Geostorm (2017)

Now in Theaters
Director: Dean Devlin
Starring: Gerard Butler, Jim Sturgess, and Abbie Cornish 

For a movie about weaponized, man-made climate control… Geostorm actually just sucks. I don’t want to give it the benefit of any kind of qualifier.

Jake (played by Gerard Butler who I am sure is a fairly intelligent guy in real life) plays the most unbelievable genius inventor of the satellite system “Dutch Boy” that is meant to disrupt catastrophic weather. He developed this system with his brother Max (Jim Sturgess). But then big government comes in and commandeers the project. Gerard Butler is removed and the story jumps forward to a world that is mid cataclysm.

Well at least it is billed that way. For a movie that promised at least one geostorm, I have to spoil the fact that there are, in fact, ZERO geostorms. Here is the rough order of the plot with some rough time estimates:

  1. Quick montage of cloudy weather (Maybe 2 minutes)
  2. Gerard Butler acting smug for inventing a rogue weather altering device (15 minutes)
  3. There is a rapid freeze in Afghanistan (doesn’t happen on screen)
  4. Boring pseudoscience & Gerard Butler goes to space (15 minutes)
  5. Volcanic eruption in Hong Kong (3 minutes)
  6. More bullshit in space & on Earth, Max tries to convince the President to investigate the incident (10 minutes)
  7. Hail storm in Japan (1 minute)
  8. More bullshit in space – apparently a virus is causing all the kerfuffle (20ish minutes)
  9. People freeze in Rio and a big wave hits Dubai (4 minutes)
  10. The spacecraft self-destructs, the heroes win, and GERARD BUTLER AND ABBIE CORNISH RIDE IN A CRASHING SATELLITE TO EARTH AND THEY LIVE.
(Warner Bros., 2017)

If you’ve noticed a pattern in the formatting of the above list, that’s because you noticed what I wanted Geostorm to be. The Day after Tomorrow, 2012, Volcano, San Andreas, now this – they all blew it. Movies where the characters have to out run things like cold air aren’t exciting when they aren’t about the characters trying to outrun cold air. Why bother with the bullshit justifications? We want carnage and we want it now! If you want to make a movie that bites Armageddon’s style of disasterpiece, at least fully embrace the Bayhem.

Action movies should be action packed. I know that’s a pretty pedestrian opinion, but its a fact. I’ve had it with all of this dead air between set pieces in action flicks.

Is it Watchlist-worthy? Absolute ZERO