Director: Dean Devlin, Danny Cannon.
Starring: Gerald Butler, Jim Sturgess, Abbie Cornish, Alexandra Maria Lara, Daniel Wu, Andy Garcia, Ed Harris.
Now I know my fellow filmblogger is gonna sneer at me for saying this, but what is it with Gerald Butler? I haven’t read it somewhere but he must have upset someone in Hollywood or let his potential greatness go to his head. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan! And this is the thing, we all know what he’s capable of, being quite the versatile actor with films like 300, The Ugly Truth and lets not forget Phantom of the Opera as the title role. So why is it that he picks up these often terrible parts that are borderline B-movie status?
Yet, this calibre of film is something I expect from Writer Dean Devlin who’s made this his directorial debut. Coming from the same posse that gave us Day After Tomorrow, 2012 and Independence Day, there’s been some speculation that this could well be a remake of fellow director and friend, Roland Emmerich’s own directorial debut, 1984’s The Noah’s Ark Principle.
Basically, we have enhance the power to control our weather on a global scale by the use of high-tech satellites, but what happens when it goes wrong? Well obviously it’s not just a simple case turning it off and on again and so it falls to the one and only man who designed and created the system to save the planet. In walks Butler. Now things have to get complicated to bolster the story, so throw in a family feud and some political conspiracy and you end up with a Geostorm of a movie.
This means it’s loaded with cliches, corny heroics and over-the-top special effects. And the special effects are just that, nothing more than special effects that no longer seem impressive anymore, nor do they add any believability to the story. However, if I was 12, I might be impressed and probably enjoy it more.
It’s like Armageddon meets 2012 with bits of Day After Tomorrow thrown into the mix. Which now makes sense when reading that Jerry Bruckheimer was brought in towards the end to rescue the picture due to poor test audiences and though Devlin still had much control over what happened, Bruckheimer brought director Danny Cannon to fill in the blanks, and credit to all, as it’s impossible to notice. Or could that reflect badly on the film itself?
Overall, it’s a super cheesy disaster movie that isn’t boring but just silly so if you can put your brain aside and want some mindless entertainment, this could work for you. It didn’t for me.
Running Time: 6
The Cast: 5
Performance: 6
Direction: 6
Story: 4
Script: 4
Creativity: 5
Soundtrack: 4
Job Description: 4
The Extra Bonus Point: 0
44% 4/10
