Greenland: Good cast, good writing, and great effects.

Movie Review: Greenland (2020) on HBO

After what the world has been through with the pandemic, is this really the time to watch a movie like Greenland? Well, the circumstances are more dire. Maybe this is a good time, since many are finally emerging from the pandemic and this film paints a far grimmer picture for its characters.

In Greenland, the quintessential broken American family, struggling to mend its internal struggles, finds itself struggling even more for survival against the forces of nature as a comet bears down on Earth closer than any other in history, not one big ball of ice but a collection of interlopers threatening to strike the surface and plunge humanity into chaos and most life into extinction. Dad John (played by Gerard Butler) finds himself, a structural engineer, selected by secret government plan to survive the debacle, along with his wife Allison (played by Morena Baccarin) and son Nathan (played by Roger Dale Floyd). But first, they have to leave behind their neighbors and friends, who haven't been chosen, and legions of others clogging the roads, looting stores, and basically getting in the Garrity family's way to finding safety. Also in the way is son Nathan's type-1 diabetes, which threatens the Garritys' spot on the plane out of insanity. And there are multiple opportunities to dodge comet strikes on every large city and rural roadway the Garritys find themselves. How will they survive?

As subtext in the storyline are John and Allison trying to patch their marriage, which has been on the rocks for a couple of years. It's tested even more severely when the family is separated during their trip and John must face Allison's father at his home, which is where the threesome has arranged to meet. Her father is played by Scott Glenn, who shows all the disdain for a reckless son-in-law you can imagine, until Butler pours on the sincerity and shows his honest determination to get his family through to safety. This is well played and some of the more believable of the acting and plotting of the movie.

This film reminds me a lot of 1998's Deep Impact, which also involved a comet colliding with Earth and families struggling to survive. Greenland has that same sense of doom and despair and heroics. Although, in this film, Earth gets hit a lot more often! So if you're wondering if you're prepared for watching this kind of movie now, think of how you might have felt watching Deep Impact and go from there.

Greenland has solid production values, a good cast, good writing, and great effects. I give it an A^ for Above Average. Are you ready to rise above the pandemic?