The Movie: Greenland
The Director: Ric Roman Waugh
The Cast: Gerard Butler, Morena Baccarin, Roger Dale Floyd, Scott Glenn ,David Denman, Hope Davis
The Story: A family struggles for survival in the face of a cataclysmic natural disaster.
The Review:
Sometimes you want a movie to be a certain thing and you really hope it doesn't stray too far from that path and sometimes a movie is exactly that and it makes you happy. Greenland is not a great movie and it's not a terrible movie. It is a solid story, it does everything it's supposed to do, and it relies on humanity over outlandish special effects to tell a story that we typically see go all out with special effects and extravagant action sequences. That being said, this is a movie about an extinction level event along the lines of movies like Deep Impact, Armageddon, and 2012 so we do get to see some large scale destruction, it's just not over the top and kind of stays within the context of the movie if that makes sense.
Gerard Butler has become one of those actors who has found the tone and style of movie that fits him just perfectly and he keeps making exactly those types of movies and I enjoy every single one of them. He is very dependable, very entertaining, he is a legit movie star and action star and best of all, you never know if he is going to have an accent or not until you are actually watching the movie. This is not a knock on him in any way, it's become a fun thing to look forward to as each new movie comes out. I have been a fan of Mr. Butler probably since 300 which is about as extravagant and over the top as a movie can get but that was well before this current run of films.
I mentioned the humanity earlier and what I meant by that is how the story focuses on people over effects and we actually get some meaningful interactions inside of all the action and running around. There's a story between Butler's character and his wife, played by Morena Bacarrin that I wish would have been explored a little further and this also would have made the scenes with her father, played by an on top of his game Scott Glenn, even more impactful. Another thing I was thankful for is that their kid, played by Roger Dale Floyd, isn't annoying at all! I say this because so oftentimes, especially in these types of movies, kids can be overused, over dramatic, and they are just too much to handle.
The Verdict:
Greenland isn't the type of movie that will blow you away or have you marveling at the endless stream of CGI destruction but what it does do, it does just well enough. This is about as much of a Gerard Butler movie as it could possibly be and I mean that in the best way possible.
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