Greenland (2020) - Butler and Co.'s largely successful disaster thriller

♥♥♥

Star Gerard Butler stands close with his family during a rain of comets on this poster for Ric Roman Waugh's Greenland

John is a building constructor, who receives evacuation notices from the US government for him and his family just before a major comet and fragments of it are posed to enter the Earth's atmosphere in what turns into an extinction-level event.

Greenland is written by Chris Sparling (An Uzi at the Alamo (2005)) and directed by Ric Roman Waugh (In the Shadows (2001)).
SPOILER The story soon breaks up the little 3-person family, as the son's diabetic condition removes them from the militarily executed evacuation effort, and they encounter various lunatics in the face of the nightmarish situation of society breakdown and impending doom. The son's condition is far from a new invention in the history of disaster cinema, but the portrayal of chaos, anarchy and extreme egotism feels current and eerily realistic in the 2020 of racial unrest and widespread Corona-virus fear, death and financial ruin. The plot invariably reflects parts of the disaster situations we encounter in real life, as priorities become tough as nails, with some making it to the rafts of survival while others don't.
Gerard Butler (Timeline (2003)) is no Superman in the story but a pretty normal (still cool of course) guy, - or Scottish descent, (as Butler himself.) Some will miss seeing him as a more active agent, but Greenland sees him side-lined for a good while away from his family, more or less impotent action-wise.
The film isn't exactly an action movie; one of its few action sequences involves a fight on the back of a lorry on the freeway at night, and what happens is very hard to make out. Instead Greenland follows its stressful disaster with a dramatic family story core about a normal family that's dealt with adultery but is overcoming it. The performances are very decent, and Greenland manages to create some suspenseful and affectingly emotional moments.

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 34 mil. $
Box office: 4.6 mil. $ and counting
= Still uncertain
[Greenland premiered 29 July (Belgium) and runs 119 minutes. The film was initially packaged with director Neill Blomkamp and star Chris Evans in 2018, before Waugh and Butler instead took over. Shooting took place from June - August 2019 in Georgia, including Atlanta. The release has been severely damaged by the China-virus pandemic, but it is now among the first films getting released after global shutdowns closed the cinema business. It is set to open in North America Sep. 25. Waugh is set to return with Kandahar (pre-production), another Butler-starring vehicle. Butler has 6 slated upcoming features; it is uncertain which will come first. 758 IMDb users have given Greenland a 6.7/10 average rating.]

What do you think of Greenland?