Film Review

Greenland (2021)

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

A disaster film starring Gerard Butler, from the director of Angel Has Fallen (2019), creates certain expectations. Butler could have starred in Michael Bay’s Armageddon (1998) had his success come a decade earlier, but Greenland is more in the vein of Mimi Leder’s thoughtful Deep Impact (1998), only faster-paced and with a welcome focus on social drama.

The world is excitedly watching the near-earth passing of a comet named Clarke, which hangs prominent in the sky. And that includes structural engineer John Garrity (Butler), his estranged wife Allison (Morena Baccarin), and their young diabetic son Nathan (Roger Dale Floyd) living in Atlanta, Georgia. But after receiving an unexpected “Presidential Alert” on his phone, telling John his family’s been selected for emergency sheltering, his life takes a nightmarish turn when a chunk of comet expected to land in the ocean instead wipes out the city of Tampa, Florida. As his quiet neighbourhood descends into panic, John whisks his family to an evacuation flight out of Warner Robins Air Force Base, but…