GREENLAND

(director/writer: Ric Roman Waugh; screenwriter: Chris Sparling; cinematographer: Dana Gonzales; editor: Gabriel Fleming; music: David Buckley; cast:  Gerard Butler (John Garrity), Morena Baccarin (Allison Garrity), Roger Dale Floyd (Nathan Garrity), Scott Glenn (Dale), David Denman (Ralph Vento), Hope Davis (Judy Vento), Andrew Byron Bachelor (Colin), Merrin Dungey (Major Breen), Gary Weeks (Ed Pruitt), Holt McCallany (Twin Otter Pilot); Runtime: 119; MPAA Rating: PG-13; producers: Gerard Butler, Basil Iwanyk, Sébastien Raybaud, Alan Siegel; STXfilms; 2020)

“The enticing film has a hokey story but gives us the required thrills a thriller needs.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

An unpleasant disaster movie by stuntman-turned-director Ric Roman Waugh (“Angel Has Fallen”/”Shot Caller”). Co-writers are Waugh and Chris Sparling, who give us a  story with fully developed characters but an underwhelming story with clunky dialogue.
 
With the Earth endangered by a destructive comet (nicknamed Clark) coming its way, the Scottish-born structural engineer John Garrity (Gerard Butler), his estranged wife Allison (Morena Baccarin) and their diabetic son Nathan (Roger Dale Floyd) seek sanctuary in a shelter after receiving a call he was chosen to go there. No one else he knows has received this strange call, but he’s been chosen by a secret classified government evacuation program apparently because of his skills needed in such a disaster. Knowing that he screwed-up his marriage, John’s looking for the chance to do anything to restore it by his actions during this tragic event.

At the military base airport the family is separated, as John goes back to his house to get his son’s missing insulin. Allison then meets him at her father’s (Scott Glenn) Kentucky ranch house. The family reconvenes there to take a perilous journey by car across the damaged landscape (large cities like Tampa are destroyed) with time running out to avoid the global apocalypse and reach the needed evacuation plane on the Canadian side of the border to take them to the safe haven in Greenland.

The enticing film has a hokey story but gives us the required thrills a thriller needs, which might be a good enough reason for some to like it as a guilty-pleasure. I just found it too silly and lacking in effective CGIs to give it a nod.

It’s playing currently on VOD.

REVIEWED ON 12/23/2020  GRADE: C+