Greenland

The synopsis of Greenland suggests it's a typical bombastic action story about preventing the end of the world and the fact it stars Gerard Butler who is very much known for his bombastic action films doesn't help that fact. Though this is a film about a world-ending comet approaching Earth, it isn't some absurd attempt to perform impossible sci-fi shenanigans, it's really a family drama within an apocalypse scenario. 

John Garrity (Butler) receives an alert to travel to an airport to be taken to shelter along with his wife Allison (Morena Baccarin) and young son Nathan just before a fragment of comet obliterates Florida. The family must rush to attempt to find safety before an extinction-level fragment hits, facing panicked citizens, anarchy and comet-related drama along the way, whilst trying to fix a troubled marriage too. 

I am generally a fan of apocalypse stories because they are a fantastic way of bringing out the extremes in humanity. I find they generally work better if the apocalyptic threat is only the catalyst of the story rather than the focus and that's the case here- the comet is largely (and literally) in the background, it's more about getting to safety than the comet itself. 

Gerard Butler is great in this film and rather than playing his usual absurd nigh-on superhuman characters he just plays a normal bloke who is a builder. He's not therefore performing incredible stunts and constantly punching people but that doesn't mean he is any less of a hero. His motivation is to save his wife and son but he spends time saving others when he feels he has to. He's a proper everyman hero, in the vein of the heroes of John Wyndham's novels, and that works so well in this scenario. I also like that they made him Scottish, because Butler doesn't really do accents, and actually put in some dialogue which gives it a relevance to the plot at times.

There's not a lot wrong with Morena Baccarin's performance either and her story mostly focuses on keeping her son safe. Nathan has diabetes and requires a supply of insulin. It's such a normal, everyday thing which is still rarely seen in cinema but at the same time it adds a lot to the plot because having the insulin is so vital to keep Nathan healthy that obtaining it becomes a secondary plot to the overarching goal of getting to safety. 

Though the film is pretty bleak, which isn't exactly ideal when we're still dealing with a devastating worldwide pandemic, I felt like there was an unusual positivity to the characters. There are a handful of horrible people, most desperate to save themselves, but the vast majority of people the family meet are wonderful. The soldiers are kind and respectful when facing hugely challenging circumstances, a doctor is really kind to Allison and helps her find her son, a Latino family who hardly speak English pick Allison up when she is abandoned on the highway and people make space in vehicles to allow the family room to sit. Despite the utter bleakness of the scenario, this is a film which believes in the basic kindness of humanity and that's refreshing to see. 

The film isn't perfect by any stretch- there is one scene where the comet briefly becomes a deadly threat in a small area which wasn't really needed in the plot and didn't make a whole lot of sense and the whole story of the three characters being separated and reunited wasn't totally convincing and relied on an absurd amount of luck. 

On the whole though, I really liked the film. It would be easy to consider it a typical sci-fi action piece of nonsense but on the whole the scale is much smaller than that and though there is a bleakness to it I thought there was actually plenty of hope and optimism to be found under the surface.