Gloriously silly action/sci fi movie which really needed to be made DOV by Jim Wynorski or Fred Olen Ray but instead got the $100 million-plus treatment.
And you know something? Some of this isn't too bad - the investigative story, uncovering who is the traitor and who is behind sabotaging the station, is very solid - and pleasingly complex: it's got a Seven Days in May type vibe with the baddies being American rogues who want to turn the station into a weapon. Abbie Cornish gets to star in a really fun action sequence driving a cab, spinning around and driving backwards, blasting a gun at a pursuing car (I wondered why she accepted this thankless part - apart from the play cheque of course - until I saw this sequence).
There are some good actors running loose - Ed Harris, Andy Garcia, Cornish - all whom would've been better in the leads than Gerard Butler, who looks like a former football player gone to seed, and Jim Sturgess, who just looks like an idiot (disclosure: I've never liked Sturgess in anything). The special effects are brilliant and there's some good action sequences.
But the central notion just feels silly and untrue - a space station that can control weather - it just doesn't feel believable, even in the science fiction world. (If they were going to use this idea, I felt they could've really committed to the idea and used it more.)
I'd also add that while the film sucks up to China a little by saying the US developed the satellite with China, there's only one Asian actor of any decent size in the film and he dies after about ten minutes.
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