Geostorm
Cert: 12A / 109 mins / Dir. Dean Devlin / Trailer
Before we get started, I saw the new trailer for The Last Jedi today, on the biggest screen in my local. So the afternoon wasn't entirely wasted. Right, then. It's a sad fact of 2017 that Gerard Butler's name on a poster usually points to the production being toward the lower-end of the Tomatometer, but that's where we are. A disaster-flick from the co-writer of two Independence Day movies and 1998's Godzilla was never going to hold any great thematic enigmata, yet this new presentation still manages to disappoint, irritate and bore. That said, it would be unfair to call Geostorm indescribably bad. Not least because I'm about to describe how bad it is...
The plot: The year is 2019 (or thereabouts?), and the Earth's network of weather-stabilising satellites is malfunctioning, causing localised Extreme Weather™, which is killing people. Since Gerard Butler is the one who designed the whole system (no really), he has to go into space to punch things until they all start working again. Meanwhile, his brother Jim Sturgess leads the mission on Earth to uncover the conspiracy behind why it's all happening. Obviously this includes President Andy Garcia Of The USA, because movies. Also, Gerard may be a reluctant-genius, borderline alcoholic insubordinate, but he's got a daughter from a previous marriage because it's important that we know he's straight. That's how I read it, anyway.
Science fact! During inclement weather, buildings and vehicles will explode fierily for no reason…
Our tale begins by having a child deliver a condescending monologue on climate-change and apolitical international cooperation*1. That's how it begins. This narration isn't returned to until the film's final moments when at least the majority of the audience can use their empty popcorn receptacles as sick-bags. The driving force behind the narrative is that humanity (well, Gerard Butler) has constructed a planetary shield of satellites, which end up having the opposite of their intended effect. Which, if you recall, is basically the setup of Highlander II. Imagine how piss-poor your screenplay must be when it essentially rips off The Quickening. Perhaps I'm wrong; perhaps Dean Devlin has directed and co-written an unofficial prequel to one of the worst movies of all time. That would certainly fit.
The film itself quickly sketches in Butler as the put-upon everyman and Sturgess as his put-upon brother, then escalates from one contrived disaster set-piece to the next, like a story written by an 8yr old who doesn't realise this will all need wrapping up at some point. Every other line of dialogue is exposition. Either descriptive of what's happened in the past, descriptive of character motivations or descriptive of the things which are happening in the same room at that actual moment. It's as if Warner Bros have decided to save money by merging the script with the hearing-impaired Audio Description track. All that's missing from this packed barrel of bar-raising Wowshit is an appearance from Morgan Freeman as a respected academic whose role in the film is to scratch his head and not have a clue what's going on for the duration.
Dialogue highlight! I particularly enjoyed the moment when Gerard Butler has to tell his brother of the unspoken code between brothers by speaking it to his brother. #writing
As with all of these things, the point-of-jeopardy isn't the death of the central characters, but the potential extinction of all humanity itself. Although since that would necessarily include the death of the central characters, it often feels like a tempting trade-off.
On the plus-side, the effects work is pretty solid in here, as is Butler's non-region-specific US accent, amazingly. I assume he's been taking extra tuition. Or maybe he's just nowhere near the worst thing in this film. I could write a lot, lot more about Geostorm's flaws, but quite frankly it isn't worth the effort (not mine to write, nor yours to read). Every single scene in this cries out for lengthy and merciless deconstruction, and I imagine that the inevitable CinemaSins takedown will be at least as long as the movie itself.
Verdict! Every bit as lazy, reductive and pointless as the trailer suggests and then some, this is a moral, artistic, categorical waste of $120m. If Dean Devlin is really so concerned about the environment, he can do his bit by ensuring that after its theatrical run, no more copies of Geostorm are produced in any format whatsoever…
This is like someone put Lockout, San Andreas and Armageddon into a blender they found in a skip, and smeared stale piss round the rim of your glass. While you were watching.
I saw this in a cinema where an elderly couple to my immediate right kept sporadically returning to their full-volume conversation, throughout.
It was not the most annoying thing which happened in that room.
I genuinely have no idea what this sets out to achieve.
The only individual to escape this debacle with any shred of dignity is Alexandra Maria Lara, who seems to have been acting for a much better film. She's going to be fucking livid when she watches this back.
You know what? I will, a bit.
Not that I heard.
Level 2: Our Hero Gerald appeared in 2008's RocknRolla of course, alongside Geoff '2nd Lt. Frobb' Bell.
Incidentally, there is also a scripted reference to Rocknrolla in Geostorm, which is delivered with all the consummate artistry of a toddler at a drum-kit.
*1 And bear in mind, I'm already on-side for this. As a Guardian-reading, science-loving, realist, I know that the first step in actually tackling demonstrable climate change is by affecting people's attitudes. And even I found this to be a load of manipulative, sanctimonious old shit, half-heartedly smeared across a two-hour montage of cities collapsing for no explicable reason. It's the sort of thing that makes me want to sit in my back garden, burning old refrigerators full of polystyrene, just out of spite… [ BACK ]
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• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
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