Gerald Butler stars in a scene from the movie "Geostorm." The Catholic News Service classification is A-III -- adults. (CNS/Ben Rothstein, Warner Bros. Pictures)

By Catholic News Service

After a network of weather-controlling satellites designed to overcome the effects of global warming is sabotaged and begins causing a series of overwhelming natural disasters, its designer (Gerard Butler), his estranged brother (Jim Sturgess), a State Dept. official, and the bureaucrat’s live-in girlfriend (Abbie Cornish), a Secret Service agent, team to uncover and defeat the conspiracy.

Armchair apocalypse fanciers may relish the ravaging of cities around the globe and the threat of the titular civilization-destroying phenomenon. But anyone looking for more than mere spectacle in director and co-writer Dean Devlin’s by-the-numbers action flick will come away disappointed. Though the dodgy domestic arrangement eventually moves toward marriage and the armed confrontations are mostly blood-free, this is still best suited to easily satisfied grown-ups.

Much gunplay and other stylized violence with minimal gore, cohabitation, about a half-dozen uses of profanity, a couple of milder oaths, several crude and crass terms. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

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