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Geostorm
Starring: Gerard Butler, Jim Sturgess, Ed Harris
Director: Dean Devlin
Genre: Disaster
Rating: PG-15
RUNTIME: 110 Mins
Despite Geostorm’s premise and its surprising amount of scientific explanation in the script, it is not a clever movie. But then again, were you really expecting a film featuring tidal waves and ice storms, helmed by Gerard Butler, to be the next Interstellar?
Still, you know what you are getting with this … a big, dumb action film with likeable heroes and popcorn-fuelled action. On that level, it succeeds.
Geostorm paints a future where humans have developed climate-controlling satellites by constructing a giant net around Earth, a desperate measure to combat years of horrendous tornadoes and tsunamis.
Things are fine until the satellite system, named Dutch Boy, malfunctions three years later, leading to epic weather disasters around the world.
Concluding that the pattern of ice storms and heatwaves will lead to half the world’s population being wiped out, Jake and his brother Max (Jim Sturgess), who has some vague senior position at the White House, team up to save the world: Jake in space doing Gerard Butler things, and Max in Washington trying to decipher what led to the malfunctions.
Butler, the most Scottish of American heroes, is the one space scientist who could possibly fix this mess because, I guess, he never taught anyone else how to.
The first 80 minutes set up the ludicrous plot with a slab of American politicking, a blatantly obvious whodunit mystery, and clichéd brotherly angst between Butler and Sturgess.
There’s also an extremely shoehorned father-daughter emotional beat with Jake having to choose between his biological child and his mechanical one.
It would be a dull way to get to the action if it wasn’t for all the stupendously stupid stuff sprinkled throughout: a person introducing their name despite wearing a name badge, Butler ‘mansplaining’ satellites to the chief satellite commander, the fact that they have handguns drawn in a space station.
To the film’s credit, it doesn’t make America the sole saviour and emphasises how the world needs to cooperate fully to protect Earth – it’s as if Captain Planet wrote a Michael Bay disaster flick.
Everything leads to a climax that pulls the ripcord on all seriousness with hail boulders and desert tsunamis, including a scene set in neighbouring Dubai’s Burj Khalifa. The digital effect work wobbles all over the place, but remains originally bonkers. When the film introduces a literal ‘Countdown to GEOSTORM’, it hits peak dumb in the best way possible.
While Geostorm’s fantastical scenes of major cities being destroyed by heat waves and thunderstorms could serve as a wake-up call and send a serious message, the climate change angle is almost entirely ignored.
Ultimately, it’s mere window dressing for what is essentially another ‘Gerard Butler action film’, a brand of B-movies with neither the depth of true Hollywood blockbusters, nor the following of Liam Neeson’s similarly low-budget one-man actioners.
Still, Butler is a very likeable lead and you sympathise with his plight, particularly when the going gets tough towards the end. Ed Harris brings his magnificent acting chops to the table, even if his character’s direction is immediately obvious.
And, there’s some laugh out loud moments too which I’ll kindly put down as deliberate.
However, the star of the show is Abbie Cornish as Max’s floozy and Secret Service agent Sarah Wilson. Surprisingly, she brings some believability to a film littered with the outlandish.
As long as you’re not expecting Oscar-winning performances and a yarn that will severely trigger your grey matter, then this is decent popcorn fare that will happily pass a couple of hours.
Now showing in: Cineco, Seef II, Saar, Wadi Al Sail, Mukta A2
Kristian’s Verdict: 3/5
