Watch of Shame: Geostorm
For years now, I’ve heard the word GEOSTORM yelled constantly on recordings of my beloved “How Did This Get Made?” podcast, often by Jason Mantzoukas. For the longest time, I was content just laughing at that never-ending bit, but when I saw it was leaving HBO Max at the end of this month, I took it as a sign that I needed to finally understand the movie behind the catchphrase. And, well, if I wasn’t already fully aware of why it was a perfect choice for that podcast to cover, I sure as hell am now.
Normally, before I even write a review, I work on my rating, deciding where I land on how good it is and trying my hardest to be creative in the metric I choose. With this movie, I’m keeping my placeholder metric because not even three sleeps have occurred between the viewing of Geostorm and the writing of this piece, and I remember so little of the film that I can’t think of anything to replace it. I’m pretty sure I can recall more of Jupiter Ascending from two months ago than this that I watched two days ago.
I’ve spent the last five or so years truly relishing the absurd and delighting in the disastrous, and with how much of a giant this global destruction film has become in a podcast that celebrates terrible films, I expected more of it. Not that it would be better, of course. Rather, that it would be worse. That it would be memorable. That there would be something worth relaying on this blog. Alas, it was disappointingly forgettable.
My biggest problem with this movie is that I still don’t think I understand how a Geostorm occurs and how someone benefits from it. I feel like the movie believed it answered these questions, but I can’t for the life of me offer anything up. Especially after having just seen Independence Day for the first time earlier this year, the explanation of what actually was happening in this disaster film failed impressively. I saw a bunch of natural disasters, and of course, the catastrophic effects of them were evident, but the motivations and overall causation was never evident. And when I’m saying that Independence Day was a shining example in comparison, that should really tell you more than you’d need to know.
What I do remember about Geostorm appears in small flashes of images. I know Gerard Butler is in it, and he has a daughter who is full of withering stares and guilt trips. He has an ex-wife, but we are given the impression that the “ex” part of that happened during a time jump, but it’s never explored more. I spent the whole movie wondering if Butler’s brother in this movie was Sean William Scott (it was not). I also kept wondering where I knew Abbie Cornish from (nowhere). I came away from this film with way more questions than answers, but one thing I know for sure is that your life is missing nothing by not being able to put this movie on your watched list.