Fresh on Blu-ray: ‘GEOSTORM’, the “disaster-piece” nobody wanted

James Cole Clay // Film Critic 

GEOSTORM

Rated PG-13, 109 min
Director: Dean Devlin
Cast: Gerard Butler, Jim Sturgess, Abbie Cornish, Ed Harris, Andy Garcia
Available today on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital HD.

GEOSTORM looked like it was a movie built to be a 2-hour schlock-machine complete with overacting, absurd set-pieces and hyperbolic implications. These are the movies that got us in the theater 20 years ago, like your ARMAGEDDON, DEEP IMPACT and even THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW. But wow, Dean Devlin – who is the long-standing producer for the disaster film artist himself, Roland Emmerich (INDEPENDENCE DAY, 2012), – fashions a film that’s as disastrous as the global storm that challenges its central characters.

GEOSTORM is a film built for the 2010’s, with the rise of global warming and a divisive commander in chief, we were primed for a cheese fest. Instead of balancing his spectacle story with something of real substance, Devlin decided he wanted to completely waste his insane premise on a film about procedure and hacked satellites.

GEOSTORM attempts to be a film about two brothers Jake (Gerrard Butler) and Max Lawson (Jim Sturgess), who created a network of global satellites known a “Dutch-Boy” to combat climate change. Without fail, somebody comes along hacks the system in a lackluster effort to cause world-wide destruction. And, to be honest, the plot doesn’t matter in the least, as it takes any liberty it can just so the narrative can find an easy out.

This is a film that general audiences live for, but truly the film is a derivative version of already mediocre films. This low-rent disaster film doesn’t even have the campy charm that could and should make a movie called GEOSTORM have some form of value.

GEOSTORM takes itself too seriously, in the age of the internet when everything is ironic and cynical audiences just won’t buy the shoddy effects work at play. Devlin took the blueprint set by Emmerich and translated it into a bloated 2017 “disasterpeace” that disappoints on every level.

Devlin makes at least a concerted effort at building up a list of “characters,” and I say that loosely, through famous faces of Ed Harris, Andy Garcia and Abbie Cornish (THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI) to distract from the abysmal visuals that are laying waste to the audiences eyeballs. Suffice to say, the screenwriting lays waste to any credibility its actors may have within the frames of this disaster.

If Devlin can learn anything from this snafu, it’s to lay off the heavy and lean on the silly.

Grade: D

Special Features:

• Search For Answers: Director Dean Devlin retraces the journey that led to the creation of GEOSTORM
• An International Event: Cast and crew open up about GEOSTORM’S cinematic global collaboration.
• Wreaking Havoc: Creating the chaos of ecological destruction using technology and cutting edge visual effects.