Greenland

Available on Amazon Prime Video.

A massive comet is heading towards Earth, at first thought to be no more than a light show with fragments harmlessly crashing towards us, however, it soon becomes clear it is going to be much more. Written by Chris Spurling, directed by Ric Roman Waugh, Greenland is the archetypal disaster movie.

Gerard Butler plays John Garrity a structural engineer who receives a presidential alert saying he and his family, estranged wife Alison (Morena Baccarin) and son Nathan (Roger Dale Floyd), have been selected for shelter, all they need to do is get to the airforce base and be flown to their secret destination, of course, as with all disaster movies, it’s not that straightforward.

Let’s be clear there is nothing original here, it ticks all the disaster movie boxes, loving but flawed husband, strained marriage and a son to focus on.

While there are moments that make you ask “why would you do that?” overall it does a good job of remaining believable. Butler’s character doesn’t become some kind of super human, determined to protect his family but not by fighting endless bad guys or with unrealistic feats of bravery and cunning, Baccarin the same while avoiding the tip into distressed damsel. Instead Greenland slowly and realistically winds up the tension until its final act crescendo and is the better for it.

This won’t be something that will live long in my memory, but while it lasted it was a decent bit of disaster movie fun and maybe a message for the time, it doesn’t matter how bad it gets there is always hope for the future.