Did Gerard Butler take acting classes at MGM Lion? He growls and whispers just like Leo in his last role, as an engineer trying to save his wife and young son from the impact of an apocalyptic comet in “Greenland”.
Duration: 119 minutes. Classified PG-13 (intense sequences of disaster action, violence, bloody images and short, strong language). The demand.
Butler is pretty bad, not horrible, but the movie itself can be seen, even if it’s much more bleak than your average disaster. “The Day After Tomorrow” and “Poseidon Adventure” had, in my memory, no cruel kidnappings of young boys or hammered murders.
When a comet named Clarke approaches Earth, John (Butler) receives an automated text message from the Department of Homeland Security saying his family has been chosen for relocation. He was told to head to Robins Air Force Base in Georgia with his wife Allison (Morena Baccarin), 8-year-old son Nathan (Roger Dale Floyd), and no one else. They are confused. Is it a test? The comet had Hale-Bopp-level excitement around it.
That’s when the family turns on the news and sees that a fragment of the space rock has hit Florida. “TAMPA GONE,” the ticker says. Get in the car, guys!
From then on, the revelations of director Ric Roman Waugh’s film are cunningly revealed. We learn that John is one of the few highly skilled professionals who have been chosen to survive in an underground base in Greenland: home to glaciers and a population the size of White Plains. Those unlucky enough to receive a text from the government resort to any method, including crime, to catch a place on the planes. Chris Sparling’s screenplay shows the worst of humanity.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a big story if Butler and Co. just take a flight and get to the island with ease. Obstacles appear that make your journey sad and sad. Much of the weight is due to the member of the smaller cast, Floyd, a child actor with a deep feeling who has a shocking scene outside of another Air Force base. The poor boy has to cry buckets.
The ending, however, is too raw and clean to put an end to this messy story. It has no unexpected elements, and for years we’ve all seen better CGI images of cities destroyed in disaster movies. Roland Emmerich probably has a folder on his laptop full of it.
Whatever. As for Butler’s films, “Greenland” could have been much worse. “The Bounty Hunter” was so terrible, after seeing it I felt like … a comet had just touched Earth!