GREENLAND (2020)

GREENLAND (2020)

(Action, Drama, Thriller) [PG-13]

In this one, John Garrity (played by Gerard Butler who was in GODS OF EGYPT) who is a structural engineer is going home to his wife(played by Morena Baccarin from SERENITY) for the first time after being separated. Upon getting there his son reveals he’s super excited about a comet that is headed by earth at close distance and will be visible to the naked eye. It doesn’t take long before all accounts of this comet are basically a bunch of crap. Now his family is on their way to a secret meeting place after getting a call from the government saying they’ve been selected to head to an undisclosed bunker for safety. That’s freakin right…the whole planet is about to get a giant catastrophic facelift wiping out all life on earth unless they can get to safety. Like birds, birds always seem to find a way to survive stuff. 

This movie reminds me a lot of several other disaster films, but probably most closely resembles DEEP IMPACT because it focuses more on the human side of a potential E.L.E. (Extinction Level Event) than the effort to stop the disaster. In this movie, there is basically no chance of stopping what’s coming and all the science, math and projections are just completely wrong. This allows the movie to take a more simplistic approach by nature, but then narrowing the focus completely down to just one family really gives us the laser focus on the drama aspect and realism this movie is trying to portray. 

One thing I do like is a fairly risky effort to make John Garrity the source of humor in the film. He’s a funny and likable character in a terrible situation, but by the end of the film, you kind of feel less like you should have been rooting for him. This ends up resulting in a complex character that is interesting to watch trying to do the right thing at any cost. Nathan Garrity is John’s son (played by Roger Dale Floyd) and in the movie, he’s got a condition (due to no fault of his own) that makes the whole situation all that much more intense. This touch brought another layer of realism to the movie that others like it haven’t had. This thing also does an amazing job of showing both sides of a disaster situation. We get glimpses of what compassion in an impossible situation might look like and what incredible envy and despair might look like. 

Overall this movie is just really well put together but it’s almost too realistic and lacks the emotional pull of some other efforts. GREENLAND is not a film you would want to watch if you are already down or worried about the world ending. It is however a good movie if you were planning on watching an end of the world type flick. This is definitely one of the better ones regarding realism. It’s also got Scott Glenn (most famous for SUCKER PUNCH) in it and that casting choice is NEVER a bad idea. In this movie the grounding, he provides almost saves this movie by itself. 

GREENLAND is a good solid movie, but it’s still something that’s been done before. For those reasons for me this lands in the 4 out of 7 category. It’s definitely not a movie I would watch more than once every 3 or 4 years just due to the subject matter, and this is coming from a guy that likes the occasional disaster flick.

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