[Review] Geostorm

Yes, I weathered the Geostorm -- an un-natural disaster flick that is more of a shitstorm. A muddled wave of mishmash that is as ridiculous as it is forgettable.

It's set in the near future, also known as 2018, and extreme climate change has caused cataclysmic storms. So the world has turned to a specialized satellite (dubbed "Dutch Boy") to combat the problem, but when the technology starts to malfunction, the designer of the Dutch Boy (played by Gerard Butler) must race against the clock to avoid world-ending catastrophe.

Geostorm is as heavy-handed as basketball-sized hail falling out of the sky, and the constant floods of forced exposition are enough to sink the entire endeavor. This thing essentially takes elements from past disaster flicks like The Core and The Day After Tomorrow, swirls in some wacko conspiracy theories, and smacks them together into a gigantic cloud of CGI nothingness. The choppy tone is never sure if it wants to be uber-serious or draw attention to its own silliness, and what we end up with is a soulless and humorless mind-number. Somewhere out there, Michael Bay is saying "This needs more fireballs." Even the Sharknado filmmakers are probably scoffing at the dull execution.

And for a film revolving around worldly and weatherly destruction, we never really get a feel for the actual atmosphere of the settings. Where is the true sense of chaos? What does the power of this storm actually look like? Where is the human element? Of course, I wasn't expecting deeply developed characters here or anything, but I'd like to see more than just humdrum stand-ins. They might as well have been robots! Hey, now that might be an interesting idea...

( 3.5/10 )

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