Gerard Butler takes time out from battling terrorists to travel into outer space in hopes of preventing a global weather catastrophe in the second trailer for Warner Bros. and Jerry Bruckheimer's science fiction action movie, Geostorm. The movie marks the directorial debut of Independence Day and Godzilla producer Dean Devlin (though Judge Dredd director Danny Cannon was brought on to direct reshoots).
In Geostorm, global weather is controlled by a network of satellites, making catastrophic weather events a thing of the past. But something goes terribly wrong with the system and Earth is put in danger of being pummeled by every disastrous weather phenomenon you can imagine, from hurricanes to tornadoes to blizzards to tsunamis. Only the system's designer, engineer Gerard Butler, can prevent a bad weather outbreak of apocalyptic proportions.
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The second trailer for Geostorm (the first Geostorm trailer dropped in March) offers a big heaping helping of disaster-porn imagery a la The Day After Tomorrow and 2012 (both films that incidentally were directed by Dean Devlin's Independence Day partner, Roland Emmerich). Tidal waves crash into cities, giant hail stones destroy buses, airplanes freeze in midair and crash into buildings, multi-tornado storms sweep across wooded areas. Just imagine every Syfy disaster movie mashed together into one monstrous super-disaster-movie and that's pretty much what Geostorm looks like.
In a departure for the actor, Gerard Butler actually plays the nerd who must use science instead of punching and shooting skills to help avert disaster. The action role in Geostorm instead goes to Abbie Cornish, who in a parallel plot-line plays a Secret Service agent who for some reason must kidnap the President of the United States (Andy Garcia) and drive him somewhere while buildings are crashing down all around them (a very obvious echo of 2012 and San Andreas). Normally it would be Butler kidnapping/rescuing the president (with terrorists after him), so it's a nice switch to see Butler in outer space doing science things while Abbie Cornish gets to be Gerard Butler.
Few disaster movie tropes appear to have been overlooked by writer/director Dean Devlin on Geostorm. Clearly, Devlin learned this formula well while working with Roland Emmerich on the Independence Day movies and Godzilla. He even gives Gerard Butler a daughter to wait on the ground and worry about him, while he's up in space trying to save the world.
Geostorm may not look like the most original movie in the world, but for fans of old-fashioned disaster flicks and Syfy movies, it looks like pure gold. Considering that the movie lacks big stars outside of Butler, it nevertheless has to be considered somewhat of a risky box office bet. The movie also stars Ed Harris, Jim Sturges, Robert Sheehan, Zazie Beetz and Mare Winningham.
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Source: Warner Bros. Pictures
