Why watch a disaster movie about wildfires or tornadoes or hurricanes — things you can see on the nightly news — when there are some really wild cataclysms out there?
Consider this week’s newest entry in the disaster genre, “Geostorm,” in which weather-controlling satellites go haywire — or are sabotaged — setting off super-sized weather events. And if that doesn’t sound dumb enough for you, consider that it’s directed by Dean Devlin, the co-writer of the so-dumb-it’s-fun “Independence Day,” and stars Hollywood’s go-to guy for brainless thrillers, Gerard Butler.
But “Geostorm” (which isn’t screening for critics) isn’t the first movie to threaten the world and insult the audience’s intelligence at the same time. Here, chronologically, are seven movies where humanity is imperiled by something really, really stupid.
1. Scientists with a nuke, “Crack in the World” (1965)
Trying to tap into Earth’s inexhaustible geothermal energy, a scientist (Dana Andrews) aims to drill a deep hole and denonate an underground nuclear bomb — despite warnings of a younger, handsomer scientist (Kieron Moore) that such an explosion could create fissures in Earth’s crust that could break the planet apart. Turns out the younger scientist is right, and there’s a scramble to undo the damage. With more nukes, of course.
2. Bees, “The Swarm” (1978)
After making cheesy ’60s TV shows (“Lost In Space,” “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea”), producer-director Irwin Allen jumped into the disaster genre with this star-studded idiocy. The story centers on “killer” bees from South Africa breeding with North American bees, creating superswarms capable of attacking military targets. Michael Caine and Katharine Ross lead a cast that includes Richard Widmark, Richard Chamberlain, Olivia de Havilland, Henry Fonda, José Ferrer, Fred MacMurray, Patty Duke and Slim Pickens.
3. Snow, “Avalanche” (1978)
B-movie producer Roger Corman also jumped on the disaster bandwagon with this silly entry, starring Rock Hudson as a tycoon whose ski-resort project is endangered by masses of snow. If only Hudson, busy pining for his ex (Mia Farrow), had listened to the ruggedly handsome photographer (Robert Forster) who warned him all this would happen. The only thing cheesier than the effects is the rote way the snow kills people in reverse order of billing. An indicator of how stupid this movie is: It was one of the films featured in the revived “Mystery Science Theater 3000.”
4. The center of the earth, “The Core” (2003)
Earth’s magnetic fields have gone haywire, making birds go crazy, turning off pacemakers and setting off lightning storms that (in the tradition of “Independence Day”) target landmarks. The cause, this movie tells us, is that the Earth’s core has stopped spinning. So a team of scientists, led by Aaron Eckhart, and a hotshot pilot (Hilary Swank) drill into the planet with a plan to “jump-start” the core’s rotation, using — wait for it — nuclear weapons. As ridiculous as it is dull.
5. Cold, “The Day After Tomorrow” (2004)
Director Roland Emmerich, who made us afraid again of space aliens in “Independence Day,” decided the planet’s problem isn’t global warming, but global cooling. A new ice age is underway, and only Dennis Quaid’s tough-talking scientist can convince the science-denying vice president (Kenneth Welsh, playing a dead ringer for Dick Cheney) that it’s real. If you think outrunning fireballs is a dumb action-movie cliché, watch when Jake Gyllenhaal and Emmy Rossum have to outrun a sudden cold snap that’s coming at them.
6. Plants, “The Happening” (2008)
People start committing mass suicide unprompted, and an airborne neurotoxin is at fault. But who’s responsible for this chemical warfare? In M. Night Shyamalan’s story, the culprit is (spoiler alert) the trees, which are deliberately releasing the deadly chemical as a defense against humans — as revenge for pollution and deforestation. The movie marked the beginning of Shyamalan’s long slide toward irrelevance.
7. Neutrinos, “2012” (2009)
Roland Emmerich again, destroying world landmarks, but this one makes “The Day After Tomorrow” look like a Neil DeGrasse Tyson research paper. The disaster here starts with solar flares setting off neutrinos that are heating up Earth’s core, causing the tectonic plates to start floating around the planet like air-hockey pucks. (Yeah, neutrinos don’t do that.) How the president (Danny Glover), his daughter (Thandie Newton), the president’s science adviser (Chiwetel Ejiofor), an out-of-work science-fiction writer (John Cusack), his ex-wife (Amanda Peet) and a conspiracy theorist (Woody Harrelson) all get mixed up in this is too laborious and uninteresting to get into.