‘Geostorm’ (2017)

In a year of some woefully bad movies such as nuclear bomb bad ‘Mother!’ and the problematic Kingsmen’ sequel, I didn’t think it was possible for an ostensibly campy ‘end-of-the-world’ film to miss the lowest of possible bars of film entertainment, and join their ranks. I admit I am a sucker for big budget spectacle Hollywood disaster movies, I really enjoyed ‘2012’, ‘Independence Day’, ‘Deep Impact’ and ‘The Day, After Tomorrow’. For a film called ‘Geostorm’ to hit its low bar all it needed to do was to a) show us amazing, destruction scene spectacle special effects b) be campy fun that doesn’t take it self too seriously. That’s it. Acting, plot, character development and message all get a free pass, just be awesome and fun. Incredibly ‘Geostorm’ fails on both counts. The destruction scene special effects extravaganza payoff you spend most of the film eagerly waiting for, and what the trailer teased us with, comes in patchy fleeting moments that are not nearly epic enough and not long enough. Some effects are amazing but there are moments of people running that looked like the low resolution of Sim characters running from a ice tsunami. Why a stadium would blow up from a lightning strike also seems bumb and not implausible enough. And even in these crumbs of kick ass destruction ‘vignettes’ the film takes it self too seriously even to be campy. You know it’s bad when a scene where Copacabana beach in Rio is turned into ice isn’t even fun! Just as the Star Wars prequels failed and god awful ‘Independence Day: Resurgence’ failed, because they did not understand what made them attractive in the first place. ‘2012’, in many ways a campy silly movie was both awesome and fun, it understood what this kind of film is about, epic spectacles of destruction. You also know a film is bad when you are being reminded fondly of ‘Armageddon’ while watching the poor man’s version. As the years pass this film will wither into obscurity, the momentary scenes of special effects destruction will be assorted into a YouTube clip of ‘movie destruction scenes’ rated as middling among better movies. 2/10