Geostorm - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Geostorm

Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score: ​

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Movie
Disaster movies are the low brow mega hits cinematic world. Michael Bay’s Armageddon, Independence Day, Independence Day 2, San Andreas, Deep Impact, The Day After Tomorrow, yadda yadda yadda. They’re all cinematic junk food that play to the lowest common denominator, but they’re usually big blockbuster hits that pull in the coin (especially Roland Emmerich’s films). I will guiltily admit that I really love films like Armageddon and even San Andreas. They’re not intelligent, but I love to watch things blow up, while cities collapse, and the fate of the world hang on ONE person’s shoulders (or at most a small group). It is what it is. Geostorm is an odd bird, though. It was a train wreck behind the scenes, with the film having massive reshoots before release, combined with it sitting on the shelf in Warner’s office for over a year as the suits decided WHEN would be appropriate to drop it in cinemas. Well, after much deliberation, they decided to release the film on October 20th of 2017, only for it to get hammered at the box office by a Tyler Perry movie! Domestically the film tanked only earning $33,000,000 on a $120,000,000 budget, but the overseas shows helped keep it from tanking by raking in $180,000,000 to supplement the film’s lackluster domestic earnings. Unfortunately, the domestic snubbing has some merit, as the film is an incoherent mess, complete with a script that labors under the weight of 2 dimensional characters and horrific dialog (despite some impressive scenes of destruction).

Geostorm was directed and penned by Dean Devlin, who makes his feature film debut with the movie. Now, Devlin is not some stranger to the world of disaster movies, as he wrote Independence Day, Stargate, Godzilla 1998, Independence Day Resurgence (and wrote the scripts for several of the Universal Soldier films as well), so I was a little surprised to see how poorly the script was written. The man isn’t a stranger to writing these types of films, and while none of the above mentioned movies are mind blowing works of cinematic art, they have a good structure to them and work as a cohesive whole. I’m not sure whether it was due to the reshoots, or if Devlin had something else going on, but it is as if he threw all of his previous experience out the window and was satisfied with creating cookie cutter characters with no personality, and used the most excruciating dialog imaginable.

The film rips heavily off of Deep Impact and The Day After Tomorrow, setting up the classic cliché of an upcoming weather anomaly. This time it’s set a little bit in the future, as the world gets torn asunder by giant weather shifts that turn Earth into a near extinct planet. However, one brilliant man, and a mass cooperation between 17 countries allow the creation of the Dutch Boy (named after the little dutch boy who plugged the Dike with his thumb), a weather machine is a giant network of satellites orbiting the earth. Each satellites controls one portion of the weather down to precision timing, so that every time one of these epic storms happens, it controls and squelches it to normal specifications (gotta love pseudoscience!). However, once it’s built the U.S. maintains control of the multi country space station that acts as the command center, and fires the creator, Jake Lawson (Gerard Butler) for being difficult.

Instead of being snapped up by some huge tech firm, Lawson’s genius turns to rubble as he just sits around drinking beer all day. Naturally his wife leaves him high and dry (including his dog according to Lawson himself), leaving him with nothing but a double wide trailer and his dreams. Well, it’s been three years and something is going wrong with the space station. The machine is acting up and CAUSING weather anomalies instead of minimizing them. Jake’s younger brother Max (Jim Sturgess), who actually was the talking suit who fired him at the beginning of the film, has to come and beg Jake to return to the Dutch Boy and figure out what’s wrong. In true Hollywood fashion, the Dutch Boy isn’t EXACTLY acting up by accident. Max and Jake both discover that there is a mass conspiracy going on to sabotage the machine, and it’s up to Jake, Max and Max’s secret service girlfriend Sarah (I’ll bet you that secrete service clearance is going to come in handy sometime during the film) have to race against time to stop whatever is going on before the meltdown of the machine causes a giant MEGA storm (called a Geostorm) and wipes out 90% of the planet.

Geostorm is a silly film (like most disaster movies), but it makes the cardinal sin of being an enjoyable one at that. I’m used to fake science, implausible situations, and plenty of goofy dialog, but none of it seems to mesh here. We have a decently all star cast, but most everyone just labors under the weight of the abysmal script. Every one liner that was mean to be cute and funny came out as a blurted out embarrassment for the actors (Andy Garcia almost looks pained as he delivers his dialog), and the only one who is giving any effort in the film is Jim Sturgess. Sturgess really does try to hold the film together as best he can, but the actor can only do SOO much on his own. Ed Harris and Andy Garcia spout out a few lines with a bored expression, and even Gerard Butler looks like he’s just phoning it in, completely in on the knowledge that this movie isn’t even worth HIS time.

There’s some fun parts to the film, mainly having to do with super destructive storms, but Devlin seems to want to make this a giant conspiracy film as well, which takes away from the mindless action that could have semi-saved his script. It’s these moments of seriousness that pulls you out of the experience makes you realize just how bad it is. When the world is falling down around the characters, the audience is much more capable of suspending disbelief and just enjoy the chaos that is happening on screen.




Rating:

Rated PG-13 for destruction, action and violence




Video:

Shot on Red Epic cameras, Geostorm is the epitome of a modern digital movie with a solid budget behind it. Everything is sleek and glossy, with a nice amount of fine detail to go around. You can see Gerard Butler’s scruffy looking beard down to the individual hairs, and the city backdrops are immaculate. Being that much of the movie’s $120,000,000 budget was used for re-shoots, the CGI can be a bit spotty, but overall looks quite pleasing. The film is graded very mildly, with a light teal hue that leans more towards the natural end of the spectrum more than anything. Blacks are deep and inky, and skin tones look more than appropriate, even in the dark scenes. I did notice some crush here and there, but nothing too egregious.






Audio:

Given the 5.1 DTS-HD MA treatment, Geostorm comes with a very aggressive track that just uses the ferocity of the storms and transmits that to audio. Lightning crackles, city streets collapse in a roar of heavy bass, and the surrounds are always active with the whipping wind and smashing of hail into pedestrians. Dialog is always well placed up in the front of the room, and the film’s aggressive nature never overpowers the vocals. It’s a well balanced track, but one thing I did notice is that the there isn’t a whole lot of nuance to it. It’s heavy and powerful, but if you listen closely it’s sometimes a bit hard to pick out individual noises among the chaos. It’s not a huge gripe, but it does keep it from a perfect 5/5 score.






Extras:

• "Wreaking Havoc: Cutting edge visual effects, research and technology create the world of Geostorm.
• Search for Answers: Inspired by his daughter's question of why can't global warming be stopped, Director Dean Devlin retraces the creative journey that led to Geostorm.
• An International Event: A global cast opens up about the secrets behind Geostorm.

Final Score: ​

Geostorm is your typical disaster movie, but with the added weight of a troubled production past, and a first time director who seems to have forgotten much of what he learned in the past. I really had zero expectations going into the film except to see the world burn (literally in some parts), but it just ended up being what I would consider a waste of time. Warner did a great job with the Blu-ray technical specifications, but the extras are pretty meager. Personally I would just skip it unless you REALLY love the disaster movie genre and need your fix.






Technical Specifications:

Starring: Jim Sturgess, Gerard Butler, Andy Garcia, Abbie Cornish
Directed by: Dean Devlin
Written by: Dean Devlin, Paul Guyo
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, French (both Parisian and Quebec), Portuguese, Spanish DD 5.1
Studio: Warner Brothers
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 109 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: Own Geostorm on Blu-ray combo pack and DVD on January 23 or Own It Early on Digital on January 16!

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• Michael Scott
• May 11, 2017

Recommendation: Skip It

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. Will skip it.

 

[Asere]

As I was clicking on Geostorm I was squinting and slowly opened my eyes because I was afraid you'd give it a 2 or less rating. I say this because I have heard nothing good about this movie and I figured your review would be spot on. I will wait for it on Netflix and only to test some of the audio. Thanks for reviewing!

 

[Michael Scott]

lol, yeah it hasn't gotten a lot of love for good reason

 

[Asere]

I forgot to mention that based on the trailer it literally looks like a disaster. There seems to be WAY to much special effects that are over the top I think but will know more when I see it eventually. I don't know if you've seen the movie 2012 but I didn't like it much because of that.

 

[Michael Scott]

yeah, 2012 was another wince worthy one. Though I KINDA like it lol (don't judge)