STXfilms
Leave it to 2020 to have a disaster movie feel too close to home. Any other year, a disaster movie like Greenland would have been just another film, but with our current situation, this type of movie ends up being relatable. While we aren’t waiting for a planet-killing comet to hit Earth, we are watching the world fight a virus and try to maintain a sense of normalcy. Ric Roman Waugh’s disaster flick starring Gerald Butler focuses on the human side of a crisis, which gives it its realistic tone.
Butler plays John Garrity, a Scottish structural engineer living in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife and son. He returns from work to join a watch party for an interstellar comet named Clarke as it is scheduled to pass Earth. Before heading home, he receives an automated phone call informing him that he and his family have been selected for emergency sheltering. As he rushes home, the comet enters the atmosphere, which sends a shockwave and destroys Tampa, Florida. As a family, they rush to the nearby airport for shelter, but along the way they are faced with challenges while time is running out.
Most disaster movies focus on the big picture and how the world will be affected by a disaster. Instead, Greenland feels much smaller and more personal. The film follows the Garrity family as they struggle to find shelter, which everyone else is doing as well. Most disaster movies move at such a fast pace, it doesn’t allow for growth for characters or insight to their lives. John Garrity has made mistakes in his relationship with wife (Morena Baccarin) and he is trying to rebuild that relationship with trust and honesty. As the world is crumbling around him, he is trying to win back her love, which is something hardly discussed or explored in big budget disaster movies.
Only select people were allowed for protection, which brought animosity amongst everyone who was trying to fight for survival. The people picked for protection had wristbands, which ended up making them targets when they were traveling to their destination. This is where the film brings a lot of tension and thrills as we watch what any person would try to do in this situation. The visuals also provide a lot of intense moments. The size of the disaster provides huge visual effects and moments of peril. When the news is broadcast and you realize how immense the comet is, its terrifying to think of something happening in real life.
Greenland has all the elements of a big budget disaster movie from its conflicts to the Earth on the brink of ending but throws enough smaller and personal touches to make this a film better than I expected. I haven’t seen a Gerald Butler movie in a while that I enjoyed as much as Greenland. This feels like an average role for him, but the emotional connection to the character elevated a lot of scenes. Most disaster movie I just watch and don’t put much thought into because of how shallow some of them can be, but with Greenland, it reached a personal level that is absent among big blockbuster disaster movies we get.
Greenland has a run time of 1 hour 59 minutes and is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of disaster action, some violence, bloody images and brief strong language.
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