Rated MA15+, 120 minutes, Amazon Prime
Disaster movies, by and large, are not about disasters. Theyâre about the triumph of the human family when faced with overwhelming odds. When was the last disaster film you saw where everyone, including the main stars, actually died? Imagine a big new screen movie about Pompeii that told the truth â âno survivorsâ isnât a great selling point.
Gerard Butler in a scene from the Amazon Prime film Greenland.
Credit:Amazon Prime
Greenland is better than that, while still respecting the rules of the genre. It has more brains than I expected from a disaster film, because itâs about some real and present dangers. Gerard Butler, with his firm Scottish jaw, is a reassuring leading man, although it was once going to be Chris Evans. Whoâs better, Captain America or the guy who has saved more presidents than Clint Eastwood?
Greenland, an unequivocally bleak and hugely watchable disaster movie with a sci-fi edge.
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The film was originally set to be released in cinemas in July 2020, but became another victim of covid-19 closures.
Greenland was eventually released online in the US in December and in the UK from 5 February, so anyone hoping to catch its full destructive power on the big screen will have to settle for home viewing.
Written by Chris Sparling (
Buried) and co-produced by Butler,
Greenland follows a family which must fight for survival while a planet-levelling comet races towards Earth. Structural engineer John Garrity (Butler) lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with his estranged wife Allison (
ON DEMAND
Kid Cosmic (Netflix, from Tuesday) The brainchild of Emmy-winning animation expert Craig McCracken, who has previously worked on the likes of The Powerpuff Girls and Dexter s Laboratory. At the centre of the story is a little boy who lives with his free-spirited Grandpa in a desert town. The youngster longs to become a hero, and thinks he s found a way of making it happen when he finds some magical stones in a wrecked spaceship. He and his friends set out to use them against an alien invasion, but matters don t go to plan.
Firefly Lane (Netflix, from Wed)
At the end of the world, ‘Greenland’ is where humanity endures
Morena Baccarin, Roger Dale Floyd and Gerard Butler star in a scene from the movie Greenland. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III adults. The Motion Picture Association rating is PG-13 parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. (CNS photo/STXfilms)
By John Mulderig • Catholic News Service • Posted January 8, 2021
NEW YORK (CNS) As if to demonstrate that something even worse than a pandemic could befall humanity, along comes the apocalyptic action drama “Greenland” (STX).
A steady focus on the believable characters who populate it elevates director Ric Roman Waugh’s engaging film above the status of a disaster movie. But the positive values displayed along the path of the quest for survival he and screenwriter Chris Sparling chart are offset by the disturbing nature of the mayhem they unleash.
Streaming on Video on Demand 12.18
It’s always been a bit strange to me when the end of the world as we know it is thought to be a fun premise for a blockbuster
2012 and especially
Knowing being prime examples but of all the times that I haven’t been in the mood for “what if one day civilization and all as we know it life was destroyed?” as escapist fare, I think this year takes the cake.
Greenland is the newest “object hurtling toward earth” movie (because 1998 was over twenty years ago), and it’s time to remind audiences how loosely the term “entertainment” can be applied to film.