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Issue: Spring 2017
Geostorm (2017) movie review
Wipe Out
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Some things were never meant to be controlled
World governments unite and create a global net of satellites surrounding the planet, armed with geo-engineering technologies designed to stave off the natural disasters. And then something goes wrong.
Once upon a time a writer heard or saw a word and thought, cool word, and made up what he thought it might mean from his probably not-vast scientific knowledge and what he wanted to write about. PLEASE DON'T DO THIS. It hurts scientists and does no-one any good. Or am I wrong? Or am I making this up?
In the Devlin-Guyot universe, a geostorm is a whole lot of storms becoming one big storm that starts creating more storms, or something.
Jim Sturgess and Gerard Butler, brothers B and A in Geostorm (c) 2017 Warner Bros All Rights Reserved
Throwing the science aside (see link below for a review by an actual meteorologist), we have a maverick scientist brother and a straight-laced administration brother who go from strained to estranged in the film setup. The maverick headed the building of the network that supposedly now controlled the weather and saved the Earth from 'Extreme Weather' all from the International Space Station, which brother A (Gerard Butler) knew down to every person and to the most minor detail and vibration.
No-one knows what's under the hood better than you.
Orbiting International Space Station and weather controlling network (c) 2017 Warner Bros All Rights Reserved
Brother B (Jim Sturgess) works for the government, specifically a suit played by the great Ed Harris. B fires A (the names don't matter) and three years later has to hire him back when bad stuff happens..
Hasn't the weather been strange lately? (The Last Wave)
Destruction in Hong Kong (c) 2017 Warner Bros All Rights Reserved
All right, ice, wind, fire, rain, hail, bloody great waves chasing people and a whole string of people dying just as they work out what's going on.
Is that a spoiler? Or am I just describing the trailer (below)?
There's an ex-wife, a bright daughter, a sexy blonde secret service agent who has the best bit in the film being:
... we're the (shoosh) secret service.
Jim Sturgess and Abbie Cornish in Geostorm (2017) (c) 2017 Warner Bros All Rights Reserved
Other than that it's all about who are the bad guys, who do they work for, what the hell is the head of security doing carrying a gun around on a space station, and, was the bulkhead labelled L5 an in-joke?
(President) Andy Garcia and (Secretary of State) Ed Harris in Geostorm (2017) (c) 2017 Warner Bros; festivale movie review
And, film-makers, I have to ask - are you serious? A self-destruct? I call BS. Can we PLEASE stop using this silliness? I don't remember the name of the television show where someone asked for the self-destruct and the reply was what kind of people install a self-destruct (on their only means of survival)?
Aren't you a bit curious to watch the world burn?
Do ya wanna? Because GEOSTORM is basically a string of bigger and bigger special effects chasing people, with very familiar formulaic characters in very, very familiar relationships, doing exactly what we expect that they will do from the setups in the first twenty minutes.
If you want to see a demonstration of the classic Hollywood script structure, demonstrated by experts in the form, this could be worth it. Otherwise you need to turn your brain off very, very hard before watching this unimaginative example of the classic disaster movie.
Final Word -- From An Expert
"How can a storm be so massive that it covers the entire planet? Also, how can it just form in a few hours? Hurricanes only get to be the size that they are because they spin and churn over the warm ocean for almost two weeks before slamming into land, but I'm supposed to believe a storm could envelop the entire world in a matter of hours? The concept of a geostorm is impossible even from a physical perspective. Eventually, storms just get too big to sustain themselves or they would begin to interfere with each other's growth and stability." - Anthony Marzano (educated in, and working in, the field of meteorology at time of writing)
**SPOILER ALERT** before you click through A meteorologist reviews Geostorm (Destructoid.com 2017)
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October 2017
Ali Kayn is a freelance photojournalist and the founding editor of Festivale Online Magazine. Festivale was founded in October, 1996 to promote Melbourne and Victoria, provide mentorship to developing writers, an outlet for talented fans, and a test bed for software and hardware under review. She lives in Melbourne, Victoria with a garden full of birds.
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Due for Australian release 19 Oct, 2017 (2017-10-19) |
Just the facts:Title: Geostorm (2017) The Players: Ed Harris, Gerard Butler, Mare Winningham, Andy Garcia, Jim Sturgess, Daniel Wu, Official website: https://www.warnerbros.com/movies/geostorm IMDb entry For scheduled release dates, see the coming attractions section. For more information about this movie, check out the internet movie database. |
Published in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 
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