't have to outrun a tidal wave. Hell, no one does. There's one that happens, somehow, on a beach in India and it just wipes everyone out in like fifteen seconds. Look, Devlin, we can handle terrible writing, bad acting, and a shit script as long as you deliver the goods of mother nature pounding the piss out of Earth. But it's when you don't that people get upset, and you get slapped with a lousy 13% on rottentomatoes. I mean, the critic has never been friend to the disaster movie, but this is a new low, Geostorm.
Okay, I've complained enough. Because even though Geostorm is at the bottom of the disaster movie barrel-- I loved it. It's one of the funniest movies I've seen this year. I'm a huge Butler fan (much like I'm a huge Jason Statham fan), but even he couldn't make the dialogue any better. Example: Butler and his brother are having a three year long fight. He shows up at Butler's house and starts talking to Butler's daughter, his niece, when Butler walks out, notices this and literally says: "Honey, I thought I told you never to talk to strangers." YEAH! The dialogue isn't the worst thing-- I mean, it's pretty awful (hearing Andy Garcia basically shout "I am the President of the United States" when asked a question is so upsetting it's downright hilarious), but Geostorm doesn't do it's job to be properly labeled a disaster movie. On the other hand, it does fit perfectly into the so-bad-it's-good category. It's a terrible film that somehow illicits more laughs than this year's Baywatch movie.
That's not all. There's way more. I'm not kidding you guys... the computers in the movie... have a geostorm clock. What does this mean, you say? I'm glad you asked. When the natural disasters start occuring around the globe, the computer understands that if these continue it will trigger a global storm-- also known as a Geostorm-- so, when She (the computer) figures this out... a large clock counting down pops up on the screen and She (the computer) says "Geostorm warning. One hour twenty-three minutes until Geostorm." They have a clock for this! There is an algorithm within the computer than knows when a global storm will occur down to the very second and it can COUNT YOU DOWN, FOLKS!!!
But that's not all, either! It's not just the computers and the ticking clocks. It's also how the filmmakers decide to handle all of the "space action". There's so much that happens in the space station where Butler is working that goes wrong, too, you guys. It's like half Earth-disaster, half space-disaster. Except, 90% of what happens up in the space station made me want to stand up and yell at the screen, "THAT'S NOT HOW SPACE WORKS!"
It truly is one of the worst movies of the entire year, but it might actually be worth the price of admission if you know exactly what you're getting into. If you're going in trying to satiate your disaster movie thirst, then you're going to be sorely disappointed. There's not enough disaster happening around the shit show that is the rest of the movie. But, if you're going in to see just how bad a movie can be and still manage to take itself seriously... then you're going to love Geostorm like I did. I haven't had a laugh like that in quite some time. Best comedy of 2017. Worst disaster movie... well... since Left Behind.
D+
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