If we are to believe the disaster genre, global disasters are nothing less than free relationship counseling and family counseling. Why spend all this time trying to repair your marriage or become a better parent for your marriage? children when a few days in the face of some destruction from alien invaders, asteroids or extremely bad weather succeeds? Greenland is no different in this regard. Pandemic is doomed, our annual Gerard Butler movie song by number is here, and if Paisley’s favorite son isn’t going to save the president or the planet, at least he will save his family.
To be fair, Butler’s character, John Garrity, is less of a monomaniacal he-man than the star’s usual frowning, federally employed rescuers. He’s a structural engineer whose marriage is already on the rocks, well, real rocks are starting to fall from the sky – interstellar debris from a passing comet. The first is destroying Tampa, and many more to come, including an extinction-sized “planet killer”. Not knowing that this would happen appears to be a serious gross negligence on the part of the scientific community. But who has the time to blame someone when the whole world is looking for cover?
Greenland‘s script actually adds an intriguing wrinkle to the pre-apocalyptic battle for security. The Garritys – John, his wife Allison (Morena Baccarin) and their 7-year-old son Nathan (Roger Dale Floyd) – sit in the living room with their neighbors watching the first chunk of comet debris entering the atmosphere on TV. Something went terribly wrong. The car in question did not explode in a light show over the Atlantic Ocean as promised. When reports of vandalism come in, an emergency alert lights up on John’s phone – and no one else’s – followed by an automatic call with instructions to pack a bag and report to a nearby air base for evacuation to unknown parts.
It’s clear what’s going on. The days are numbered and soon CNN will be broadcasting that 40-year-old band from the military band playing “Nearer, My God, To Thee.” A doomsday backup plan has just been activated, and John and his family are part of it, while their friends and relationships are not. Except, as the Garritys learn the hard way, their evacuation order was a mistake; they would have been removed from the list because of Nathan’s diabetes. As for where the apocalypse-proof bunkers may be, that’s a government secret. (It’s Greenland.)
It’s easy to imagine how a better film could continue this cruel psychological experiment to the end – perhaps even lead to an ironic conclusion that the predicted great event never takes place. But this is a Gerard Butler film. It responds to its gruff call and the lowest common denominator of a potboiler formula: reunite the family, avoid bad strangers, go to safety. At some point, people begin to wish Butler was playing one of his sadistic hardasses, instead of an approach to a repentant everyone. We’re supposed to feel the violence here, but director Ric Roman Waugh (from last year’s Gerard Butler movie, Angel fell), doesn’t seem to be bothered to maintain a sense of tension after act 1 nightmare scenarios.
Instead, we put up with what feels like the elaborate cut of one of six simultaneous plots in a Roland Emmerich movie, just to be treated to the grand finale of fiery digital bubble gum drops and cheap, cheap effects. If a movie is to kill most species in the name of the nuclear family, it should at least be done with some staging and style.