Warner Bros. Pictures
Dean Devlin is a man who loves disasters and his work with Roland Emmerich has created some of the most clichéd disaster movies of all time such as the 1998 Godzilla and both Independence Day movies. Dean Devlin has also remained a producer throughout his career, but he has finally stepped into the director’s chair to craft his own disaster movie, Geostorm.
When catastrophic climate change endangers Earth’s very survival, world governments unite and create the Dutch Boy program: a worldwide net of satellites, surrounding the planet, that are armed with geoengineering technologies designed to stave off natural disasters. After successfully protecting the planet for two years, Dutch Boy begins to malfunction and leads to several unpredicted natural disasters. Two estranged brothers are tasked with solving the program’s malfunction before a worldwide Geostorm can engulf the planet.
The characters in the film, played by Gerard Butler and Jim Sturgess, didn’t feel very natural and lacked serious chemistry. Gerard Butler is supposedly the smartest man in the world and created Dutch Boy all by himself while Jim Sturgess plays his younger government affiliated brother. As much as I admire both actors, Butler and Sturgess didn’t sell their roles and were not very believable. The rest of the acting from Ed Harris and Abbie Cornish was very stiff and no one seemed very interested in appearing in this movie.
Devlin wastes no time in showing that he is borrowing techniques from his pal Emmerich. A lot of Roland Emmerich’s movies offer a large cast with many different revolving storylines for each of them. The cluster of characters always makes Emmerich’s films unbearable to watch at times. Devlin introduces plenty of characters which ensures that none of them has a compelling storyline. Geostorm has a large cast that includes Butler, Sturgess, Harris, Cornish, Andy Garcia, and Eugenio Derbez. With such a large cast of characters, I didn’t feel connected to any of them and not one of the characters has significant character development that would make them memorable.
For a film being advertised as a disaster movie, I found there to be a surprising lack of natural disaster scenes in the film. The story focused on a government point of view that honestly made the natural disasters in the film feel less intimidating than they should. By focusing on the government and the malfunction of Dutch Boy, the storms, waves, and earthquakes lose all their effects. I love the idea of this network keeping the disasters at bay and I would have loved to see more disasters and the consequences of messing with mother nature. This movie would have easily been a thrill ride if it was a survival movie instead of a political thriller. I had no interest in who was controlling the disasters and the government conspiracy that piloted this plot.
For a film that had so many issues in its storyline and characters, I was truly impressed by the look of the film. The few disaster scenes that were in Geostorm looked stunning and were fun to watch. The film had an amusing ending that had plenty of high energy scenes wrapped in one, which should have been paced more throughout the movie. Dean Devlin was obviously inspired by Roland Emmerich in his visual effects.
Geostorm was a disappointment of a film that showcased an intriguing device that could easily play a part in our future. By focusing on the government aspect of the film, it didn’t allow for the disasters to play an important part in the movie. The visuals were outstanding but that wasn’t enough to hold this movie together.
Geostorm runs 1 hour 49 minutes and is rated PG-13 for destruction, action and violence.
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