“Geostorm”

LOUISA:

LOUISA SAYS:

I love a good disaster movie with a creative premise and to that end, “Geostorm” isn’t as god awful as you’d think. This ridiculous sci-fi action adventure also serves as a cautionary parable about global warming. It’s like “Sharknado” if it had been directed by Al Gore.

The not quite movie star / not quite legit action hero Gerard Butler, grossly miscast as an engineer and astronaut, is called on by the government to blast off into outer space to avert a worldwide catastrophe due to a malfunction of Earth’s climate control satellites. It’s bloated, over the top, and insanely silly, but it’s also quite a bit of fun if you simply suspend disbelief and enjoy the ride.

The visual effects are less than impressive, the paper thin characters barely live up their one dimensional existence, and the overall spectacle just isn’t there. What is here is an often funny and always exciting action movie about the weaponization of the weather.

It’s formulaic but when it comes to disaster movies, that’s not really a bad thing. There’s the misdirection as to which character is the real bad guy (if you’ve seen even one dumb blockbuster like this, you’ll recognize the evildoer the moment he shows up on screen), there are plenty of scenes of destruction (including tornadoes made of fire and killer hail), and cheap edge-of-your-seat moments for animal lovers (will that little boy be able to save his dog?). The film rapidly piles on more goofy absurdity (nevermind why the villain has a handgun on the space station), but its several near-endings, even with minimal character development, are surprisingly touching.

Even if the special effects are mostly lame, the ideas behind them are creative. When is the last time you saw people frozen in their tracks when a super cold tsunami hits? Unfortunately, there’s less emphasis on the spectacle and more focus on the dumbed-down dialogue and lazy exposition. It’s unintentionally hilarious at times, mostly when the golden-voiced space station computer begins to remind everyone how many minutes are left until self destruction — and an impending geostorm!

Movies like this are what you make of them, so lighten up and have a little fun.