There’s always been something rather perverse about the
natural disaster sub-genre. Starting and subsequently nose-diving during the
70’s, disaster films have always presented themselves as a showing of
solidarity between people of different backgrounds working together to avert
the titular disaster. However, in recent years with the continuing threat of
climate change, it has kept that same mentality but added the spectacle nature
of visual effects into the mix. Rather than watching people unite to show the
world working as one for a change, it turned into taking joy out of seeing the
world get crushed by the forces of nature. I know that some men literally just
want to watch the world burn, but given how the writing quality of these films
have spiralled out into thin but plentiful casts who exist solely to witness
the hand of God flatten the Earth, these films aren’t being made with actual humanity
in them these days. I’d be far more disheartened by this if it wasn’t for the
one shining positive that a lot of these films share, but all in good time. For
right now, let’s look at the latest attempt to pull off global carnage in the
cinema.
The plot: In the near-future, a series of
weather-controlling satellites have given humanity the ability to avert natural
disasters. However, when the system begins to malfunction, signs of targeted
extreme weather start appearing. Satellite designer Jake (Gerard Butler) has
been recruited by his brother Max (Jim Sturgess) to go up to the International Space
Station and find the cause of the malfunction, but soon finds evidence of
intentional sabotage. He has to stop the satellites before they bring Earth
into a world-destroying geostorm.
Butler is essentially playing the Bizarro version of his
character from London Has Fallen, trading xenophobic paranoia for populist
scepticism of the government. While it is nice seeing him play an actual good
guy for a change, and his scenes with Talitha Bateman as his daughter are
sweet, he still has that massive chip on his shoulder and uber-cockiness that pull him down somewhat. Credit to him,
though, in that he makes these character traits watchable if not always
endearing. Sturgess, even in spite of the thin jaded-younger-brother character
he’s been given, is very engaging and he brings a lot of energy to the film’s
less-than-fluid moments. Abbie Cornish as a secret service agent and Max’s
girlfriend Sarah, while handling the role well, is still saddled with a female
character whose arc ends with getting engaged to one of the leads; I can’t be
the only one getting tired of seeing this.
Ed Harris gives a solid performance
as the Secretary of State, same with Andy García as “the goddamn President of
the United States of America”, in his own words, who manages to deliver even that hilariously hammy line with just
the right punch to make it stick. Alexandra Maria Lara as the commander of the
ISS is even more female-character-as-accessory as Cornish, although thankfully
not forced into being a love interest, Robert Sheehan of Misfits fame is kind
of fun in his few scenes, Daniel Wu is pretty much Deep Wang dialled down to
monotone levels, and Eugenio Derbez as a Mexican crew member needs a pay
increase because he needs compensation for the rather stupid exchange he’s
forced to take part in when Jake boards the station.
Since disaster films tend to die or die slightly slower by
their visuals, let’s get into that first. First-time director Dean Devlin did a
lot of work with Roland Emmerich back in the 90’s, as well as on last year’s
tremendous blunder Independence Day: Resurgence, and his experience in this
field of bombastic world-ending carries through here. With the main plot
concerning man controlling the weather (which reaches weird meta levels once it
hits that Devlin and co. are essentially doing just that here), it offers
plenty of opportunities for different types of disasters to be shown, something
that is taken advantage of. Tsunamis, heatwaves, earthquakes, dropping
temperatures that the characters are able to outrun for some reason; the bar’s
stacked up with all your favourites.
I may have joked about the act of watching
people die in the introduction, but honestly, the visuals here are pretty damn
good. It has the usual clearly-made-by-computers feel to it, but the size and
scale of the disasters themselves make for good visual spectacle. Not to
mention the shots aboard and surrounding the space station, which look
genuinely impressive with the amount of detail put into the effects work. It
also has at least some restrain in
terms of what we see, so the barrage of carnage doesn’t become monotonous too
quickly and the use of explosives isn’t near-constant like we’re so used to
seeing; as much as Michael Bay probably approves of this kind of production, he
would do well to take some lessons from it while he’s at it.
I don’t know when exactly it happened, but somewhere along
the way, globalism as a political practice became the enemy. Rather than using
other countries’ proximity and resources as a good thing (which is debatable, admittedly, but hear me out),
suddenly it became about looking out for one’s own nation and being more likely
to bomb other nations than lend aid. It’s cynicism on a literally global scale,
and considering globalism’s roots in Western colonialism as far as nations
affecting each other, it feels like another baby-and-bath-water situation that
the right just love to parade out to
make the other side seem worse than they are.
If this sounds like I’m being
preachy, then be warned if you plan on going to see this movie yourself because
it is even more glaring. Initially setting up a situation where the Democratic
president could be behind the malfunctions, it eventually spins out into a
story about how the satellites are a force for good… in the right hands, not
when in those that only appeal to nationalism. Considering climate science is
inexorably linked to the left nowadays, and Jake’s introductory scene of him
chewing out the government over taking him out of his own project, this could
easily be read as either a sincere left-leaning appeal for globalism, or a cynical right-leaning farce meant to poke fun
at that very ideal. Then again, I don’t even know why I’m entertaining this
film as an attempt at serious political commentary; it’s way too goofy to be taken
seriously as anything.
Along with aping Emmerich’s approach to visuals, Devlin
seems to have done the same in terms of writing because this shares a lot of
the immediately-hilarious traits of Emmerich’s more widely-remembered flicks. Cast
of thinly-written characters in a vain attempt to connect with the audience
through sheer force of numbers? Check. Overblown visuals that turn destruction
into farce? Check. Dubious understanding of science? All the checks. Then
there’s all the kitsch, from the aforementioned one-liner from the President to
Jake sending an extremely convoluted coded message to his brother, right down
to pretty much anything involving Sarah and Max’s supposedly-forbidden
relationship.
It’s more than a little ridiculous, even considering the main
conceit of the film… and I have zero issue with that. If this was actively
insulting the audience’s intelligence, which it doesn’t take itself seriously
enough to do, that’d be one thing. But because this film is so shameless in its
own quirks, it flips back around from just being classically bad into something
that’s worth watching with some mates, some beers and possibly some ‘medicine’
to have some good chuckles about. As stupid as it is, I’m still laughing at
García declaring that he’s the goddamn president and I likely will keep doing
so for the rest of the day.
All in all, this is a film that is worth watching for all
the wrong reasons. While the performances manage to outperform the rather weak
writing and the special effects are quite good, the writing combined with the
usual Emmerich-style bombast makes this near-impossible to take seriously. This
would be a problem if all those issues didn’t manage to coalesce into a film
that is undeniably bad but to the point of being entertaining in spite of
itself. It’s not as plentiful in unintentional yucks as The Mummy, but it’s
damn close and honestly worth seeing in the cinemas while you can. If not, a
nice riffing party at home will do nicely.
Come to think of it, this film is actually weirdly topical:
Plenty of natural disasters have occurred over the past year, a lot of them
concentrated on the Americas… maybe the government is controlling the weather. The deep left state is trying to force
Trump out of the picture and reinstate the globalist world order! Clinton’s
emails told us everything! THE WORLD MUST KNOW!
Oh, come on, guys! You’re not even trying anymore!
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