Greenland

Directed by Ric Roman Waugh, Greenland details the chaos that ensues after it’s revealed that a world-killing comet is due to hit the planet within just a matter of days – with the narrative following Gerard Butler’s John Garrity as he attempts to find safe haven for his wife (Morena Baccarin’s Allison) and son (Roger Dale Floyd’s Nathan). Filmmaker Waugh, working from Chris Sparling’s screenplay, delivers an impressively tense and gripping opening stretch that effectively establishes the central characters and the dire situation in which they find themselves, with the engaging, engrossing atmosphere perpetuated and heightened by Waugh’s stylish visuals and a predictably solid turn by Butler. It’s disappointing to note, then, that Greenland segues into an aggressively familiar second act that contains some of the genre’s hoariest (and most unwelcome) plot devices, including the protagonists’ encounters with villainous figures and an emphasis on John’s efforts at reuniting with his family, although the picture’s grim, epic scope does prove effective at compensating for the few missteps contained within Sparling’s hit-and-miss script. The midsection’s erratic atmosphere is rendered moot as Greenland progresses into its fairly captivating race-against-the-clock final third, with the thoroughly satisfying climactic stretch cementing the movie’s place as an uneven yet, ultimately, completely rewarding (and above-average) disaster flick.

***1/2 out of ****

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