What if, in the wake of more than a decade of devastating weather events, we finally found a way to control Mother Nature and the destruction her tirades entail? When catastrophic climate change endangers Earth\u2019s very survival, world governments unite and create Project Dutch Boy: a global net of satellites surrounding the planet that are armed with geo-engineering technologies designed to stave off the natural disasters. After successfully protecting the planet for two years, something is starting to go wrong. Two estranged brothers (Gerard Butler, Jim Sturgess) are tasked with solving the program\u2019s malfunction before a worldwide geostorm can engulf the planet.
The character who comes across most positively is the female Secret Service agent who stays cool under fire and knows when to abandon protocol. And there are women in multiple positions of skill and power, and a young girl who's scientifically adept. But no character is well-developed enough to earn a ringing endorsement.
Rampant large-scale, sci-fi/action destruction, with tons of (bloodless) casualties: An entire Afghan village is frozen to death in an instant (same for a beach in Brazil), Hong Kong essentially experiences a giant sinkhole due to heat, the UAE is hit by a tsunami, etc. Also a fistfight, a shootout, and a car chase. A character gets hit by a car, and viewers see him die. Many explosions.
Parents need to know that Geostorm is an action/disaster movie starring Gerard Butler and Jim Sturgess about a global superstorm that threatens to wipe out the planet. So you can expect tons of large-scale death and destruction (whole cities wiped out abruptly, etc.) -- as well as a fight, a shootout, a car chase, and a character dying after getting hit by a car -- but nothing particularly bloody/graphic. There's also occasional mild language ("s--t," "goddamn," etc.). Younger kids could be scared by images of people instantly freezing to death, but no suffering is conveyed. While the messages and characters are both pretty thin, the movie does portray women in multiple positions of skill and power and a young girl who's scientifically adept. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails.
In the near future of GEOSTORM, a global network of satellites is created to not just slow the effects of climate change but actually control the weather. When the maverick genius who created the system gets fired, accidents start happening -- with lethal results. But as these unexplained events grow in frequency, it turns out that they might not be accidents after all. Can big-brained bad boy outsider Jake (Gerard Butler) and his politically adept brother, Max (Jim Sturgess), solve the mystery before these events combine to create one, unstoppable storm that could kill us all?
The forecast calls for a CGI haze that can't obscure increasing clouds of laughability, resulting in a Category 4 eye-rolling storm. When you buy a ticket for a sci-fi/disaster movie, you know you're signing a suspension-of-disbelief contract. No worries! Sit back, relax, and enjoy the CGI. But Geostorm strains that contract to its breaking point. We start with the notion that in 2019 (so soon!), a global network of satellites will shoot stuff into the air to control the weather. (Apparently, this will be necessary because climate change will kill two million people in one day in a major city.) OK. But within a film's world, people should still have to behave as if there are rules. Here, it seems to come as a total shock to everyone that anyone would think of weaponizing such godlike power ... even though it's in the hands of the country that created the atomic bomb.
Geostorm lives and dies by its visual effects; disaster junkies will get their fix of Hong Kong, Moscow, and other major cities getting destroyed by magic weather powers. But its true inspiration comes from whodunits and '70s paranoia thrillers, as the good guys try to unravel a conspiracy before the manipulated system creates the geostorm that will end us all. Bad boy Butler, who's becoming a bit of a warning sign for ticket buyers, battles/teams up with by-the-rules Sturgess (in a non-administration-approved haircut) to solve the mystery. Helping out are two criminally underused actresses, Alexandra Maria Lara as a space station commander and Abbie Cornish as a powerful Secret Service agent, plus rising star/scene stealer Zazie Beetz as a highly skilled IT tech. Beetz gets the laughs, Cornish provides the action, and the wonderful Lara deserves more screen time. But that's it for the highlights, as Geostorm clearly wasn't thought through too carefully. When things go wrong, instead of sending up 100 scientists to analyze it, the president sends one man (guess who?); the most basic questions of the investigation come as a surprise to all; there are one-passenger shuttle flights (think of the cost, even in coach); clumsy exposition hobbles many scenes; and an attempt at brotherly drama goes nowhere. Even the CGI destruction doesn't satisfy. The only interesting dialogue comes in one scene near the end, when the mystery is solved. The real mystery, though, is whether disaster movies have run their course for now, as we've all become inured to VFX. That's a question for another day, and Geostorm isn't the answer.
Families can talk about Geostorm's violence. What's the appeal of disaster movies? The enormity and frequency of massive-scale destruction can be overwhelming. Is this kind of violence more or less upsetting than gory horror movies? Why?
How are real-world issues like climate change typically handled in movies? Is this film an effective way to examine that particular issue (i.e., does it make you think, does it seem like a realistic extension of that idea)?
After an unprecedented series of natural disasters threatened the planet, the world's leaders came together to create an intricate network of satellites to control the global climate and keep everyone safe. But now, something has gone wrong: the system built to protect Earth is attacking it, and it becomes a race against the clock to uncover the real threat before a worldwide geostorm wipes out everything and everyone along with it.
Grant Miller Darren Rodriguez Amanda Confavreux Paul Riddle Mark Webb Allan Magled Christian Kaestner Colin Strause Mark Franco Kerry Joseph Sebastien Racine Chris Watts Jeffrey A. Okun Johnathan R. Banta Niklas Jacobson William Mesa David Lebensfeld Greta Ruljevaite Michael Zavala Sarah Swick Darren A. Bell Simon Carr Rafa Solrzano Jason Walmsley Robert Duncan Carey Gosa Jeff Atherton Julian Foddy Brian Adler
Catherine Harper Olaf Simon Jrg Klinkenberg Kevin Zimmerman James Gallivan Tom Marks Myron Nettinga Markus Glunz D. Chris Smith Mark Hailstone Martin Lopez Philipp Bitter Charles Maynes Jon Michaels Dan Kenyon Greg ten Bosch Patrick Cyccone Jr. Tim LeBlanc Cameron Frankley Csaba Wagner
The only film you will ever need to see. This film transcends cinema as an entertainment medium. Gerard Butler is Oscar worthy in this deeply political and environmentally conscious masterpiece. All films prior to this holy grail are irrelevant and have no meaning in comparison to this Titan, this god send of cinema
A.V. Club review. Most people are complaining that there's not enough geostorm, but I had almost the opposite reaction: So many cities are destroyed during the countdown that our heroes' efforts to prevent the geostorm seemed kind of pointless. It's already happening, Gerard. Everyone's dead. Just stay in space.
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