'Geostorm' Reviews Quotes Make This Disaster Movie Sound Like A Must-See

Geostorm has had a rough road to the big screen. The Dean Devlin-directed disaster movie was shot back in 2014 but after some reportedly awful test screenings, the film underwent massive and expensive reshoots and was delayed all the way until today, when it finally stumbled into theaters without press screenings or even Thursday night showings in most markets.

Sounds bad, right? Well, the reviews have arrived, and while the movie's 18% Rotten Tomatoes score might seem dire, some of the reviews are having the opposite effect intended: they're painting the film as being so bad that it might actually be worth seeing if you're amped for a "so bad it's good" experience. Take a look at some Geostorm review quotes below, and decide for yourselves whether you're ready to face down the storm(s).

Geostorm isn't the type of film we'd normally do a review round-up for, but some of these quotes were too good not to share. And if you're worried about spoilers for this film, maybe you should turn back now. Still with me? On with the show.

The best of the reactions come from ScreenCrush's Matt Singer, who notably recommends that you do not watch this movie:

Geostorm is so punishingly bad it makes Independence Day: Resurgence look like Last Year at Marienbad. ...

It's not all bad, though. Or at least there are some parts that are so bad they're kind of good. I love that Devlin has the audacity (or total indifference) to create three separate sequences where people run from weather, including one where a woman in a bikini stumbles down a blind alley go get away from a wall of cold. Will she run out of room before it gets kind of cold? (SPOILER ALERT: Devlin cuts away before we find out. Also, a plane almost falls on her.)

There's also a scene where Ed Harris randomly pulls a rocket launcher from the truck of a limousine. (It doesn't make much more sense in context.) At one point, a bolt of lightning strikes a large civic convention center and the entire building instantly explodes. I'm not a physicist, but I'm not completely sure that's how lightning or explosions work. (Someone ask Neil deGrasse Tyson, he'll know.) Also, this network of satellites designed to control weather includes a gigantic Bond-villain-style death ray; literally a huge laser that obliterates things from space. I get trying to seed clouds or dissipate tornados, but exactly what practical purpose did the death ray serve? It just seems like a bad idea to have that hanging around.

Chris Bumbray from JoBlo says the film is a "disasterpiece":

It's such a mess that you wonder how such a huge gamble could go so wrong. Yet, for all its faults Geostorm is quite wonderful in its awfulness. Were this an actual spoof, it would be nowhere near as funny as it is. Everyone is so sincere, from Butler as the world's least likely scientist, to Sturgess as his politician brother and Abbie Cornish as his badass Secret servicewoman lover, that in its hopefully awry way Geostorm is perfect.

DenOfGeek's Simon Brew points out some of the movie's ridiculous dialogue, always a staple of the "so bad it's good" genre:

There are some pearlers in here on the dialogue front, too. Butler at one stage declares "I'd rather not catch fish with my family than catch 20 fish alone", which is surely destined to be one of those motivational signs that offices tend to stick on the walls. You also get, for your money, the most bizarrely cryptic hiding of a message in a transmission I think I've ever seen in a movie. Yet Butler and Sturgess are so straight-faced, they somehow pull it off.

Matt Goldberg at Collider calls the film "the big summer blockbuster of 1998," describing it as "achingly familiar":

You know the scene in The Day After Tomorrow where Jake Gyllenhaal outruns weather? Devlin must have watched that scene and thought to himself, "What if that, but as an entire movie?" Every set piece in Geostorm is just people outrunning weather. In Hong Kong, geothermal temperatures spike, plumes of fire start coming out of the ground, and a scientist has to outrun it. People have to outrun tornados, hailstorms, and air that freezes you instantly.

Luke Buckmaster at Australia's DailyReview says the movie has a "satisfying amount of madness" in it, and compared it to the disaster films of the 1990s:

Geostorm brings tin-eared dialogue and squirrely, logic-deprived plotlines a-plenty. Miraculously, however, I had quite a bit of fun with it. To appreciate this film, which I suppose can be rationalised in the context of a guilty pleasure, one needs to be on the same page as it – which is to say, somewhere semi-illiterate. A key piece of imagery depicts shimmering white clouds broken up by gushes of divine light, as a voice-over lectures us about "one planet, one future."

Empire's Chris Hewitt says the movie is "not a stinker for the ages," but then goes on to say the following – which certainly sounds ludicrous enough to me:

Of course, none of it makes a lick of sense, but that might have been inevitable anyway, given the grade-A gobbledegook being thrown around to justify a plot so ludicrous the entire cast deserve honorary Oscars for being able to resist the urge to look at the camera and mouth, "Help me." Yet it all hangs together. Ish. And it even kicks up a gear after about an hour of geotedium, signalled by the year's most unintentionally hilarious scene, where Butler and Jim Sturgess, as his estranged brother who's working in the White House (yes, it's that sort of movie), communicate in code.

I haven't seen the movie yet myself, but I know it's being offered in the immersive 4DX format in select locations. And really, if you're planning on seeing Geostorm in theaters, shouldn't you just go all-out and see it in 4DX? Sounds like the best way to embrace the full-blown idiocy of a movie like this. Be sure to let us know what you think if you end up seeing the film this weekend.