Even With the Low Expectations for It, 'Geostorm' Disappoints

Geostorm is a sci-fi disaster film set in the very near future in which – due to rising temperatures, change in ocean pattern, and melted ice caps – the planet is struck by a series of severe hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, heat waves, and droughts, resulting to countless casualties and devastated cities.  As a response to this, the UN assembled and commissioned the brightest scientists from 17 countries to build “Dutch Boy”, a complex, extensive network of satellites that can control the weather all around the world.  When it finally goes online, it has been able to neutralize weather-related natural disasters successfully.

With the US about to hand over control of “Dutch Boy” to an international oversight community, the satellites suddenly start malfunctioning, causing unlikely, extreme calamities across the planet.  And everything is seemingly escalating towards a cataclysm on a global scale called “Geostorm.”  Now it’s up to Jake Lawson (Gerald Butler), the chief builder and former commander of “Dutch Boy”, and his younger brother Max (Jim Sturgess), a US government bureaucrat, to figure out what’s really going on with the satellites, uncover a nefarious conspiracy, and save the world.

I wasn’t expecting Geostorm to be great.  I knew it was going to be probably stupid and problematic.  Disaster movies like this tend to be littered with ridiculous pseudo-science, implausible scenarios, and nonsensical plot points.  Nevertheless, they can still entertain with its action and visuals.

So I didn’t watch Geostorm for the story to begin with – though a decent plot would have been a welcomed surprise.  I was only in for the spectacles.  But, oh boy, it disappoints even with that.

Almost all, if not all, of its “money scenes” are shown in the trailers already.  And seeing the same things over again – and briefly for that matter – is insufficient to make any lasting impression.  In addition, the effects and execution for these are unexciting and lacked originality.

Finally, the dull script could have been improved if it has the self-awareness to at least have some goofiness to redeem itself.  But it doesn’t have that.   So without an impressive visual aspect and a sense of fun, the unremarkable-and-bumpy-as-expected narrative and clichéd characters doom the film into mediocrity.