Respond to these rapid questions in our Geostorm quiz and we will tell you which Geostorm character you are. Play it now.
Whether or not it is appropriate to release a film like “Geostorm” at this time has been called into question, and not only because it arrives in theaters with all the hallmarks of a cinematic disaster in the making: numerous release date changes, reports of extensive reshoots that eliminated some characters entirely while introducing new ones, and the presence of Gerard Butler in the lead role. Not at all. Rather, the question is whether or not the general public will be in the mood to watch a film in which the entire planet is threatened by extreme weather events in the wake of all the meteorological chaos that has occurred over the last few weeks. As it turns out, those who were concerned about going to see it because of that reason can rest easy knowing that, despite the film’s ad campaign to the contrary, it is an utterly idiotic and frequently boring amalgamation of “The Day After Tomorrow,” “San Andreas,” “Gravity,” “The Manchurian Candidate,” and other lesser Irwin Allen productions. Both as awe-inspiring spectacle and as campy silliness, “Geostorm” falls short of expectations.
During the course of the film, we learn that the Earth was hit by a series of catastrophic extreme weather events in 2019 that caused entire cities to be wiped out. Realizing the dangers of global warming (which proves that the film is fiction), the United States joins the other countries of the world in combating it by taking the lead in the development of a massive satellite system, nicknamed “Dutch Boy” because, well, that’s what they call it. Dutch Boy is a satellite system that tracks extreme weather systems and eliminates them before the destruction can begin. Invented by two-fisted, hard-drinking, and inexplicably Scottish American scientist Jake Lawson (Butler), Dutch Boy is operated by an international crew in orbit, with the help of a two-fisted, hard-drinking scientist. However, he is one of those guys who simply cares too much, and when a Senate hearing goes awry, he is fired from the project by the project’s new director, Max, who happens to be his own brother (a burr-free Jim Sturgess).
Approximately three years later, the United States is about to relinquish control of Dutch Boy to all other countries on the planet when a satellite malfunction causes an entire village in Afghanistan’s theoretically sweltering desert to be flash frozen as a result of a mishap. Because the President of the United States (Andy Garcia) does not want to turn over a flawed system, he orders Max to send someone up to investigate and fix the problem, and (spoiler alert) Jake is the one who is sent up to do so. The fact that the system has been sabotaged is discovered by Jake and the station commander (Alexandra Maria Lara) after approximately six minutes. This is the same conclusion that Max comes to on Earth. Other cities are experiencing bizarre weather—Tokyo is experiencing hail the size of canned Okja, and a bikini-clad woman in Rio is seen trying to escape the cold—and the two brothers are trying to figure out what appears to be a massive conspiracy and stop it before the satellites create a “geostorm,” which could cause untold millions of deaths throughout the world. During this time, the two brothers are also trying to figure out what is causing the bizarre weather.
But you shouldn’t waste any more time and start this Geostorm quiz.
You know how it is when a big-ticket genre film is released and within a couple of weeks, a knockoff of it is already available on DVD, complete with shoddy special effects, an utterly insane storyline, and B-level actors (if we are lucky) traipsing through the silliness in exchange for a quick paycheck? In many ways, “Geostorm” feels like the first $120 million (according to the studio) version of such a film; the effects may be marginally better than what you see on the Syfy network, but even the Syfy network’s producers would have blanched at the nonsense offered. To list all of the major issues here would run the risk of turning this review into a list of problems, so I will only mention a couple of them in this section. In the first place, our hero is an overbearing, obnoxious jerk with whom few people would want to spend any amount of time, and I fear that Butler embodies that characteristic to an extreme degree—you spend most of the first half of the film hoping that the film will make a “Executive Decision” and knock him out early so that the real and actually likable hero can come in and save the day. And the conspiracy angle doesn’t work because A.) the convoluted plot, even by dumb action film standards, makes no sense, and B.) the bad guy is so patently obvious that most people will be able to figure it out just by looking at the credits on the movie poster. Also present are a number of unrelated subplots, including Jake’s relationship with his dissatisfied moppet of a daughter and Max’s supposed clandestine affair with a Secret Service agent (Abbie Cornish, who actually can act, which makes her presence here all the more disappointing as a result) that not only consume valuable screen time but also drag on for an interminable amount of time after the meal is finished.
Geostorm Quiz
All of this sounds completely ridiculous, but the biggest disappointment with “Geostorm” is that it doesn’t even work as the camp that is suggested by the video game’s promotional materials. Yes, there are scenes of weather-related devastation, but there are only a couple of instances where we get to see them play out in detail, including a sudden temperature spike in Hong Kong that causes gas main explosions that level much of the city and wild lighting strikes over Orlando. The rest are frequently reduced to brief segments that provide just enough footage to make the trailer appear a little more spectacular while not providing enough information to benefit the film. It doesn’t matter which way you look at it, they lack the lavish visual pyrotechnics as well as the wit and style to make any of the destruction even slightly memorable. All of this is stuff that you’ve seen better before—even the scene where someone is trying to outrun the cold is lifted directly from “The Day After Tomorrow,” a film that I’m fairly certain director/co-writer Dean Devlin is familiar with because it was directed by Roland Emmerich, the director with whom he collaborated on “Stargate,” “Godzilla,” and the “Independence Day” films.
Also, you will find out which character are you in this Geostorm quiz.
God only knows how many millions of dollars and countless hours of labor were invested in the production and reproduction of “Geostorm,” but it appears to have been for naught. You’d think that a movie with such a ridiculous premise and so much money thrown at it would at the very least be somewhat memorable, but “Geostorm” is so completely forgettable that it will begin to fade from your memory before you even get to the parking lot and will have completely faded away by the time you get home. Never in a million years did I imagine that I’d be saying these words, but “Geostorm” is a film that could have done with a Sharknado or two to bring some life to it.
For more personality quizzes check this: The Foreigner Quiz.
