Geostorm

(Dean Devlin/2017/USA)

The name anticipates epic, global disaster and would have you think this will be a great afternoon’s popcorn munching, effects laden spectacle of destruction, but it’s not. It makes the mistake of over investing in the soap opera of the lives of the main players and pushes the natural disasters to second fiddle. If I’m signing up for potential global destruction as entertainment I want to see a lot more of the disaster upfront and less of the emotional, angsty family drama between two brothers. Geostorm was disappointing, although some of the set piece disaster scenes are hilarious.

(2/5)

No Escape

(John Eric Dowdle/2015/USA & Thailand)

A nightmarish scenario of a family stationed in a foreign land for work purposes when a revolt against the government occurs which involves anti-western aggression. If dealt with properly this is a perfectly valid set up and plot line but No Escape deals solely in cheap thrills and the unnamed country and its crazy, rioting rebels, borders on outright racism. There is so little detail given to the back story of the political upheaval and the conceit of the main character as a target for the aggression as a representative of American corporate/colonial power is so flimsy that there really is no escape from this paper thin plot. To sympathise with the central characters is to blithely paintbrush Asian cultures into a mush of potentially crazy left wing rent a mobs, like it’s so unstable over there in generic Asialand country dude, this could so happen. The introduction of white knight super agent Pierce Brosnan takes the biscuit altogether and raises it to a whole other level of shite. Absolute zero effort at creating a believable script. It’s just out and out bad.

(0/5)

Noah

(Darren Aronofsky/2014/USA) 

Like a cross between Lord of the Rings and The 10 Commandments this is a religious epic in fantasyland. It is the Old Testament after all and the source material for the Noah story is scarce enough as it is but with angelic “watchers” in the form of stone golems cast from heaven traipsing around Aronofsky goes full scale biblical myth here. He focuses on Noah and the internal struggle of the man who has to carry out the word of God. It’s utterly silly at points and to be honest I struggled to stay with it to the end but there is an arc that Noah’s character traverses. Not that you’d guess from Russell Crowes performance who reduces his range from a bit gruff to very gruff throughout. In the end you have to ask what the point of it is, shrug the shoulders and move on...

(1/5)

Phase IV

(Saul Bass/1974/UK & USA) 

Ants, imbued with a psychic hive mind from an interstellar phenomenon, begin to take over the world. Ok they take over a patch of desert in Arizona but you have to start somewhere right? A scientific team comprising James Lesko and Ernest Hubbs deploy themselves in the centre of the ant activity to observe and analyse what’s happening. The ants have attacked nearby residents and shown an evolved form of aggression. The scientists and ants go to war, as much psychological as physical and as small and seemingly innocuous as they are the ants seem to be the superior strategists. It’s one of those barmy sci-fi plots that presents a threat in something that from the get go you can’t fathom but then generates a genuine sense of unease and building panic as the humans run out of ideas and time in their battle against the teeny weeny army. The camera work on the ants is great and also the setting and exterior shots all add to the atmosphere of increasing paranoia. As silly as the story sounds it does keep you engaged and the ending is very nicely done. A solid low budget sci-fi.

(3/5)

Earthquake

(Mark Robson/1974/USA) 

Made at the height of disaster movie mania and initially scripted by Mario Puzo of Godfather fame this one is far too much character orientated for my liking. The special effects of the earthquake and the individual catastrophes are grand but the action is secondary to the soap opera of the main players’ lives. I understand the need for empathy in the audience and motivation on screen but honestly I’m more interested in seeing LA fall apart than Charlton Heston’s marriage. That’s the point of disaster movies isn’t it? There’s a brilliant cameo by Walter Matthau as the drunk in the bar though.

(2/5)

Crack in the World

(Andrew Marton/1965/USA) 

Crackpot sixties disaster flick about how Science wants to drill a hole to the earth’s core for a poke around but they hit a blockage of some sort so one Science Guy says blow it up nuclear stylee and another Science Guy says woah that’s going to be bad fam. So they blow it up and bad fam Science Guy was right and things get hairy and fuck me a bit of the earth falls off and becomes a second moon. Delightful and dated but builds to a good action packed ending with genuinely riveting final scenes which look like they might have inspired the final shots of THX1138. If, like me, you enjoy a disaster flick this is a good one. Plenty of googly eyes staring left to right in a wtf way throughout too.

(3/5)

The Day After Tomorrow

(Roland Emmerich/2004/USA)

This is pure, CGI laden bubblegum for the eyes. Disaster movies are a genre that can happily pass a couple of hours with excitement, escapades and harmless entertainment. I’ve been watching them since I was a kid, Towering Inferno being an early viewing experience, and still enjoy switching off the brain and getting stuck into these kinds of films. It’s a good set up with Dennis Quaid being the very serious scientist who reckons a catastrophic global environmental event is on the way. No one listens obviously until it’s too late. His son is in NYC on a school trip and takes refuge in the national library. Cue the epic journey of dad to save son. There is silliness in some scenes with wolves and the eye of the storm freezing stuff but Emmerich doesn’t really care for scientific realism, he’s doling out thrills and he does it fairly well.

(2.5/5)