Geostorm is a 2017 action/sci-fi film co-written, produced, and directed by Dean Devlin as his feature film directorial debut. The film stars Gerard Butler, Jim Sturgess, Abbie Cornish, Alexandra Maria Lara, Richard Schiff, Robert Sheehan, Daniel Wu, Eugenio Derbez, Ed Harris, Talitha Eliana Bateman, and Andy García. The plot follows a satellite designer who tries to save the world from a storm of epic proportions caused by malfunctioning climate-controlling satellites.
Okay I’ll be honest with you all, my expectations were very very low for this film.. even lower than what I rated it. And to my surprise.. It still sucked. Geostorm is one of those films that just sounds bad, looks bad, and is bad. There’s no denying that this is one of the worst films I’ve seen all year, but the question of the day is: Can anything save Geostorm from utter disaster? The short answer is: No. The long answer is: Still no. So on with the review.
Okay, so lets start with what didn’t work for this film since I can’t think of anything that the film did right. So story. This film does it all wrong 100% of the time. There’s is just so much wrong with the story in this film that it honestly had me bashing my head against the seat for the entire film. The story is incredibly predictable.. like not a little.. a lot. The entire climax was seen from a mile away, and when the film wasn’t barfing exposition on you, it was giving away most of its plot in some of the most predictable ways. The villain’s reveal in the movie. Predictable. The backstabber. Predictable. The small twist at the end. Predictable. This entire film was just cliche after cliche, and it left for one of the most boring experiences I’ve ever had in the cinema.
What else was horrible about this film? The acting? Sure! Gerard Butler was semi decent, but when you suddenly remember that he could have been switched out with Brendan Fraser and it wouldn’t have made you even blink an eye, you begin to question how “difficult” the role really was. As for the rest of the cast? Oh boy. Jim Sturgess was awful. Talitha Eliana Bateman was awful. Even Andy Garcia was awful! The only person that had some sense of acting was Ed Harris, and all he did was basically show up and play himself. There was absolutely nothing that gave weight to these characters, and none of their performances stood out as anything other than just awful.
As for the visuals? Well I have something good to say about that! The film actually did a pretty decent job at its space models earlier on in the film. Although mainly CGI, there were some instances where the computer animation almost seemed like practical models. I highly doubt they went that route, but good on them for surprising me a little. As for the rest of the film? Crap. Most (if not all) of the CGI that took place on Earth was just garbage, and looked like leftover footage from 2012. A lot of the water seemed unnatural, and even the storms themselves looked unrealistic in nature. Sure, they aren’t supposed to look “natural” but I don’t care since this film didn’t seem to care either.
What also kinda annoyed me about this film was its unbelievable events that took place throughout the build up to the geostorm. I understand that it’s a “disaster movie” but still.. a 500 foot wave seems little too excessive. The film constantly did this throughout the movie, and each time I laughed more than I feared for the innocent. The movie becomes less of a “thriller” and more of a “comedy” in a sense, and when you have that big of a genre jump, it’s really bad. I was also pretty annoyed by the physics this film portrayed. There were multiple instances where people were spinning through space and then grab a handle or something last second and it saves them. Just like 2001, space doesn’t work like that! You grab something going 20 mph in space, you break or lose your arm. Not to mention there’s an ending scene that includes the space station that just.. well.. That. Can’t. Happen.
But the one thing that got me the most and had me almost walk out of the theater before the credits even rolled was the narration by Talitha Eliana Bateman’s character. Oh. My. God. I almost lost it. How bad at writing can you be if you end up putting narration at the end of your film? It’s not even needed, and yet this film tags on the most cliche ending with one of the dumbest narration scenes that I’ve seen since War of the Worlds (2005). There is nothing more boring to audience members than reading or narration. Learn from that disaster movies!
In close, this film was horrible. I had no expectations of it being good, and walked out of the theater regretting wasting my time on such a film. The acting was horrible, the story was on another level of garbage, the believability was at a zero, and the visuals were decent in the earlier space scenes, but turned to crap after that. There was nothing good to take away from this film other than adding it to my watchlist and writing a “Very Bad” review for the first time in awhile. It’s films like these that piss me off since they take away money and the spotlight from really good films that don’t have enough money to be produced, or are shadowed by these mind-numbing-cash-grab types of films. In the end I easily gave Geostorm a “Very Bad” on theVade Review Bar. There’s not much else to say about this film other than it’s shit. Horse shit.
