Natural-disaster movies have always occupied a peculiar, drafty wing of my heart. You know the one reserved for spectacles that are loud, nonsensical, and blissfully unconcerned with the laws of physics or good judgment. These are films where cities collapse like poorly stacked Jenga towers, where the causes range from alien invasions to radioactive reptiles, and where human survival depends almost exclusively on one grizzled man who looks great in a windbreaker. Geostorm belongs proudly, even smugly, to this tradition.
The pleasure of such movies is not subtle. They are over-the-top to the point of self-parody, governed by a narrative logic that suggests every problem can be solved with a stirring speech, a well-timed explosion, or both. There are always millions of casualties, conveniently abstracted, alongside heroic sacrifices, groan-worthy one-liners, and enough wild plot detours to induce a mild concussion. The key, as a viewer, is not to resist this but to surrender completely. Check your understanding of science, realism, and basic human behavior at the door, and you may yet have a wonderful time.
Geostorm makes no apologies for what it is. It is steered by Dean Devlin, a longtime architect of cinematic destruction, whose résumé includes Independence Day, the 1998 Godzilla, and Eight Legged Freaks. You know, films that treat infrastructure as optional and chaos as a love language. This marks Devlin’s directorial debut, and he approaches it with admirable enthusiasm, if not discernment.
The premise is cheerfully deranged. In the near future, the world’s governments set aside their differences to build a global satellite system that prevents catastrophic weather by firing missiles into storms. My fifteen-year-old self is squealing with glee. Gerard Butler plays the brilliant but apparently intolerable scientist behind the project, who is promptly fired for reasons that seem less professional than cosmic. His younger brother, played by Jim Sturgess, takes over, and for a few peaceful years, the planet enjoys an era of meteorological harmony.
Then, naturally, all hell freezes over. Literally. Cities are pummeled by hail the size of compact cars. Fire tornadoes roam freely. A desert flash-freezes its inhabitants into human Popsicles. Someone, it turns out, has sabotaged the satellites with a virus, because this is a movie and subtlety was never invited. The only man who can fix it is Butler, who must travel to space, uncover a conspiracy, and, at one point, kidnap the President of the United States, played with grave sincerity by Andy Garcia. Ed Harris appears as well, because Ed Harris is contractually obligated to show up whenever authority figures behave badly.
None of this makes a lick of sense, and Geostorm never pretends otherwise. The characters are thin, the action is strangely weightless, and the visual effects feel like reheated leftovers from better, louder blockbusters. You’ve seen all of this before, probably in a Marvel movie, and possibly while half-asleep on a plane. And yet, there is something almost admirable about the film’s commitment to excess. It is disaster cinema with a straight face and a loose grip on reality.
You wouldn’t call Geostorm good, exactly. But if your tastes run toward the gloriously ridiculous, and if you’ve ever found yourself defending Sharknado at a dinner party, then this might be your kind of weather. Sometimes it’s comforting to watch the world end in spectacular fashion, especially when you know it will all be fixed by the end credits, preferably by a man yelling into a headset while the planet explodes behind him.
WRITTEN BY: BRYAN KLUGER
BRYAN KLUGER, A SEASONED VOICE IN THE REALM OF ENTERTAINMENT CRITICISM, HAS CONTRIBUTED TO A WIDE ARRAY OF PUBLICATIONS INCLUDING ARTS+CULTURE MAGAZINE, HIGH DEF DIGEST, BOOMSTICK COMICS, AND HOUSING WIRE MAGAZINE, AMONG OTHERS.
HIS INSIGHTS ARE ALSO CAPTURED THROUGH HIS PODCASTS; MY BLOODY PODCAST AND FEAR AND LOATHING IN CINEMA PODCAST; WHICH LISTENERS CAN ENJOY ACROSS A VARIETY OF PLATFORMS.
IN ADDITION TO HIS WRITTEN WORK, KLUGER BRINGS HIS EXPERTISE TO THE AIRWAVES, HOSTING TWO LIVE RADIO SHOWS EACH WEEK: SOUNDTRAXXX RADIO ON WEDNESDAYS AND THE ENTERTAINMENT ANSWER ON SUNDAYS. HIS MULTIFACETED APPROACH TO MEDIA AND CULTURE OFFERS A UNIQUE, IMMERSIVE PERSPECTIVE FOR THOSE WHO SEEK BOTH DEPTH AND ENTERTAINMENT.
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