Greenland

This disaster movie could easily have limited itself to large-scale destruction, but it becomes much more effective when it narrows its focus and concentrates on an ordinary family trying to survive. That is, for me, one of its main strengths.

Gerard Butler works precisely because he does not need to become his usual action superman here. His character is more effective as someone overwhelmed by an impossible situation, forced to improvise, make mistakes and keep moving. Morena Baccarin carries the other half of the story with real strength and prevents the film from depending entirely on him.

I especially liked the structure in which the dramatic weight falls on both protagonists separately for much of the journey. He experiences one side of the disaster, she another, and their child adds a constant vulnerability that makes every setback matter more. The film understands that, in a situation like this, fear does not come only from what is happening on a global scale, but from not knowing where your family is or whether you will see them again.

That gives Greenland more tension than I expected. It does not need to constantly string together gigantic images to work. Many of its strongest moments come from small decisions, mistakes, delays, checkpoints, strangers and situations where everything can go wrong because of something apparently minor.

It also helps that the protagonists are presented as ordinary people. They are not scientists capable of solving the end of the world or military heroes with access to all the information. They are a family trying to understand what to do while the rules change from one moment to the next. That feeling of always being one step behind events makes the disaster feel closer.

Ric Roman Waugh handles the pacing well. The film runs close to two hours, but it keeps moving and knows how to introduce new difficulties without becoming a completely mechanical succession of obstacles. There are moments when the screenplay's construction is obvious, because a new complication usually appears just when the characters seem able to breathe, but the tension generally works.

The less interesting side lies in some familiar genre clichés. There are predictable decisions, convenient coincidences and characters who rather obviously represent the best or worst of human behavior in a crisis. The film does not discover a new way of looking at the apocalypse either. Many of its ideas are familiar.

But it has something that, for me, makes up for that lack of originality: it cares about its characters. It does not use the family merely as an excuse to move from one spectacular scene to another. Their relationship matters, and the film makes us understand why every separation, every uncertainty and every decision carries so much weight.

Gerard Butler and Morena Baccarin work well because neither needs to overplay things. Butler brings the physical presence he always has, but he is more interesting here when conveying concern than when switching into hero mode. Baccarin also has enough strength to keep her character from being reduced to waiting for him to solve everything.

The visual effects do their job and there are some powerful images, but I appreciate that the film does not turn destruction into an amusement park. The spectacle is there, as it should be in a disaster movie, but it never completely devours the family drama.

That is probably why I remember it better than many similar productions. It is not a masterpiece of the genre and it reinvents nothing, but it does maintain tension for much of its running time and makes me care about what happens to its protagonists.

Greenland is fairly traditional disaster cinema, but it is handled well. It has action, tension, strong moments of danger and a family that works as the real emotional center. The clichés are there and some situations are too convenient, but it achieves something essential for this genre: the disaster matters because the film first makes you care about the people trying to get through it. For me, a clear 7.