Geostorm

RATING: D-

I don't think hardly anybody goes to watch a disaster movie expecting greatness out of it. Sometimes the very nature of the genre depends upon suspending your disbelief, much like sci-fi (hence why the two have crossed over on occasion). What one does hope for out of such a movie like this are great visual effects, and characters/writing that even if they aren't good, have just enough charm to distract you from the often idiotic plot (sometimes good casting can help with that). You also need good pacing to make this work in any way. 

This particular movie centers around a world where natural disasters got so bad that the nations of the world decided they needed to control the weather--by building satellites out in space that can somehow do that. (And don't even bother asking how any of that's possible.) All seems to be going well--until the system of satellites starts getting sabotaged and freak accidents start occurring on the station and down on Earth. Someone is using the system against them--to basically wreak havoc upon the Earth. 

This disaster movie is unfortunately not even that original in its own genre. It's kind of a cross between The Day After Tomorrow, Armageddon, and a little bit of 2012. The latter was the only I didn't actively dislike. The other two suffered from insanely dumb plots, unlikable characters, and bad writing--but worst of all, bad pacing. There wasn't even that much proper action in either of those movies proportionally. Guess what? This movie suffers from basically all of those flaws. 

I actually don't think my suspension of disbelief has ever been stretched so far in a disaster movie. Controlling the weather with satellites? I have to wonder how the director/writers ever came up with that ludicrous idea. The characters are either annoying or just kind of there. Gerard Butler's character is basically the metaphorical punching bag for most of the movie and it gets old fast. And the script is often comically bad. It's not good when unintentional comedy (even though there's not a lot of it) starts to stray into a disaster movie like this--this isn't supposed to be Sharknado. 

And finally, the pacing. This movie is surprisingly slow, and it makes me glad the run length is a lot shorter at 109 minutes than most of its disaster movie peers. One doesn't watch a movie like this that's marketed the way it is to watch people do some detective work--in space. (This is where the Armageddon comparison comes in.) And yet, we're stuck in places other than the action for probably a good two-thirds of the movie. That especially does not work when your characters are unlikable. 

Is there anything salvageable about Geostorm? Very, very little. The visual effects are good, but not groundbreaking. People could perhaps see the film as a "so bad it's good" film and enjoy it that way. I know I was snickering at the idiocy now and then. Perhaps if the film had fully embraced the nonsense that it was instead of actually trying to be dead serious much of the way through, it might have worked better. But in this case... even "working better" probably is not saying much.