Geostorm (2017) *1/2

U.S. Release Date: 2017-10-20

Running Length: 120 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Violence, Action Peril, Language)

Genre: Disaster

Director: Dean Devlin

Cast: Gerard Butler, Jim Sturgess, Abbie Cornish, Alexandra Maria Lara, Andy Garcia, Ed Harris

Geostorm is problematic right out the gate. It expects the audience to be so fundamentally stupid that they will take everything spoon fed to them on screen without questioning even the most obvious scientific inaccuracies. While I have no inherent issues with a film asking us to go with the narrative rather than hard science, (Hello Star Wars) it still has to be rooted in reality enough to keep me in the film. There has to be just enough ‘fact’ to get me past the ‘fiction.’ Sadly, or perhaps inevitably, Geostorm doesn’t do that and because of that it comes across as insulting to my intelligence. I’m no scientist and have never set foot in outer space and I could easily smell the bologna that reeked throughout the entire two hours.

The premise is simple. Global Warming and climate issues have taken their toll on the world, so much so that the world has united, or at least 17 countries have, (the film isn’t quite clear on this) to fund and built a net around the entire earth to control the weather. After three years of climate tranquility the system is set to fall under control of the world’s nations rather than solely the United States. All of a sudden there is a malfunction in one of the satellites in the net that causes a small area of the middle east to freeze, killing everyone in the area. Then another malfunction causes fire and destruction in Hong Kong. Things quickly ramp up to a deadly countdown to a geostorm, a worldwide weather event with the potential to reshape the earth. Is it really a malfunction or the work of a saboteur? Two guesses and the first doesn’t count.

To deal with the malfunction, estranged brothers Jake (Gerald Butler) and Max Lawson (Jim Sturgess) are recruited by the White House to get things back in order. Jake was the original engineer responsible for the creation of the net, dubbed Dutch Boy, and Max is the current head of the program who fired Jake when opinions got hot over the way to run it. Naturally things ramp up and explosions abound.

As mentioned above, to call this film stupid is an understatement. Director Dean Devlin, known primarily as partners with Roland Emmerich who spews out films in this genre every few years, had this film filmed and ready for release back in May, but test screenings were so poor that it was pulled from the summer line up for hefty reshoots by Producer Jerry Bruckheimer, writer Laeta Kalogridis and Director Danny Cannon. The result begs question as to just how bad it was before the retooling. Besides all the behind the scenes problems there is another problem that should have delayed the release of this film at least into February. That problem is current events. With the recent hurricane and tornado damage in Texas, the Caribbean and Puerto Rico the world is a little battle worn and tired of images of natural disaster devastation. This is sure to effect the box office clout. That coupled with the sheer cliché of the subject matter and visuals is unlikely to lure people into theaters. It doesn’t help that the visuals are often cartoonish and poorly done, but then again by the time people realize that they have already paid for their tickets.

The film tries clumsily to inject political hot points into it’s narrative. There are many instances of this but the worst one comes when an American character is saved by an Hispanic character who afterwards points to the Mexican flag on their uniform and says ‘by a Mexican’ as if it’s making a bold political statement about the current state of Mexico/America relations in the Trump era. This is just bad. It’s also in poor taste. For a film of this ilk it stands out like a sore thumb. This film is not smart enough to make these types of statements well.

In the end this film is boorish, borderline offensive, and just plain dumb. The scenes of destruction could have been copied and pasted from another natural disaster film of a few years ago, 2012. At this point, seeing skyscrapers collapse in old and tired. Seeing satellites explode in space and people run from fireballs and falling debris is cliché and unexciting. The political intrigue is anything but and even the most undiscerning viewer will have no problems guessing who is behind it all. The film would be disappointing if not for how low the expectation was in the first place.