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Mormon Moviegoers is a collective of LDS film reviewers helping you to make informed decisions about Hollywood films. It was founded by family counselor Jonathan Decker (of Ask a Mormon Therapist).
WHAT’S GEOSTORM ABOUT?
When a series of extreme weather events threaten the human race, world leaders come together to create a network of satellites that control the world climate. When the satellites start glitching it’s up to a team of scientists to discover what is going wrong before worldwide storms wipe out the planet.
IS IT ANY GOOD? (GRADE: C)
With a name like Geostorm, you expect the movie to have, well, a geostorm. Unfortunately for the audience (and the movie), lack of the titular storm proves to be the movie’s biggest undoing, along with too many subplots and tedious main characters. Another problem? Every single complication written into the movie is solved within a matter of minutes, providing some glimpses into deeper (and better) plot devices, but ultimately falling flat.
The cast is led by Gerard Butler and Jim Sturgess, playing two brothers who spend 80% of the movie bickering over things that aren’t well established, leading to lack of audience investment in the lead characters or their problems. Far more interesting are the supporting characters who include Abbie Cornish as a Secret Service agent who [minor spoiler] is forced to kidnap the President, and Zazie Beetz playing a self-proclaimed tech-savvy millennial. These two actors provide some of the movie’s best humor while managing to ground their characters. Any scene with those actresses is a good scene.
Flaws aside, if you’re like me you go into a movie like this one expecting large scale destruction and killer special effects, and this movie definitely delivers. Is Geostorm the next big Oscar contender? Nope. But is it a semi-fun way to kill 2 hours? Absolutely.
IS IT OKAY FOR YOUR KIDS?
Geostorm is rated PG-13. A good baseline for deciding whether or not this movie is appropriate for your kids would be to take into account how they handled the Transformers movies. The action, destruction, and violence are approximately at the same level as in those movies, with death being shown (though the blood and gore is almost non-existent) throughout the film. Didn’t let your children see those films? Then Geostorm is not the film for them.
ANY WORTHWHILE MESSAGES?
When we work together we achieve much more than working alone (see Moses 7:18, 2 Nephi 1:21). There’s nothing more important than family (L. Tom Perry The Importance of the Family).
For movie night recommendations and Gospel discussion guides, order 250 Great Movies for Latter-day Families, available in paperback and Kindle.
WHAT’S THE MOUNTAIN BETWEEN US ABOUT?
Two strangers are stranded on a mountain after their plane crashes. They must work together to endure the extreme elements and terrain in order to make it down the mountain and back to civilization.
IS IT ANY GOOD? (GRADE: D)
Wasting what could be an interesting (albeit farfetched) premise on a mix of action/romance movie clichés, The Mountain Between Us is unfortunately predictable from beginning to end. Suffering from choppy editing and humor that 9 times out of 10 falls flat, even the good performances by the two leads (played by Kate Winslet and Idris Elba) aren’t enough to save this movie, as the two aren’t given much more than exposition and poorly written argumentative dialogue to work with.
That being said: Kate Winslet and Idris Elba do give it their best shot (I found myself rooting for them throughout the film, even though I could see the ending coming from 30 minutes in) and the shorter run time (less than 2 hours) means that the movie clips along at a decent pace. Finally, the movie does manage to surprise you a few times, but not enough to create a truly engaging experience.
IS IT OKAY FOR YOUR FAMILY?
The Mountain Between Us is rated PG-13 for a scene of sexuality, peril, injury images, and brief strong language. The plane crash itself isn’t very intense, and there aren’t any big explosions or gore. However, you do see a dead body being buried and some bloody injuries are seen up close. A mountain lion attacks one of the actors, creating an intense few minutes without any blood or gore shown. There are several profanities used throughout the movie as well, including one f-word. The “scene of sexuality” shows a shirtless man, a woman in a bra, and some kissing. While watching it you obviously know what is going on, but no nudity below the man’s chest is shown, and the woman does not remove her bra. There is also (spoiler) a short scene near the end of the movie where a man gets his foot caught in a bear trap.
ANY WORTHWHILE MESSAGES?
The biggest message in this movie is one of hope and faith. Without the hope (and subsequently the faith) these two have of living through their experience on the mountain, this movie would have been much shorter and would have had a much different ending (see Moroni 7:40 and Moroni 10:20). This movie also has themes that deal with overcoming and learning from life’s trials as well as trusting and loving the people in your life.
For movie night recommendations and Gospel discussion guides, order 250 Great Movies for Latter-day Families, available in paperback and Kindle.
Lindsi currently works for BYU in the Theatre and Media Arts department, and is a freelance technical director and stage manager for several theatre companies in the Utah Valley area. In her free time she loves photography, stand up paddle-boarding, running 5k’s, reading, spoiling her nieces and nephews, and (you guessed it!) watching movies. For more of Lindsi’s writing visit lindsimichellephotography.blogspot.com.