Greenland is a terrible title for a low-expectation Gerard Butler disaster movie… that turned out to be better than I (or probably anyone) expected. The flick is out now on overpriced early rental and, presumably, theatrical release. I caught it on streaming.

The flick is about a comet that breaks up on its approach to Earth, sending chunks raining down before the big extinction level event occurs. A family consisting of Butler, Morena Baccarin, and their son played by Roger Dale Floyd (a very good kid actor) receive an evacuation notice and the movie follows them as they try to get to safety. Which, as it happens, is in Greenland.

The opening half hour of this flick is surprisingly suspenseful as the global disaster stays focused on its main characters as they slowly realize the scale of the disaster to come. It really knows how to ramp tension, suspense, and that dawning awareness. I was really into it and thought this was going to be a surprisingly great flick.

But, alas, it only wound up being a surprisingly good flick… which ain’t no crime. The middle portion of the film is a little too focused on separating the family, reuniting them, and dealing with other humans being both terrible and good. But there’s still enough there to be interesting and even at least one scene that was genuinely moving involving a first responder.

The final act was a fair bit stronger… it could certainly have been better but it stayed true to one thing the movie focused on: it’s characters. For a disaster movie, I was pleasantly surprised by how character-driven it was. It isn’t a globe-spanning movie with tense and important scenes of scientists and generals arguing around a large table. It wants to center on the family and the love they have for each other… and it does without getting too treacly or eye-rolling.

This flick is, surprisingly, better than most such asteroids/comets from space movies and it does it with minimal need for overproduced effects. There are big FX shots and scenes (some of them a little dodgy) but that’s not the goal of the movie. In fact, I think it’d be advisable to not use this movie as the centerpiece for your survival preparedness plan (pro-tip: it’s science may not be on very solid ground).

Score: 84