Greenland: It's the end of the world, and Gerard Butler knows how to work it
By Jim Slotek
Rating: B-minus
A disaster movie made almost entirely from spare parts, Greenland stars Gerard Butler as a regular dad saving his family during a planet-killing event very much like previous planet-killing events we’ve seen onscreen.
A car similarly jury-rigged would still get you from A-to-B. And that can be said about Greenland. It’s an unoriginal, budget-conscious and hardly brain-taxing race against time. But that doesn’t negate its entertainment value or its often heart-pounding pace.
Greenland: Morena Baccarin and Gerard Butler are among the throngs trying to survive the Apocalypse
Like its bigger-budget cousins Armageddon and Deep Impact, Greenland involves what happens when humanity realizes Earth is on a collision course with an extinction-level-sized object (the one here is clearly inspired by Oumuamua, the object from outside our solar system that whipped by us a little more than three years ago).
Like the Dwayne Johnson movie San Andreas, it involves a dad who takes desperate charge when he becomes separated from his wife and child, and – amid mass destruction and the death of millions – sets about the impossible (but not really) task of reuniting with them, his diabetic son’s insulin in hand.
There are even quick shout-outs to things like Independence Day, as when we see a bunch of young people partying on a rooftop, enjoying the celestial fireworks as extinction ticks down.
And hanging over the entire enterprise is the spirit of master-of-disaster Roland Emmerich, who never saw a world landmark he didn’t imagine destroying. Greenland, by Ric Roman Waugh (director of the most recent Gerard-Butler-Saves-The-President movie Angel Has Fallen), doesn’t have the resources to replicate that level of disaster porn, so it is much more of an Earth-bound enterprise, with a few extra moments to breathe something like life into its human objects.
PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN
Butler plays John Garrity, a construction project manager for an office building, who receives an Amber-Alert-sounding text from Homeland Security instructing him, his estranged wife Allison (Morena Baccarin) and their son Nathan (Roger Dale Floyd) to show up at a designated Air Force Base for receipt of special wristbands and transport to safety. (Much to the chagrin of their friends and neighbours who realize they’re being thrown under the extinction bus).
Safety, as it turns out, is a series of survival bunkers the U.S. has built in Greenland, hence the movie’s title.
And safety initially eludes the Garritys, when the sudden discovery of Nathan’s medical condition disqualifies him from being among the saved. Amid the chaos, all three are separated for a time. And Greenland’s truest and most gripping moments come from the fact that wearing the by-now-infamous wristbands is akin to wearing a t-shirt saying, “Kill me and take my wristband.” John, Allison and Nathan all soon become familiar with the evil side-eyes people give each other when they spot the plastic jewelry.
Still Greenland (and Canada on route) beckons. Greenland is a frenetic road movie with some clunky moments (Scott Glenn has some brief screen time as Allison’s dad, who offers them refuge on the run and expositionally recounts the affair that led John and his daughter to split). But dumb and improbable as some events must be in a movie like this, everybody brings game, up to and including child actor Floyd, whose character becomes proactive at a key moment.
The world will undoubtedly end many times before Hollywood lets go of this oeuvre. And there are worse ways to watch it die than this.
Click HERE to watch Bonnie Laufer’s interview with Greenland director Ric Roman Waugh.
Greenland. Directed by Ric Roman Waugh. Starring Gerard Butler, Morena Baccarin and Roger Dale Floyd. Begins streaming on Amazon Prime Video on Friday, February 5.