greenland movie review

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Tv/streaming, collections, chaz's journal, great movies, contributors, how greenland shows the exact way to make a good disaster film.

I wouldn’t go as far as to call “ Greenland ” a masterpiece but it’s certainly one of the biggest cinematic surprises in a while. It spent three weeks in theaters without much fanfare here in Mexico until they shut down again this weekend. This makes sense, after all, not many people were going to risk a trip to the cinema during a pandemic for another seemingly unremarkable Gerard Butler action movie. Thankfully, word of mouth spread in time for me to watch it before it was too late. This is the type of feature where several of the scares come from the sound mix and great visuals. It demands to be seen with the right sound system and on the big screen.

Whatever its flaws and limitations, I see “Greenland” as the poster boy for Ebert’s rule of “It’s not what the movie is about, but how it is about it.” The film shares more than a few elements with the two members of the “gigantic earth busting comet movie” genre (“ Deep Impact ” and “ Armageddon ,” both from 1998), and on the surface it seems even closer to Roland Emmerich ’s “2012.” But "Greenland" is set apart from all of them with its very different attitude. 

Directed by Ric Roman Waugh , the film deals with the events leading to the appearance of Comet Clarke, a spectacular moment that appears harmless enough until several clues make it clear that something bigger is on the way. Skyscraper builder (and thus essential worker) John Garrity (Gerard Butler) is recruited along with his estranged wife Allison ( Morena Baccarin ) and son Nathan ( Roger Dale Floyd ) for a flight to Greenland where shelters were built years ago for just such an occasion; they spend a good deal of the movie facing one believable setback after another. They're a family unit in crisis, reminiscent of the one Spielberg created in “ War of the Worlds ” (2005).

Few things have been as frustrating to me as Hollywood’s recent inability to make a good disaster film, despite coming up with truly groundbreaking SFX technology. “2012” is a good example of the philosophy that the more realistic visual effects have become, the less believable that disaster films have turned out to be. Other predecessors of "Greenland" have all made the same mistake: they never take themselves even remotely seriously, and their makers see them as mere roller coaster rides designed to sell popcorn. In that regard some may have succeeded, but I will never understand the point of making a movie about the end of the world if the audience never really gets the feel what it would be like to live through such an event. 

Most of Emmerich's recent disaster entries have shared the same tendency to create over-the-top characters whose attitudes have nothing to do with what’s going on around them, and who have relationships that make it too easy to determine who lives and who dies (case in point: Amanda Peet ’s doomed boyfriend in “2012”). Even the supposedly frightening characters in these movies have turned out to be complete duds, unlike what we get here in "Greenland." Just compare Woody Harrelson ’s mad prophet form “2012” to the bearded, overweight everyman in “Greenland” whose unpredictable, and terrifying nature is only revealed as we slowly come to realize that his best interest may not necessarily align with those of the leads. When it comes to its character’s attitudes “Greenland” is much more reminiscent to the disaster films of the 1970s than to the rest of the movies mentioned above. The characters here are much more believable as well. They panic to the point of doing things they would have never guessed, like leaving behind their beloved neighbor’s children to their sad fates, and they make the normal mistakes that regular people would make in a situation like this (ex.: one suitcase allowed” actually means one suitcase per family).

Director Waugh makes Clarke the comet a truly frightening menace not unlike what Spielberg achieved with Bruce the shark decades before, and wisely takes the same approach in introducing its full dimension little by little. Every death in this movie is deeply felt, and is not just put aside a couple of scenes later. The characters in “Greenland” don’t act as if they were on a roller coaster ride but rather as if in a situation where they're fighting for their lives every step of the way. Take for instance a sequence when the leading man can’t avoid facing a couple of crazies, and we then see his stunned reaction at realizing he's capable of the unimaginable. In these most difficult times, a movie like “Greenland” can actually help you put your personal problems in perspective if only for a couple of hours. That is the best compliment I can imagine for an entry of this nature.

All of the above is not to say that the movie doesn’t include its share of apocalyptic film clichés. After all, what would a disaster entry be without a leading couple living through a marital crisis that will inevitably be solved, much as in “The Abyss,” “Twister,” “2012,” and so on? And how could “Greenland” possibly convey immediate doom without the usual sky full of ominously flying birds? And what would a film like this be without all the crisis associated with the typical ill child in dire need of medication, just as in in “World War Z,” “Signs,” and what have you? At least the filmmakers made this last dilemma integral to the plot. 

Still, I’m also a bit skeptical about the plausibility of building all these shelters in the remote lands of Greenland since logic dictates nothing would stop a comet from colliding directly with Earth precisely in that region. We also have to look past all these incredible coincidences that need to take place for the characters to remain together and crash land just a couple of miles from their destination (much as it happened in “2012”). But "Greenland" is so convincing, we don’t really care too much about these weaknesses. 

Waugh's film will likely be remembered as a special effects movie, but they wouldn’t achieve the same result without actors and a director to sell them to the audience, such as in the ending sequence which features scenes from destroyed cities around the world. When my hometown’s presidential palace in ruins turned up, I have to admit that it received cheers from all four audience members. It was for all the wrong reasons, but also for all the right ones.

After watching “Greenland” I was especially surprised to see how well Butler comes off by adding some vulnerability to his character. Maybe Butler has found his true niche in this genre, much like Liam Neeson did with the “special set of skills” character from "Taken" over a decade ago. After all these years of complaining and writing on this site about half a dozen pieces on the problem with the recent disaster films, one viewing of “Greenland” has left me with nothing more to say about the subject. It shows the exact way to make a really good one.

Gerardo Valero

Gerardo Valero is lives in Mexico City with his wife Monica. Since 2011 he's been writing a daily blog about film clichés and flubs (in Spanish) on Mexico's Cine-Premiere Magazine . His contributions to "Ebert's Little Movie Glossary" were included in the last twelve editions of "Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook."

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Greenland Reviews

Greenland may not add anything fresh or new to the very over-done genre of disaster movies, yet it provides two hours of fun and entertaining escapism. Gerard Butler is better than he's been in a while.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 6, 2023

In the end, Greenland is predictably underwhelming, packing only a couple of genuinely exciting sequences, and a decent cast.

Full Review | Original Score: D+ | Jul 24, 2023

Butler’s most affecting performance in years... Greenland presents the end of the world as we know it in a mighty fine and entertaining way.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 12, 2022

A surprisingly grounded disaster movie featuring Gerard Butler’s best performance in years. The thought-provoking premise and emotional focus elevate this above other movies in this popular subgenre.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 27, 2022

A remarkable combination of downright dullness and eye-rolling coincidences.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 9, 2022

It’s one of Butler’s best films in years; one that takes the familiar end-of-the-world idea and uses it to explore human nature in a surprisingly thoughtful way.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 21, 2022

For most of its runtime, "Greenland" surprises at just about every opportunity. It continually takes every decision that a mindless disaster movie might make and does the complete opposite.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jul 7, 2022

It does a good job of masquerading as something deeper than your average disaster fare.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 17, 2022

Believable characters keep the story grounded (this is head-and-shoulders above Gerard Butler's ordinary, two-dimensional fare).

Full Review | Sep 17, 2021

If this isn't exactly how the end of the world will happen, the way [Greenland's] characters learn about the film's cataclysm at least feels eerily believable.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 16, 2021

The movie wants to be on the same scale as War of the Worlds, World War Z or Roland Emmerich's movies, but at a fraction of the budget.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Aug 10, 2021

By focusing on the stories and lives of people on the ground in favour of a more crash, bang, wallop approach, Greenland offers genuine thrills.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 17, 2021

But with a seemingly never-ending pandemic making a non-bunkered lifestyle difficult, if not impossible, until sometime next year, a pre- and post-apocalyptic thriller feels reassuring.

Full Review | Jun 8, 2021

Greenland [is] no under-the-radar masterpiece waiting to be discovered. Still, there's plenty of space to appreciate a low-budget B movie exceeding expectations.

Full Review | Jun 5, 2021

There are enough quietly compelling moments and plenty of fine performances to justify Greenland as passable entertainment.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Mar 25, 2021

Waugh's film feels like too much, especially in the final act, when the personal is replaced by the plodding.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Mar 17, 2021

At first, I thought someone had played a practical joke on me.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 9, 2021

The scenes of rioting resemble the news footage that accompanied the reign of President Trump. It was probably unintentional, but the similarities are startling, with the film evoking Americans at war with each other, a theme that is uncomfortably timely.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 7, 2021

Sure, there are plenty of explosions and breathtakingly horrifying sequences involving cities being annihilated by fragments of the comet, but the panic-fueled tension at the center of Greenland comes from the real human stakes driving its narrative.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 22, 2021

Doesn't often surprise, but it never disappoints.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 20, 2021

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Common Sense Media Review

Death, destruction in intense, harrowing disaster flick.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Greenland is a disaster movie starring Gerard Butler and Morena Baccarin about a comet that ravages Earth -- and one family trying to race to safety. Violence is the biggest issue, with many images of mass destruction and huge, shocking explosions. Guns are fired, and one character…

Why Age 14+?

Images of mass destruction, with cities and entire landscapes destroyed. Shock w

A few uses of "s--t," "horses--t," "damn," "goddamn," and "hell."

Suggestion that a man had an extramarital affair.

Mention of Bud Light. Characters frequently use iPhones. Some brands briefly see

An adult has a glass of wine at home.

Any Positive Content?

Messages/themes focus on perseverance and overcoming impossible odds. The movie

John and Allison go above and beyond, doing everything they can to keep each oth

Violence & Scariness

Images of mass destruction, with cities and entire landscapes destroyed. Shock waves knock people over. Guns and shooting. One character kills another with a hammer off-screen. Dead bodies with bloody wounds. Exploding plane. Rough handling of a woman. Child kidnapped. Fighting, punching. Car accident. Chaotic plane ride with rough landing. Screaming, general panic.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Mention of Bud Light. Characters frequently use iPhones. Some brands briefly seen on shelves during a trip to the store.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

Messages/themes focus on perseverance and overcoming impossible odds. The movie is also about forgiveness and admitting mistakes.

Positive Role Models

John and Allison go above and beyond, doing everything they can to keep each other and Nathan safe, using brains and brawn. Allison is depicted as a little stronger and more complex than many women in these kinds of movies. But an unspoken transgression that John committed is at center; part of his behavior involves sort of groveling to Allison, seeking forgiveness. It makes them less admirable, but also more human. Allison's father is a selfless character, putting others' needs before his own.

Parents need to know that Greenland is a disaster movie starring Gerard Butler and Morena Baccarin about a comet that ravages Earth -- and one family trying to race to safety. Violence is the biggest issue, with many images of mass destruction and huge, shocking explosions. Guns are fired, and one character kills another with a hammer (it's seen sticking out of his head). Dead bodies and bloody wounds are shown, a woman is treated roughly, and a child is briefly kidnapped. You can also expect fighting, explosions, screaming, and general panic. The movie hints that a married man may have had an affair and that his wife is still working on whether to forgive him, but nothing is clearly stated. Infrequent language includes a partial, obscured "f--k" and a few uses of "s--t," "goddamn," etc. With blistering suspense and interesting characters who demonstrate impressive perseverance, the movie works far better than most others of its genre. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (9)
• Kids say (23)

Based on 9 parent reviews

What's the Story?

In GREENLAND, structural engineer John Garrity ( Gerard Butler ) lives with his estranged wife, Allison ( Morena Baccarin ), and their son, Nathan (Roger Dale Floyd), who has diabetes. While trying to work out their troubles, the couple throws a party to watch the arrival of a comet. Unfortunately, the comet isn't as harmless as expected, and it starts causing widespread destruction. John gets a phone call telling him that he's been selected to bring his family to a shelter. Alarmingly, none of his neighbors receive the same call. Upon arriving at the airport, the family discovers that Nathan's insulin is missing. When John goes back for it, the family is separated. Allison manages to leave a message for John telling him to meet her at her father's house. Thus begins a harrowing journey across a dangerous landscape, with time running out.

Is It Any Good?

This uncommonly good, absolutely harrowing disaster movie elevates the stakes with its effective suggestion of international crisis and its personal touches on social status and martial discord. Stuntman-turned-director Ric Roman Waugh , who previously worked with Butler on Angel Has Fallen , casts the leading man in a different light in Greenland . John Garrity has made a mistake, and he's seeking redemption and forgiveness from his wife. He looks at her, full of pain and regret, and knows he must do anything he can to earn her love back. So after the comet hits, when he's asked to go above and beyond, his actions have a deeper meaning.

The clever idea of only certain people being selected for protection carries a great weight as well, creating instant animosity and guilt among the characters -- as well as more conflict, since the heroes' shelter/protection wristbands make them targets. As a thriller, Greenland absolutely delivers the tension and thrills, with huge visual effects and plenty of intense, dangerous spots that forgo the usual cheesiness of disaster movies. But none of it would have worked without the thought that went into the characters and their connections with one another. Extra credit goes to Scott Glenn as Allison's father, who combines gruffness and tenderness in a tremendously moving way.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Greenland 's violence . How did it affect you? Which parts were shocking, and which were thrilling? Why were they different?

What's the appeal of disaster movies like this one? Should we worry about a giant comet crashing into Earth?

Do you consider Allison a role model ? Why or why not? How do she and the other characters demonstrate perseverance ?

What do you think is going on between John and Allison? What values are imparted?

Why does being "selected" or not "selected" in this story raise such feelings of animosity and guilt? Have you ever been "not selected" for something? How did it make you feel? Why?

Movie Details

• On DVD or streaming : February 9, 2021
• Cast : Gerard Butler , Morena Baccarin , Scott Glenn
• Director : Ric Roman Waugh
• Inclusion Information : Female actors, Latino actors
• Studio : STX Entertainment
• Genre : Action/Adventure
• Character Strengths : Perseverance
• Run time : 119 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : intense sequences of disaster action, some violence, bloody images and brief strong language
• Last updated : November 24, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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‘Greenland’ Review: Gerard Butler Faces a Comet Hitting Earth, but This Domestic Sci-Fi Thriller Achieves a Mostly Shallow Impact

It's another stolid Butler thriller, even if the potential end of days is staged with a this-could-really-happen flair.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

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Most disaster movies are about going big. But “ Greenland ,” in which Gerard Butler runs around trying to save his family as a comet gets ready to hit the earth, is a movie that takes pains to make the end of life as we know it look like something that could actually happen. In its relatively small-scale, often rather plodding B-movie way, it wants to do for apocalypse thrillers what “Contagion” did for outbreak movies. And there are moments when it does.

The comet that’s heading toward Earth is actually a collection of rock fragments, and the TV news coverage of its impending arrival has the slightly bland quotidian steadiness you’d expect to hear from CNN. Early on, Butler, playing an Atlanta structural engineer — with a different actor he would have been an architect, but someone must have decided that was too wussy for Butler — named John Garrity, takes his 7-year-old son out to a supermarket to pick up some wine and beer for a barbecue they’re hosting, and the signs of doom that surround them have a chilly plausibility: the row of military planes in the sky, the comet glimpsed from a distance. No one knows what’s going to happen, because this hasn’t happened before. If the sensation of impending crisis accidentally overlaps with what a lot of us were feeling back in March, when the pandemic was just taking hold, that coincidence works for the movie.

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Back at the house, John and his wife, Allison (Morena Baccarin), and their friends sit around staring at the TV as the first fragments begin to hit; everyone’s still hoping that it won’t be too bad. Then they see news footage of a medium-size fragment hitting Tampa, singing the city with a blanket of fire, and the reaction is, “Uh-oh.”

Popular on Variety

The relatively low-key, yep-this-is-what-it-would-feel-like quality of “Greenland” is the best thing about it. In this case, however, there’s a downside to the relative lack of spectacle. John and his family have received a Presidential Alert (just like an Amber Alert) from the Department of Homeland Security instructing them to drive to a nearby air base. It seems that they’re part of a select group of civilians who’ve been chosen to get on military planes and fly to shelter at a classified location. The reason for all this is revealed early on: Of the many comet fragments that are pelting the planet, one, set to hit near Western Europe in 48 hours, is a nine-mile-wide chunk large enough to cause an extinction-level event. Can you say dinosaur?

No, I’m not referring to Gerard Butler and what’s left of his movie stardom. He’s an actor who I used to find stolid as a rock and have come to develop a certain fondness for, because I’ve seen him achieve a fascinating intensity in a thriller like 2018’s “Den of Thieves.” (Actually, that was about the only one, but there’s always hope.) According to his IMDb page, Butler has no less than eight movies in pre- or post-production; that’s a sign that as he fell off the A-list, he has found a home as a gritty second-tier actor churning out semi-anonymous mid-budget pulp. The trouble with Butler’s movies is that they tend to be as stolid as he is, and “Greenland,” while well-staged as an end-of-days spectacle by director Ric Roman Waugh (“Angel Has Fallen”), is a “heartwarming” family thriller that’s mostly two hours of frantically unexciting logistics.

John and Allison have been teetering toward a separation, and as they arrive at the military base, where crowds of desperate people are trying to press their way in, like teenagers without tickets at a Harry Styles concert, everything starts to go wrong. Their son, Nathan (Roger Dale Floyd), is a diabetic, and they accidentally leave his insulin in the car. John has to go back and retrieve it, at which point they literally get separated. Then it turns out that Nathan can’t go on the plane; no one with a condition that requires meds can.

For a while, “Greenland” turns into a road movie in which the two parents, picked up by different fleeing heartland citizens, attempt to reunite without the benefit of cell phone service, and a bit too much of this can drive you batty. A thriller isn’t supposed to be a cakewalk; if it were, it wouldn’t thrill. But the twists, complications, and bumps in the road have to engage the audience. We need to think, “Wow, what’s he going to do now?” rather than, “Jesus, if this turns out any worse, I’m going to have to take an aspirin.” For much of its distended two-hour running time, “Greenland” is an aspirin thriller.

Eventually, the family members do find one another, and that’s the message: that those prone to separate should think about what it means to come together. This has been a theme of other Butler films, as if he were trying to be the Jason Statham of couples’ therapy. And it comes to the fore in “Greenland,” since most of the movie isn’t about Butler acting like a bruiser (though he does face off against one goon who tries to steal his special-selected-family wristband, silencing the guy with a hammer). Scott Glenn, as Allison’s father, makes his shaggy presence felt; the actor is in his early 80s but still spry. And by the time John and his family make it to Greenland — spoiler alert (if you can call a movie’s title a spoiler)! It’s where those military safety bunkers are — we’re more than ready for that giant fragment to hit. But it’s amazing how shallow its deep impact proves to be.

Reviewed online, Dec. 15, 2020. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 119 MIN.

• Production: An STX Films release of a Thunder Road, Anton, G-Base Film production, in association with Riverstone Pictures. Producers: Basil Iwanyk, Sebastien Raybaud, Gerard Butler, Alan Siegel. Executive producers: Brendan Boyea, Jonathan Fuhrman, François Callens, John Zois, Carsten H.W. Lorenz, Robert Simonds, Adam Fogelson, John Friedberg, Danielle Robinson, Nik Bower, Deepak Nayar.
• Crew: Director: Ric Roman Waugh. Screenplay: Chris Sparling. Camera: Dana Gonzales. Editor: Gabriel Fleming. Music: David Buckley.
• With: Gerard Butler, Morena Baccarin, Roger Dale Floyd, Scott Glenn, David Denman, Hope Davis, Andrew Byron Bachelor, Merrin Dungey, Holt McCallany.

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Review: ‘Greenland’ delivers a Giant Comet 2020, extinction-level event

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Ever seen one of those “Giant Comet 2020” joke political bumper stickers? That’s essentially the premise of “Greenland,” a disaster thriller starring Gerard Butler, helmed by his “Angel Has Fallen” director Ric Roman Waugh. The title and premise conjure up visions of heaving CGI glaciers, “Day After Tomorrow” -style catastrophically climate-changed weather events, and one man who tries to stop them all. But the script, by Chris Sparling, is refreshingly scaled to human size, and after living through the events of 2020, the chaos and capriciousness of human decision-making during the apocalypse depicted in “Greenland” is all too plausible.

The set up is basic: Butler is John, a structural engineer in a generic American city (Atlanta, to be exact). His relationship with wife Allison ( Morena Baccarin ) is frosty, hinting at an imminent breakup. They share a precocious son, Nathan (Roger Dale Floyd), who is the one to inform his father that a comet named Clarke is speeding toward Earth, ready to rain space fragments for one heck of a light show. It’s positioned as a spectacular celestial event, nothing to worry about, until John receives a “Presidential Alert” on his phone while buying beer for a barbecue, and an ominous message that he and his family need to report to an Air Force base for evacuation. It’s clear his family has been singled out for some mysterious special treatment when none of his neighbors receive the message as they all watch Tampa reduced to a pile of smoking rubble on TV.

Therein lies the core conflict of this tale, a dark and tragic exploration of sheer human desperation when some are deemed worthy of saving and others are not. While some choose to party or pray in anticipation of Clarke’s devastation, speeding toward Earth bearing an “extinction-level” event, others loot or lie in wait. But for most, the desire to survive turns hysterical, desperate, violent.

Thanks to a blunder of bureaucracy, John, Allison and Nathan are separated at the base minutes before the plane takes off to an unknown destination (it’s Greenland, where a clutch of old nuclear fallout bunkers remains). The trio are forced on an odyssey through an American heart of darkness while trying to reunite, their journeys dictated by the decisions of the people around them, who are constantly choosing between cruelty or kindness.

The struggle to survive, even on what may be an uninhabitable planet, becomes uglier and more treacherous every minute. Waugh maintains barely restrained chaos throughout, which often tends toward the shrill. But Waugh and Sparling keep these moments of conflict and despair grounded in the mundane places: stuck in traffic, on the side of the highway, in the back of a truck. The events of Sparling’s script are not just plausible but recognizable. There’s very little otherworldly about this cinematic apocalypse. These are the people, places and, yes, behaviors we know all too well.

One wouldn’t expect a Gerard Butler action thriller to reflect ourselves and our experience of this year, and in the end “Greenland” does wander into fantasy while purporting that a man (or at least a Gerard Butler) might outrun an extinction-level event. But if we strip away the comets raining fire on Earth, this film is about how the ways in which we treat each other can be a matter of life or death. Even in that darkness, it dares to have a little hope.

‘Greenland’

Rated: PG-13, for intense sequences of disaster action, some violence, bloody images and brief strong language. Running time: 1 hour, 59 minutes Playing: Available Dec. 18 on digital and VOD

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Metacritic reviews

• 83 The Film Stage Dan Mecca The Film Stage Dan Mecca At first glance, Ric Roman Waugh’s Greenland appears to be a spiritual sequel to Geostorm. Also starring Gerard Butler, that 2017 film is a silly, diverting disaster-action epic. Greenland is decidedly more nuanced, cerebral, and, frankly, memorable.
• 75 Chicago Sun-Times Richard Roeper Chicago Sun-Times Richard Roeper Unlike the typical, effects-laden, comet-threatens-the-planet B-movie, Greenland is more in the vein of Steven Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds,” with the scenes of chaos and destruction serving as the backdrop for the story of one family’s desperate quest for survival — even when circumstances have ripped them apart.
• 75 IndieWire David Ehrlich IndieWire David Ehrlich Things grow a bit squidgy whenever Waugh goes in for the money shots, but his eyes are seldom bigger than his wallet in a film that mines little suspense from the Garritys’ far-fetched race to safety, and a lot from their scramble to reunite whenever they get separated.
• 70 The Hollywood Reporter Jordan Mintzer The Hollywood Reporter Jordan Mintzer And yet, what makes Greenland stand out is how, at certain times, what we’re watching doesn’t seem so spectacular, but very much like the real thing — albeit with a fair amount of VFX and Butler’s own brand of sweaty, stress-bucket bravado.
• 63 Slant Magazine Derek Smith Slant Magazine Derek Smith There are enough left turns here to allow us to shake the impression that we’ve been to this rodeo before.
• 63 Chicago Tribune Katie Walsh Chicago Tribune Katie Walsh If we strip away the comets raining fire on the earth, this film is about how the ways in which how we treat each other can be a matter of life or death. Even in that darkness, it dares to have a little hope.
• 60 The Guardian Benjamin Lee The Guardian Benjamin Lee It’s an adequate, involving enough afternoon watch (faint praise: better than Geostorm) and for those with a certain destructive itch that still needs scratching, this should do the job.
• 60 TheWrap Alonso Duralde TheWrap Alonso Duralde For most of its running time, it has a palpable B-movie energy that gives a little oomph to the umpteenth cinematic portrayal of humanity’s end.
• 58 The Playlist Andrew Crump The Playlist Andrew Crump Greenland isn’t some self-insistently timely movie and it probably isn’t the movie we “need” right now. But it’s the movie we have, and its honest to goodness but unintended genre resonance makes it easy to embrace.
• 50 Variety Owen Gleiberman Variety Owen Gleiberman In its relatively small-scale, often rather plodding B-movie way, it wants to do for apocalypse thrillers what “Contagion” did for outbreak movies. And there are moments when it does.
• See all 25 reviews on Metacritic.com
• See all external reviews for Greenland

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Geek Culture | Movies, TV, Comic Books & Video Games

Movie Review – Greenland (2020)

December 17, 2020 by Robert Kojder

Greenland , 2020.

Directed by Ric Roman Waugh. Starring Gerard Butler, Morena Baccarin, David Denman, Hope Davis, Roger Dale Floyd, Scott Glenn, Andrew Bachelor, Merrin Dungey, Holt McCallany, Gary Weeks, Tracey Bonner, Joshua Mikel, Cate Jones, Mike Gassaway, Anissa Matlock, Randall Archer, Scott Poythress, Claire Bronson, and Madison Johnson.

A family struggles for survival in the face of a cataclysmic natural disaster.

Given the history of recent Gerard Butler B-grade action flicks I half expected that Greenland would see the scruffy and imposing physical specimen of an actor find some way to take out the comet by either screaming at it or punching it in a violent drunken rage (like say his Den of Thieves character or just about anyone he plays). And while that does sound, for better or worse, entertaining, director Ric Roman Waugh (a regular collaborator of these Gerard Butler doomsday spectacles) has decided to use the comet as more of a framing device than anything, focusing on how such a cataclysmic scenario would bring out the worst traits of society similar to the actual global health crisis we are fighting through daily.

Working as an engineer, Gerard Butler’s John Garrity and his wife Allison (Morena Baccarin) are just two of the lucky ones selected by the Department of Homeland Security to be flown off to a secluded base that, based on some kind of science, will give a portion of humanity a chance to survive. Their friends and relatives are not selected, subsequently followed up by a surprisingly emotional scene where a woman pleads with them to take her young child with them to the military base. Unfortunately, they can’t for multiple reasons. It also gives Gerard Butler the rare chance to show some range himself as he is clearly not happy with the decision he is making but is forced into.

John and Allison have a young boy of their own to look after named Nathan (Roger Dale Floyd) who, to those paying attention, was not named on the Amber alert style notice. That’s because he has an insulin problem and the government only wants to protect the healthiest individuals. Complicating matters further is the fact that John and Allison have been drifting apart for some time, seemingly only sticking out the marriage for Nathan, and now must come together stronger than ever before to survive a potential mass extinction.

As they are trying to get on the plane that will take them to their last bastion of hope, John forgets the insulin in the car. He decides to run back and go get it, but as you can probably imagine it’s not long before they are completely separated and the military is not letting Nathan on board. Stranded and disconnected, the family must fight their way through everything from riots to those seeking to steal the color-coded wristbands guaranteeing a trip to shelter. The action is impressive both on the ground and in the background, with Gerard Butler supplying the visceral brutality as explosions wreak havoc all over the place. It’s as loud as a Michael Bay movie, but one that’s actually watchable and somewhat reflective of society’s behavior when disaster strikes.

The throughline regarding the parents rekindling their connection in the face of global catastrophe is somewhat cheesy, but it’s the kind of cheese a movie like Greenland needs to deliver. The few and far between touching beats are mere pleasant surprises that know not to get in the way of the grounded reality of chaos on Earth. For as much as I felt like I was watching an uncovered gem from the 90s, Greenland is also a movie befitting of its time that utilizes a pandemic dynamic tastefully unlike a certain piece of garbage that was released last week. There’s also the added bonus that the action is quite literally nonstop once it gets going. Who knew what we could have used all this time was a brainless Gerard Butler flick; it has more heart and substance than you might be led to believe.

Flickering Myth Rating  – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check  here  for new reviews, follow my  Twitter  or  Letterboxd , or email me at [email protected]

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Greenland Might Actually Be Too Effective

Greenland is the furthest thing you can imagine from the schlock-spectacular Armageddon narratives of a Roland Emmerich or a Michael Bay. We go to those movies to enjoy elaborate mayhem visited upon armies of cardboard characters, but Greenland dares to make its catastrophe feel real and its people feel relatable. It’s just escapist enough to fill our disaster-flick needs, but don’t be surprised if Ric Roman Waugh’s film sometimes feels like too much, especially in the middle of an ongoing real-life calamity. To put it a simpler way: Greenland is not just effective; sometimes it’s too effective.

It also makes for a terrific showcase for star Gerard Butler, who has, over the past decade and a half or so, perhaps become our most accessible movie star , the kind of guy you’re just happy to see onscreen. Butler likes to portray rough average Joes trying to do their best (though he does make the occasional foray into alpha-male spittlefests, most notably in 300 and the dementedly enjoyable Coriolanus ). Here, he plays recently separated construction engineer John Garrity, who has eagerly returned to the house from which he was recently kicked out by his wife, Allison (Morena Baccarin), so he can attend their son Nathan’s birthday party. The hot topic of the day is a giant comet called Clarke, which is approaching Earth but will, scientists reassure the world, pass us by. Small chunks of the comet will make it through the atmosphere, however, and John’s neighbors gather around the living-room TV to watch one piece land harmlessly in the Atlantic. Instead, it lands in Tampa, wipes out a good chunk of Florida, and suddenly, as they say, shit gets real. As someone who makes buildings, John discovers he’s been chosen — by some faceless, mechanical government bureaucracy — to be flown out with his family via secret military transport to an undisclosed bunker, where a small number of humans will shelter against what it now seems clear will be an extinction-level event. (You get one guess as to where this secret bunker turns out to be.)

That could be just one story line in any multicharacter disaster extravaganza (as a matter of fact, it’s not dissimilar to one story line in Emmerich’s 2012 ), but Greenland has more in common with Rod Serling than it does with Irwin Allen. When John’s neighbors find out that he’s been selected for survival and they haven’t, they implore him to take them with him, or at least take their kids. Director Waugh embraces and extends the drama without turning anyone into a convenient villain: These are just confused, scared people who don’t know what to do. That idea governs much of Greenland . This is not a Wouldn’t it be awesome if … movie; this is a Wouldn’t it totally suck if … movie.

But it’s also strangely optimistic. As the Garritys’ journey takes them across a wide swath of the country, the film presents us with a society that is simultaneously crumbling to pieces and, in certain corners, functioning surprisingly well. Strangers are kind when you least expect and most need them to be. (Some are less so; this is, after all, still a disaster movie.) Military bases, filled with soldiers who themselves haven’t been selected for survival, function with doomed, can-do efficiency. Everyone has a story, from a seemingly helpful couple on the highway, to a transportation coordinator at an airfield, to some random guys on a truck. A delightfully leathery Scott Glenn pops in as Allison’s father. Holt McCallany shows up, as he’s wont to do. Waugh and writer Chris Sparling seem to understand that narrative conveniences won’t feel like narrative conveniences if you bother to make them actual characters, a lesson not every Hollywood filmmaker learns.

Waugh is quickly becoming our most foremost auteur of Movies That Had No Business Being This Good. He somehow turned Angel Has Fallen , the third (and, I believe, the cheapest) entry in the Has Fallen series (also starring Butler), into something worth celebrating, and he can also lay claim to having given the Rock his best role, in the tense, moving trafficking drama Snitch . The director’s attention to ground-level detail serves him well in the action arena — with both things like fights (there’s a nice little truck throwdown in Greenland ) and ratcheting up tension. The first indications in this movie that something is amiss are a glimpse of a distant armada of jets in the sky and an automated phone call received in the middle of a supermarket run. That may not sound like much, but I kept thinking, This is how it would happen . As the Garritys continue on their increasingly desperate path, they try to maintain their composure around young Nathan, which any parent can relate to. Even the occasional TV and radio broadcasts, going from gee-whiz news stories to sensationalist exploitation to somber scientific pronouncements to fuzzy recorded messages, feel real. The whole damn thing feels real. Which is both a wonderful surprise and a hell of a betrayal for any of us who just wanted to see Gerard Butler fight a comet named Clarke.

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Gerard Butler fights to save his family in an apocalypse thriller that starts slowly but ends with a bang

Time Out says

One of those lower-budget disaster movies where major plot developments are relayed mainly via shots of TV news crews – ‘And we go live to.... this huuuge explosion!’ –   Greenland is a workmanlike but very watchable showcase for the relatable but ever-grizzled Gerard Butler. All the usual apocalypse movie ingredients are here – a looming ‘extinction level’ event, a family in peril, loads of traffic jams, and a bit where a bunch of weirdos have a roof party – but it’s not without heart and some genuine excitement, especially as the clock ticks down. The peril here comes in the fiery shape of a planet-killing comet careering towards Earth. Bits of Comet Clarke (almost certainly not named by the general public) are shearing off and landing around the world. Butler’s structural engineer, John Garrity, his estranged wife Allison (Monica Baccarin) and their diabetic young son, Nathan, learn about it when Florida blows up during a birthday party with their neighbours.

Awkwardly, it’s at the party that John and his family find out that they’ve been selected for military evacuation to a Greenland bunker – his professional skills deemed essential for the post-doomsday reconstruction – while the neighbours are all among the left-behinds. It’s the first of a few scenes where the Garritys’ golden ticket becomes as much a curse as a blessing, most of which are handled with efficiency rather than flair by director Ric Roman Waugh (Butler’s Angel Has Fallen director). 

The sense of a family in two forms of peril – apocalyptic and domestic – is neatly conveyed, even if the Garretys failed first attempts to reach safe harbour feel like narrative wheel-spinning, especially during the predictable hunt for insulin. But if  Greenland  could have done with cutting to the chase a bit quicker, the two leads keep you invested. Baccarin is believable as a strong woman fighting a constant tide of panic, while Butler, finally faced with a nemesis too big to punch and too inanimate to dismiss with a salty putdown, goes fairly white-collar here (he’s useless at fighting) and holds things together nicely. In a movie world filled with superheroes, he could be the last everyman standing.  On Amazon Prime in the UK Fri Feb 5 . On VOD in the US now .

Cast and crew

• Director: Ric Roman Waugh
• Screenwriter: Ric Roman Waugh
• Gerard Butler
• Morena Baccarin
• Roger Dale Floyd
• Scott Glenn

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‘Greenland’ Review: Gerard Butler Stars in a Disaster Movie That’s Better than 2020 Deserves

David ehrlich.

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After the hellscape of a year that was 2020, it stands to reason that a disaster movie about a regular guy and his family trying to stay alive as the world goes to shit around them would feel redundant and/or too close to home. Either way, it seems like something that wouldn’t be worth paying for when you can get the real thing for free by looking at your window, turning on the TV, or — and this one is extra fun — just thinking about literally any single aspect of your life as it’s been since March.

And yet it’s precisely because Ric Roman Waugh’s mid-budget “ Greenland ” eschews Hollywood expectations of its “craggy man vs. a planet-destroying comet” premise and drills in on that human-sized helplessness we’ve all come to know so well that its most effective moments remind us why these movies ever resonated with people in the first place. The universe is a cold and indifferent place where inanimate objects will travel hundreds of thousands of lightyears across the stars just to kill you and everyone you love, but the pathetic smallness of our mortal existence — the silly lives we lead and the people we’re lucky enough to share them with — is precisely what makes them so precious. Maybe that sentiment is too facile to put into words, but it’s just facile enough to build a satisfyingly bone-stupid Gerard Butler vehicle around.

Butler stars as John Garrity, a Scottish-born structural engineer so ordinary that “everyman” feels a little too edgy a term to describe him. If his marriage to Allison (the ever-appealing Morena Baccarin ) were one of the skyscrapers he built, it might not be falling apart. We don’t learn the reason behind their recent separation until toward the end of the film, but it comes as a shock when we do; not because the reveal itself is surprising, but rather because “Greenland” is so light on character detail that you almost can’t believe that it doubles back to fill in that blank. All you really need to know about the Garritys is that the growing distance between them is still bridged by their mutual love for their diabetic seven-year-old son Nathan (Roger Floyd), whose regular need for insulin — to the great shock of anyone who’s never seen a movie before — will very much come up again. (Among other things, “Greenland” is a nail-biter for anyone who’s ever worried about how they’d fare without their respective crutches during an emergency.)

The other thing about Nathan is that he’s super-obsessed with the comet that’s speeding towards Earth. He talks about the interstellar object — dubbed “Clark” — so familiarly that it sounds like his best friend. Maybe it is, the poor kid. He loves Clark. Alas, Clark does not love him back. Clark zapped into Earth’s neighborhood from an unknown solar system in a way that caught NASA flat-footed (and might inspire you to wonder if something more sinister is afoot), and it has no intention of politely burning up in our atmosphere or sinking into the ocean as scientists predict that it will. Please forgive the polling error, but it turns out that Clark is composed of fragments big enough to kill millions of people with each strike, and one particularly hefty chunk — set to make landfall some 48 hours after first impact — will cause what “Deep Impact” fans know as an E.L.E., or extinction-level-event. There’s no stopping it. Robert Duvall is too old to go up there and nuke it from the inside out, and NASA spent too much on Space Force to afford Bruce Willis’ daily rate of one million dollars. The horrifying scene where the Garritys and their neighborhood friends gather around the TV and watch a piece of the comet decimate Tampa confirms what we already feared: Clark kind of sucks.

The only sliver of hope — the only thing that stops “Greenland” from essentially becoming a Barstool-friendly “Melancholia” remake — is the special alert that John gets on his phone. Due to his expertise as an engineer, he and his family have been selected to join other valuable people from around the world in an underground bunker where they might survive the devastation to come. And where is that bunker? Well, our lives would be a lot easier if we knew what the movie about us was called. But hitching a government-operated ride to Greenland won’t be as easy as it sounds, especially once panic sets in and the general public gets wind of the plan.

So begins a resourceful disaster movie that maintains its lock on the intimate anxieties that underwrite our collective fear of city-sized asteroids, underground volcanoes, and Cloverfield monsters — mostly because Waugh can’t afford to divert his attention to the destruction itself. Shot on a shoestring budget relative to the rest of its genre, “Greenland” is able to leverage a blood-red aurora borealis, a handful of fireballs, and a few distant glimpses of space rocks blazing a trail through the night sky into a convincing portrait of a planetary death rattle. Things grow a bit squidgy whenever Waugh goes in for the money shots, but his eyes are seldom bigger than his wallet in a film that mines little suspense from the Garritys’ far-fetched race to safety, and a lot from their scramble to reunite whenever they get separated.

If Waugh lacks the vision and/or resources to compete with something like Steven Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds,” the granular focus of Chris Sparling’s script encourages the director to seize on the moments that are too small for other, more spectacle-oriented disaster movies to accommodate. Show audiences an alien spaceship demolishing the White House and they might lose interest in the chain of command that’s involved in denying a diabetic child access to a military plane, but keep the action on the ground level and the life-or-death stakes of a desperate evacuation come to the fore.

That “Greenland” is able to keep things on a human level for almost the entire duration of its runtime is also made possible by the film’s quiet insistence on the kindness of strangers and the insidiousness that’s made possible by our own self-interest. En masse, the terrified hordes that John and his family encounter are as scary as the comet that’s whipped them into a frenzy, but most of them soften when faced with personal responsibility; the rest are forced into such immediate confrontation with the inhumanity of their actions that only the most desperate of the lot can see them through. One sequence involving Hope Davis and David Denman as a couple who offer Allison and Nathan help is particularly sickening for how it maps a Good Samaritan gone bad.

None of this stuff is rendered with the rigor or curiosity required to elevate “Greenland” too far above the Redbox expectations of its genre; the movie only gets dopier as it makes its way north, and some of the clumsier lines of dialogue underscore the moments in which the filmmakers’ lost faith in the story they were telling (upon learning that comet shards are heading for upstate New York, Allison turns to camera and asks “Isn’t that where we are!?”). But if none of the film’s main characters ever become more than stand-ins for the feelings they’re meant to evoke from us, the unflinching conviction with which “Greenland” commits to those feelings is enough to make it more harrowing than hokey, and more honest than it is far-fetched. At the end of a year full of awful surprises, a twist this inane almost qualifies as a legitimate silver lining: The creative team behind “ Angel Has Fallen ,” of all people, have inadvertently made only the second mainstream film of 2020 that captures what it felt like to live through it, and the first that doesn’t climax with Rudy Giuliani’s penis.

STX Films will release “Greenland” on VOD on Friday, December 18.

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• DVD & Streaming
• Action/Adventure , Drama , Thriller

Content Caution

In Theaters

• Gerard Butler as John Garrity; Morena Baccarin as Allison Garrity; Roger Dale Floyd as Nathan Garrity; Scott Glenn as Dale; Randal Gonzalez as Bobby; Claire Bronson as Debra Jones; Madison Johnson as Ellie Jones; Gary Weeks as Ed Pruitt

Home Release Date

• December 18, 2020
• Ric Roman Waugh

Distributor

• STX Entertainment

Movie Review

John and Allison Garrity are working through issues in their marriage. After years of broken communication and an affair, Allison just isn’t sure she can trust John. And John’s not sure if his wife will ever forgive him. But things are about to change.

During son Nathan’s birthday party, John receives a strange message from U.S. Homeland Security: He and his family have been selected for relocation.

Turns out, a comet named Clark is plummeting toward earth. At first, experts reported that Clark would peacefully fall into the ocean. But they were wrong. Clark is headed for Earth at top speed. And only certain families have been chosen for safe relocation to underground bunkers in a secure location.

As pieces of the comet fall around the world, death and devastation are inevitable. Now, John must safely transport his family to the nearest military base where they’re promised a safe journey and protection.

But as they make their way to safety, they begin to understand that people are being chosen based on certain specifications. And when their sick son doesn’t make the cut, they’re turned away and accidentally separated. It will take everything in John and Allison’s power to reunite and find a way to live as the world around them dies.

Positive Elements

John, Allison and Allison’s father are all protectors and providers in their own ways. John goes to great lengths to find his family and to do what is best, even when he’s deterred. Allison fiercely fights for her son and his safety. And Allison’s father yearns to protect his daughter’s heart.

A few people are genuinely kind and caring to John and Allison and give them hope in seemingly hopeless situations. Military soldiers sacrifice their lives for civilians even when they’re not chosen for relocation.

John, Allison and Nathan learn the importance of living in the moment and cherishing the time they have together. This is shown not only in speech but in flashbacks picturing all the happy memories they’ve shared together. John and Allison repair their marriage and forgive one another. They also comfort their son and others in times of need.

Spiritual Elements

Allison’s father assures her that he will be ready to die when the “good Lord” is ready for him to go and join his wife in heaven. A group of people congregate outside of a Baptist church. A man says, “My thoughts and prayers are with all of you.” A radio announcer reads an apocalyptic passage from Revelation about “wormwood” falling from the sky.

Sexual Content

A few women sport cleavage-baring tops. Allison and John kiss, hug and hold hands. A man admits to an affair that he knows will haunt him the rest of his life.

Violent Content

The comet Clark ravages Earth’s surface in many places as it falls from the sky. Buildings are set ablaze, and people are killed by debris. Entire cities, countries and even continents are decimated by the comet’s fragments and its shockwaves. Reporters capture these images on camera before they too are killed by the impact. Some news images include people screaming and crying and dead bodies lying on the ground.

Planes and helicopters fall from the sky as debris hits them. A pilot’s plane crashes, and he’s stabbed through the chest with a piece of ice as he crashes into the side of a mountain.

As the state of the world declines, looters break into pharmacies and shoot and kill innocent people. Including one elderly woman who lies on the ground in a pool of her own blood. Elsewhere, a fist fight breaks out and one man is accidentally stabbed in the head with a hammer and killed, while another lies on the ground, covered in blood.

We hear over the radio that millions of people are dead and that more than 75% of the world’s population and animals will be wiped out.

Allison hitches a ride from a seemingly kind couple who throw her out of the car and abduct her son.

Crude or Profane Language

The f-word is used once and censored once. The s-word is heard nearly 10 times. Jesus’ name is misused three times; God’s name is misused four times, once paired with “d–n.” Other profanities include a few utterances of “d–n” and “d–mit.”

Drug and Alcohol Content

Allison drinks a glass of wine and asks John to pick up wine and beer for a birthday party. A group of young adults cheer and drink beer on a rooftop as a comet destroys the Earth. 

Other Negative Elements

As the state of the world declines, people show their worst sides as they’re driven by fear. People slowly start to learn that some men and women are being selected for relocation based solely on their job descriptions and wealth.

From the creators of the John Wick series, Greenland is a PG-13 action thriller from beginning to end. Starring Gerard Butler and Morena Baccarin, this nonstop roller coaster ride centers on familial love, commitment and forgiveness.

These themes are certainly evident as we see people sacrifice their lives for one another and fight at all costs to protect those they love.

But there’s still more here to deal with. Destruction, decimation and death feel never-ending and can be quite graphic. Humanity shows its true colors as fear sets in and people panic. Some moments of harsh profanity are present too.  

Yes, there are positives here as a family’s love carries this film, but there are also cautionary notes that families should be aware of, too.

Kristin Smith

Kristin Smith joined the Plugged In team in 2017. Formerly a Spanish and English teacher, Kristin loves reading literature and eating authentic Mexican tacos. She and her husband, Eddy, love raising their children Judah and Selah. Kristin also has a deep affection for coffee, music, her dog (Cali) and cat (Aslan).

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Greenland Review

By now, we’ve all got enough of a handle on Gerard Butler ’s pulpy, testosterone-fuelled, B-movie output that we know, with absolute certainty, what a movie in which he faces off against a planet-killing comet will look like. Geostorm 2.0, right? In which our gruff hero absolutely chins the living hell out of a flying piece of space-rock before kicking it down a well with the rejoinder, “THIS! IS! EARTH!” Happily, Greenland is a very different proposition — and, perhaps surprisingly, a much better one.

Reteaming with his Angel Has Fallen director Ric Roman Waugh , Greenland is interesting for a number of reasons, not least of which is its determination to treat the death of the world by solid rock with rock-solid verisimilitude. And if that means that it’s time to park the OTT heroics for a man who usually trades almost exclusively in OTT heroism, then so be it. Less a case of The Butler Did It, more What The Butler Saw, Waugh and writer Chris Sparling are happy to place Butler at the fringes of cosmic events so big that there’s very little he can do except look on, and try to stay alive. This is a movie about a desperate struggle for survival, not one-liners and headbutts. An action set-piece in Greenland means a man running back to his car to fetch something left behind. Okay, there’s a bit where Butler’s John Garrity faces off against two guys, armed only with a hammer, but the movie makes it very clear that, for once, he has absolutely no clue what he’s doing. There’s something in Butler’s eyes throughout that we haven’t seen very often in his work: fear.

That’s as a result of the decision to eschew the multi-character approach, and the bombastic, apocalypse porn of previous killer-comet movies like 1998’s double whammy of Deep Impact and Armageddon (okay, asteroid in the latter). If you’re looking for a Roland Emmerich-style wallow in the destruction of major cities, move on, pal. Waugh correctly guesses that we’ve had enough of watching CG waves (either of water or fire) smash into skyscrapers. When those bits do come, they’re glimpsed as part of news reports, rather than as sequences in their own right.

The opening half-hour feels absolutely plausible, and absolutely horrifying.

Instead, Waugh and Sparling go down the same road Spielberg travelled with War Of The Worlds , focusing entirely on Garrity’s day; one that begins with him going about his business, with barely a care in the world (other than, of course, a very fraught marital situation back at home, with a wife who no longer trusts him), and ends with humanity suddenly very aware that the comet, Clarke, which was meant to harmlessly sail past Earth, is instead going to give it a million-degree makeover.

The opening half-hour, in which Waugh’s relentlessly urgent and roving camera tracks Butler as the full horror of the situation dawns on him, and everyone else around him, feels absolutely plausible, and absolutely horrifying. Vast convoys of planes in the sky act as portents; government text messages meant for him, and him only (as a structural engineer, he’s a man whose particular set of skills would be in demand to help rebuild any post-impact society), come at the worst possible time, sending his neighbours into paroxysms of panic; the roads quickly gnarl up as people pile into their cars to try to escape the inescapable.

Once the Garritys hit the road, the film begins to feel like the last 20 minutes of Miracle Mile , in which society crumbles in double-quick time. Things quickly go wrong for the Garritys, which allows Morena Baccarin a chance to shine as a mother overcome with terror, and as they both set about overcoming all manner of adversity, they encounter the best and worst of humanity in double-quick time. It’s a talkier, more philosophical movie than you might have expected, with the emphasis on character throughout. But, even though the tone is serious, this isn’t ‘Threads Part II’ (you’ll be glad to hear), and there is a tendency to sprinkle one-damn-thing-after-another crises into the mix just to make sure you’re still awake. Which you will be — by focusing on the plight of one family, and with Butler the most engaging, vulnerable and downright human he’s been for a while, even if the film never quite matches the impact of that opening act, you’ll be tense all the way through to the impacts of the final act.

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Greenland (U.S.A./U.K., 2020)

As disaster movies go, Greenland is neither exceptionally good nor exceptionally bad. It postulates what might happen if, at some point in the near future, our planet has a too-near brush with a disintegrating comet whose smaller pieces wreak havoc and whose big chunk offers an ELE (extinction level event) not dissimilar to the one that wiped out T-Rex and the Cretaceous Boys. Thankfully, we aren’t subjected to an Armageddon -like scenario. Greenland ’s approach is more realistic: the comet is coming, there’s not a damn thing we can do about it, so how might it be possible to preserve a sliver of humankind?

The premise might work for either (a) a miniseries, or (b) an art-house film that functions as a meditation on how society faces imminent death. Neither option, however, is within Greenland ’s purview. Since the movie isn’t especially interested in addressing existential questions or (for that matter) providing a special effects-laden bird’s eye view of the catastrophe, the only thing left is to follow a small group of characters in what amounts to an apocalyptic race against time. In order to drag things out, they are separated and have to find one another before embarking on a long-shot sprint for safety. (Guess where that “safety” is located… Hint: consider the movie’s title.)

As the movie begins, we discover that good-guy John is involved in a bit of a marital discord with his wife, Allison (Morena Baccarin). It’s not clear whether the two are divorced or merely taking a break from one another, but they are on speaking terms and John is still there for his son, Nathan (Roger Dale Floyd). When it becomes clear that scientists have misjudged the threat posed by a near-Earth comet, the government puts out an alert for certain skilled people (John is a structural engineer who builds big buildings) to bring their families and head to a pre-determined military base where their identities can be verified and they can be whisked off to a super-secret bunker location. Of course, things don’t go smoothly. (If they did, there wouldn’t be much of a movie. Or, at least it would have been mercifully shorter. Greenland runs at least 30 minutes too long.)

In different times, it might have been possible to give Greenland a lukewarm recommendation for anyone looking for something frenetic and mindless. But the pandemic has twisted expectations and what might have been deemed “fun” has taken on a darker cast. Death on a mass scale only works as entertainment when it’s kept at arm’s length. The events chronicled in Greenland are (at least currently) science fiction but some of the implications hit too close to home for the movie to be effective in the way the filmmakers intended.

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• Hidden Fortress, The (1962)
• Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
• Braveheart (1995)
• Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003)
• Catwoman (2004)
• Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2012)
• Mrs. Brown (1997)
• How to Train Your Dragon (2010)
• Bounty Hunter, The (2010)
• Dracula 2000 (2000)
• Deadpool (2016)
• Serenity (2005)
• Deadpool 2 (2018)
• Ode to Joy (2019)
• Once Upon a Deadpool (2018)
• (There are no more worst movies of Morena Baccarin)
• (There are no more better movies of Roger Dale Floyd)
• (There are no more worst movies of Roger Dale Floyd)

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[Greenland(2020)] One of the most stressful movies I have ever watched, and that’s not a negative criticism. Spoiler free below.

Greenland(2020), with Morena Baccarin and my boy Gerard Butler, is the most stressful movie I have ever sat through. I usually watch a movie before I go to bed and typically fall asleep during, picking it up the next day. That’s just my MO. I was planning on dozing off to Greenland, but holy shit, I was sweating watching this movie. I stayed up till 2am finishing it because I legitimately could not go to sleep, let alone relax. It was a decent film, I just thought they portrayed the stress of the world ending and the “every man for themselves” mindset very well. Definitely worth a watch.

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Greenland Movie: A Deep Dive into the Disaster Drama

Greenland was released in 2020 and was directed by Ric Roman Waugh . The high-octane disaster drama tells the story of the Garrity family as they fight for survival as a cataclysmic comet heads to Earth. With time quickly running out, John Garrity ( Gerard Butler ) must wrangle his family across country to a possible safe haven.

Greenland is packed full of action but also carries an undertone of family values. After making a marriage mistake, John must now fight to regain the trust of his wife during a truly terrifying situation. The disaster drama stands proud and tall against other blockbusters like Volcano , and Twister , quickly marking itself as a classic in the disaster genre. So, let’s take a deep dive into Ric Roman Waugh’s exhilarating movie, Greenland .

Ric Roman Waugh’s Star Continues to Rise With the Success of His Movie – Greenland

Ric Roman Waugh was born on February 20, 1968, in Los Angeles, California. He started his career in Hollywood as a stuntman in the 1980s before transitioning to directing. However, he rose to fame after directing the gritty prison drama, Felon , in 2008. Although the film was a straight-to-DVD release, it garnered a cult following, and it showcased what Waugh was capable of. With this success, he went on to direct action epics like Snitch starring Dwayne Johnson , and Angel Has Fallen , starring Gerard Butler. Each film showcased Waugh’s ability to create gritty, action-packed films that captivated audiences.

Greenland stands out as Waugh’s most daring project to date. He proved that he could lead a big-budget movie and deliver both action and heart at the same time. In 2024, he is set to start work on the sequel to Cliffhanger . Sylvester Stallone will return to role and Waugh will direct.

A Deep Dive into the Cast of Greenland

Gerard butler as john garrity.

Gerard Butler is a Scottish actor who started his career in the entertainment industry as a lawyer before landing a role in the James Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies . However, it was his breakthrough performance in the 2006 film 300 that catapulted him to international fame. He then went on to star in various blockbuster hits, including The Phantom of the Opera , Olympus Has Fallen , and the romantic comedy, P.S. I Love You . However, Greenland truly stands out as one of his top performances, showcasing his nuanced acting abilities as a desperate father who will stop at nothing to protect his family from a catastrophic event.

Morena Baccarin as Allison Garrity

Morena Baccarin is a Brazilian-American actress who was born on June 2, 1979, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She moved to New York City with her family when she was just seven years old. Baccarin is best known for her roles in hit television series such as Firefly , where she played the character of Inara Serra, and in Homeland , where she portrayed Jessica Brody. She was also a part of the cast of Gotham , playing the role of Leslie Thompkins. However, it was her role in Greenland that truly showcased her impeccable acting skills, portraying a devoted mother fighting for her son’s safety. Baccarin and Butler’s chemistry was a highlight of the film, carrying the picture with great emotional depth throughout.

Roger Dale Floyd as Nathan Garrity

Roger Dale Floyd is a bright, rising star in the world of acting. Born in 2012, he has already displayed an impressive talent for the craft, proving that he is more than capable of holding his own against seasoned professionals. He has captivated audiences with his compelling performances, showcasing a natural ability to convey complex emotions with ease. Floyd’s roles in major films, such as Doctor Sleep , and Greenland , have firmly established him as a force to be reckoned with, and his star continues to rise.

Scott Glenn as Dale

Scott Glenn portrayed Dale in Greenland,  the father of Allison. As he comes to terms with the potential end of the world, he finally lets go of his negative feelings for John and entrusts him with keeping his daughter and grandson safe. Glenn has a penchant for playing tough-as-nails characters like that of Dale. His most iconic roles include Backdraft , Training Day , and The Bourne Legacy . He is set to forefront the horror movie, Eugene the Marine , in 2024.

Where You Can Watch Greenland

Greenland was released in the United States on December 18, 2020. It was first released on Peacock. It is also available to stream on HBO Max . In the UK, Greenland was released as a Prime Video Original , where it can still be streamed currently. As of 2023, the disaster drama is still generating attraction as a solid action drama. Thanks to its glaring success, a sequel is in the works, entitled Greenland: Migration . Butler and Baccarin will reprise their roles, and Waugh is slated to return to the director’s chair. The plot will once again focus on the Garrity family, who must now leave the safety of the Greenland bunker and embark on a dangerous mission across the lifeless frozen wasteland of Europe in search of a new home.

Matthew C. F

Matthew is a lover of all things TV and Film. An over consumer you might say. He has a passion for writing and creating and has written over 10 feature films, a handful of TV pilots and is currently writing his first novel.

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Inside Out 2: The Heartwarming Bing Bong Easter Egg Explained (& Where To Spot It)

"we're not remaking that movie": bill skarsgard distances his version of the crow from brandon lee's, star wars has given the sith one force power that makes palpatine almost unbeatable.

How realistic is Ric Roman Waugh ’s sci-fi disaster movie, Greenland ? Greenland chronicles the tale of a family, who is faced with a struggle for survival amid the possibility of planetary annihilation due to an approaching comet. Greenland is currently available for viewing on HBO Max and Amazon Prime.

Greenland opens with the story of John Garrity (Gerard Butler) and his wife Alison ( Gotham ’s Morena Baccarin) living near Atlanta Georgia, who are temporarily separated, yet trying their best to make things work between them. They come together at a neighborhood party to watch a chunk of a comet pass through the Earth’s atmosphere; however, it turns out that the comet is expected to hit the planet and annihilate all life within a few days. Meanwhile, John gets an invitation for him and his family to a top-secret bunker in Greenland, which would allow them to survive. As the couple and their child, Nathan, struggle to get there, all hell breaks loose while the whole of humanity scrambles for survival.

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In terms of how scientifically accurate Greeland is, Waugh carried out personal research into the practical nitty-gritties of comets, while consulting with scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This process was completed by further speculation into what could realistically occur if a comet was set to destroy the Earth’s surface, lending an aura of authenticity to the film’s titular premise. Waugh also used a prehistoric event as a reference point, mainly the asteroid that rendered dinosaurs extinct 66 million years ago, which posited a host of contradictory notions about the matter. While Waugh kept these factors in mind, the crux of Greenland is ultimately its emotional weight, as an over-reliance on scientific accuracy could possibly hamper the film’s dramatic center, which is the story of a family struggling for survival.

Moreover, the actors, especially Butler and Baccarin , were heavily involved in discussions regarding respective character trajectories, especially how they would be reacting to such high-stakes situations. To back up the situation’s probable authenticity, the narrative draws direct parallels to the Tunguska event in Siberia, wherein a small-body explosion flattened all the trees in the area. The eye-witness reports of the comet, fictionally named Clarke, seems to have echoes of eyewitness reports of an asteroid breakup in Chelyabinsk, Russia. However, Greenland suffers from a scientific standpoint in two major areas - one being the lack of clarity in tracking the comet’s path, and how such impending predictions are monitored in general, which almost always result in evacuation in dire scenarios.

Hence, scientifically accurate or not, Greenland is a tough watch after the effects of the pandemic, especially during sequences that touch upon family separation, pressing circumstances, and lost medication during times of duress. The trauma experienced by the film’s characters are altogether jarring, intimate, and upsetting in nature. While Greenland is hard-hitting as a disaster movie , the reaction of the human race to impending worldwide annihilation is more terrifying to behold, with the news featuring heartbreaking stories on the daily and grocery stores being emptied of essential goods.

NEXT: Every Sci-Fi Movie That Destroyed The Statue Of Liberty

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Morena Baccarin Reveals the Surprising Physical Toll ‘Greenland’s Sequel Has Taken

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The Big Picture

• Morena Baccarin reveals filming Greenland: Migration was physically and emotionally draining.
• Ben McKenzie hints that the sequel takes things to a whole new level with a more global feel and bigger stunts.
• Fans can catch the original Greenland on Max or Prime Video before the highly anticipated sequel hits theaters.

At FanExpo Chicago, Collider's Steve Weintraub sat down with Gotham co-stars Morena Baccarin and Ben McKenzie for an engaging panel discussion. Among the topics discussed was the highly anticipated sequel to the 2020 disaster thriller Greenland , titled Greenland: Migration . Baccarin gave fans an inside look at the grueling process of filming the sequel, which wrapped recently. The original film is a disaster thriller about a family struggling to survive as comet fragments crash into Earth, causing widespread destruction. The film follows John Garrity ( Gerard Butler ) and his family as they race to reach a secure bunker in Greenland amidst the chaos. The movie’s intense focus on survival and emotional drama was a surprise smash with audiences, leading to the development of a sequel.

Weintraub kicked things off by asking Baccarin if she ever expected Greenland to be the project that would lead to a sequel, given her diverse filmography. He also inquired about the challenges of the sequel's production. "It was the hardest shoot of my life ," Baccarin revealed. "Not the easiest, not the most fun. A really difficult experience. We were outside a lot. We shot in London and we shot in Iceland. It was physically draining, emotionally draining."

'Greenland: Migration' Has a Lot Going for It

Baccarin's honest reflection on the filming conditions hinted at the intense atmosphere on set. "I don't know if you've had a catch-up with [ director Ric Roman Waugh ] recently, but I'm sure it felt the same way for him," she explained.

"I think that the film has really wonderful things going for it, the story of this family that really is trying to survive, and I think that that really works and I think that's why it got a sequel. I am very curious to see it myself because I feel like it was a blur of exhaustion and running and crying, and much like the first, really."

McKenzie chimed in to add that, from what he'd heard, Greenland: Migration takes things to a whole new level. "But the second movie does have a more global feel to it," he noted. "You know, it was shot in Europe, and various other locations. It seems to, not to put words in your mouth, provide a similar experience to the viewer, but even grander, even bigger. It’s pretty cool, a lot of stunts."

For fans who want to see Greenland before catching Greenland: Migration, whenever it lands in theaters, the film is available to stream on Max . For those without the Max service, Greenland is also available to rent or purchase on Prime Video . Stay tuned to Collider for all the latest news on Greenland: Migration.

Watch on Max

• Morena Baccarin