Movie Review:Geostorm

In the wake of the several hurricanes that devastated parts of the Americas and the Caribbean in September 2017, conspiracy theorists flooded the internet with fringe theories that these natural disasters were being deliberately engineered using sonic waves. While this may seem a bit far out, the premise of the recently-released disaster movie, Geostorm, appears to lend credence to these fringe theories.

Disaster movies are pretty much formulaic, and the formula is pretty basic; earth/mankind is faced with the possibility of extinction from a natural disaster on a global scale, whilst our fate dangles precariously at the precipice, our salvation is pretty much in the hands of a scruffy lone ranger with the obligatory attitude and familial problems.

Between the first act setting up the global threat and the final act when mankind is saved, there is the obligatory cornucopia of half-assed plot twists, expensive and over-the-top CGI special effects to justify the movie’s big budget, a montage of terrified people from all corners of the world with the obligatory animal-in-peril insertion, corny and cheesy dialogues and the obligatory heroic speech of a hero sacrificing himself for all of mankind.

It therefore comes as no surprise that Geostorm checks all the boxes in this formula after all; director, Dean Devlin, is one half (the other half being Roland Emmerich) of the duo that pretty much wrote the modern playbook of Hollywood disaster movies.

The year is 2019 and an ill-fitting teenager narrative voice-over informs us that following a series of devastating weather-related natural disasters, a coalition of nations has developed a network of computer systems daubed “Dutch boy” to checkmate natural disasters by pulling the plug on them before they are able to wreak havoc on mankind.

Cue the next scene and Dutch Boy’s chief designer, Jake Lawrence (played by a scruffy-looking Gerald Butler) is predictably appearing before a congressional hearing the outcome of which goes predictably south.

Long story short; Jake gets fired as head of the Dutch Boy Project by (surprise!) his younger brother, Max (played by Jim Sturgess) who is in a hush-hush romantic relationship with Sarah Wilson (played by Abbie Cornish), a female member of the secret service details minding President Andrew Palma (played by Andy Garcia).

Pretty soon, a freak weather incident in Afghanistan and a tragic accident aboard the International Climate Space Station(ICSS), see Jake back on the ICSS after a 3-year absence with no visible change in his physical appearance that is apparent to everyone but the crew on the ICSS.

On a positive note though, it was delightful to know that unlike in last year’s Captain America: Civil War where Nigeria had so fallen in status that it was a recipient of humanitarian aid from a fictional African country, Wakanda, in Geostorm in the year 2022, Nigeria has achieved first world status enough to earn it a spot on the ICSS with a representative, Eni Adisa (played by Hollywood-based Nigerian Actress, Adepero Oduye).

Of course, this begs the question; who the hell did we elect president in 2019? (certainly not the incumbent or his immediate predecessor) and what the hell did he do to fast track us to first world status within his first tenure in office!

Another delightful observation in Geostorm is that during the obligatory montage of disaster zones around the world, we were spared the stereotyped depiction of Africa with sweeping shots of the Serengeti with Masai tribesmen in full traditional gear and lions roaming in the background. This time around, India bore the brunt of it with Tornadoes sucking up a rickshaw whilst laying waste to a ghetto-like terrain.

Forget the incongruence of the possibility that in a timeline in which Nigeria (despite its present morass) has jumped to first world status, India with its present leading ICT capabilities, is still stuck in third world status.

The problem with Geostorm (and trust me; there are many) was that whilst its pre-release trailer promised destruction on a global-scale, it was only able to deliver what could barely pass for a storm in a tea cup. With disaster movies, nobody is really expecting great acting or a cerebral dialogue. The epicenter of interest really is in the expectation that the CGI representation of the disaster will be mind-boggling realistic and fingers-and-toes-curling-and-teeth-jarring good.

But in Geostorm, whilst the CGI representations of Dutch Boy and the ICSS were absolutely impressive, same cannot be said of the other CGI representations especially of the natural disasters. The rising waves of the gulf in Dubai was particularly unimpressive as it looked so unreal. Same can be said of the multiple tornadoes that ravaged India and the ice storm that froze Brazil. The falling dominoes-type destruction of the skyscrapers in Hong Kong and the hailstorm in Japan’s Shibuya crossing whilst mildly impressive (the latter especially more so), did nothing to rescue the movie from being lacklustre and forgettable.

A geostorm as described in the movie is an unstoppable chain reaction of extreme weather patterns globally and simultaneously. That description seems apt in describing Gerald Butler’s post-300 movie career; it has been an unstoppable chain reaction of extreme box-office duds (with the arguable exception of Olympus Has Fallen).4/10