geo storrm review

GEOSTORM (M)

Director: Dean Devlin (feature debut)

Starring: Gerard Butler, Jim Sturgess, Abbie Cornish, Andy Garcia, Ed Harris.

Cloudy, with a chance of meat-heads

In the D-grade disaster movie Geostorm, meteorology has turned malicious.

Depending on your own personal combo of latitude, longitude and luck, it’s just a matter of time before you will be fried or frozen.

Our only hope as a planet rests with the last of the great bare-knuckled weather scientists, played by the Daniel Day-Lewis of dumb action movies, Mr Gerard Butler.

Gezza has had to zoom up to the International Space Station so he can shake his fists and throw some spanners at a malfunctioning ring of weather-controlling satellites that have gone rogue.

The underlying premise of Geostorm would have us believe that these satellites use laser beams - yes, laser beams - to manipulate extreme warm and cold fronts down on Earth.

If there’s about to be a home-wrecking hailstorm in Helsinki, or a helluva heatwave is heading for Hobart, this spectacularly futuristic technology (codenamed Dutch Boy) will zap that naughty weather until it behaves itself.

In your face, climate change!

As rubbish as this undoubtedly sounds, Geostorm might still have stood a chance of working had it gone the Sharknado route, and openly acknowledged its cruddy badness.

But no, Geostorm does not give any sign it is interested in being fun for anyone. Butler and the rest of a grimacing, vein-popping cast play it way too straight in a movie fundamentally telling all conventional logic to go and get bent.

However, the gravest sin committed by Geostorm is one of restraint. It doesn’t let all of its cataclysms out of the bag until way too late.

rating

2 for 5