Movie review: Greenland
As if we are not facing enough disasters in real life.
Greenland makes us feel like it is 1998 all over again, when the twin asteroid flicks Armageddon and Deep Impact ruled the box office and crash-landed into pop culture consciousness.
But in these unnerving and uncertain times, suddenly the end of the world does not seem so far-fetched after all.
After 2017's Geostorm, Gerard Butler takes on yet another global catastrophe alongside his Angel Has Fallen director Ric Roman Waugh in back-to-back projects.
But this time, he is a regular guy rather than a superhuman Secret Service agent, and more preoccupied with saving his family than the US president.
Greenland opens with an estranged couple, John and Allison Garrity (Butler and Morena Baccarin), whose marriage has imploded and are struggling to co-parent their young son (Roger Dale Floyd).
But standard news reports of an impending comet passing Earth quickly escalate into an extinction-level event when the fragments start laying waste to continents and society falls apart.
This is one of those conventional race-against-the-clock thrillers jam-packed with classic genre tropes and cliches.
Our protagonists embark on perilous and increasingly desperate attempts to seek sanctuary in rumoured bunkers located in Greenland.
The Garritys are soon split up amid the pandemonium and run into seemingly impossible hurdles.
Those who want to get their money's worth in spectacle should be appeased by the terrifying destruction of a cargo plane transporting select groups of VIPs to safety when the premises are overrun by the have-nots in true zombie fashion.
The callous kidnapping of the Garritys' child, separating him from his mother, is also a different kind of nightmare.
After two hours, you do end up caring about the characters, even as Greenland showcases the best and worst in humanity and hurtles inevitably towards a predictable conclusion.
Its message rings even louder during the Covid-19 crisis, reflecting on who we are as a people and how we can survive a common international threat together.
So if you are looking for a sliver of hope - and mass entertainment - amid the gloom, Greenland makes enough of an impact.
Score: 3/5
FILM: Greenland
STARRING: Gerard Butler, Morena Baccarin, Roger Dale Floyd
DIRECTOR: Ric Roman Waugh
THE SKINNY: A structural engineer (Butler), his estranged wife (Baccarin) and their young son (Floyd) fight for survival as a planet-killing comet races to Earth.
RATING: PG13
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