GEOSTORM (2017)

GEOSTORM (2017)

Tagline:  Some things were never meant to be controlled.

(Action, SciFi, Thriller) [PG-13]

This was my life's work, Max. You know, they said it was impossible, but we pulled it off. And it worked perfectly, without fail, day after day, year after year, so what do people do with it? Turn it into a gun.

In a nutshell, this movie is about Jake Lawson who is a bit of a jerk developing a complex system on a space station that controls a ton of satellites. Those satellites are designed to control the earth’s weather patterns and avoid catastrophic weather events. However, the system is acting erratically and no one but Jake can figure out how to stop it. Oddly that is going to mean his brother who is now head of the project is going to have to hire Jake back to resolve the issue. Can he figure out what’s gone wrong before the world’s biggest cities are toppled and the globe is plunged into a global weather event known as “Geostorm”? 

First off, if the message of this movie was that man should be in charge of anything involving controlling the weather…it failed miserably. Instead, the movie comes across as one giant public service announcement about NOT screwing with the weather at all. If you then want to take it to a global conservation effort and trying to reduce emissions and pollution that’s awesome, we should be already doing those things. What I didn’t get was that we need to be trying to control the weather itself like super villain Bill Gates has proposed.  

Acting-wise GEOSTORM pulls out all of the stops. Gerard Butler who some actors say didn’t seem to remember his lines while shooting this, is actually pretty fantastic. It’s one of the roles where even him being a bit of a jerk is more endearing than some of the other stuff he’s done. Abbie Cornish from SUCKER PUNCH is pretty great in this as someone who works in security detail for the President. Jim Sturgess from CLOUD ATLAS is also solid in this as are Zazie Beetz who played Domino in DEADPOOL 2 and Alexandra Maria Lara who plays Ute Fassbinder. Both characters bring an element of humanity and going above the expectations of your normal job to overcome crazy obstacles. Ed Harris is also good in this, but ultimately he and Andy Garcia are not doing anything outside their normal wheelhouses.

Penned by INDEPENDENCE DAY writer Dean Devlin, I am guessing that no one involved in this movie realized that the GEO STORM was actually a car produced from 1990 to 1993. I get that it was probably a decent title for this flick, but when I saw the previews, I had zero desire to actually see this thing. In fact, I would have probably just not even bothered if GREENLAND hadn’t come out and got me thinking about disaster flicks. I know the big one everyone talks about is 2012, but I found that largely tedious, preachy, and borrowing for most of its run time. Butler’s acting style has a way of making these flicks seem like they’ve got some severity as if they were really happening. 

Overall this movie comes across as a better, more well-thought-out version of ARMAGEDDON with better effects. I mean some of the stuff in this movie effects-wise is just NUTS. It also has a much more satisfying yet also terrifying ending. The writing is clever and there are more personal touches in this thing that make you want to root for the characters involved. I was pleasantly surprised. 

Overall I have to give GEOSTORM a 5 out of 7. It definitely serves as a warning to stop trying to play God and to start trying to just do better with what we’ve got.

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