Greenland (Amazon Prime) Movie Review & Comments

Watched it yesterday , thought it ok really, fantastic 5.1 when the comet came .
 
Watched it yesterday...
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Armageddon is great. One of those films you can forgive because it's so outrageously ludicrous it's brilliant.

I don't get it. I mean, if Armageddon had amazing action/disaster scenes, I might be ok putting up with it's aggressive stupidity. But it cant even do that right. The climax of Deep Impact blows away anything in Armageddon.
 
I don't get it. I mean, if Armageddon had amazing action/disaster scenes, I might be ok putting up with it's aggressive stupidity. But it cant even do that right. The climax of Deep Impact blows away anything in Armageddon.

You don't need to think about it any further than a bunch of drill guys get trained as astronauts in lightning quick fashion, then just pop off into space to drill a hole in an asteroid and save the earth.

With Aerosmith smashing out one of the most iconic songs of the 90's to accompany this adventure.

I mean it's just magnificent. 10/10.

I might even Spinal Tap it to 11.
 
I don't get it. I mean, if Armageddon had amazing action/disaster scenes, I might be ok putting up with it's aggressive stupidity. But it cant even do that right. The climax of Deep Impact blows away anything in Armageddon.
I just find the whole film reassuring. It's nice to know the Americans have got the world sorted in the event of something like this actually happening.
 
:rotfl: :rotfl: @ that Affleck commentary.

He pretty much nails the jist of 90% of Bays films. Absolutely nonsensical for anyone over the age of 10. Still entertaining though (a select few).
 
Just a meh family drama movie. The Trailer is the best thing about the movie.
Aint bad either but it really doesn't give a lot, aside from some family dramas here n there..
 
Another plus for Amargeddon - the Forest Gump of disaster movies (stupid is as stupid does!).
 
I just rewatched Greenland (only saw it a month ago). Self edited mode so about an hour.
Does self edited mode mean that you fast forwarded through it on rewatch? I assume you watched it at normal speed on first playthrough?

Obviously I'm making some assumptions! I'm just not sure how you can objectively appraise or reappraise something if you don't watch the whole thing properly?

I get the irony that all of us are subjective critics btw. FWIW I enjoyed deep impact too.
 
Watched this yesterday evening - wife and i gripped from start to finish. Easily an 8/10.
 
a bunch of drill guys get trained as astronauts in lightning quick fashion, then just pop off into space to drill a hole in an asteroid and save the earth.

Or...

they could have had a bunch of astronauts trained as drillers, and pop off into space to drill a hole in an asteroid and save the earth.

As Affleck himself said, how hard is it to learn to drill? You point the drill at the ground and turn it on...

1/10
 
Or...

they could have had a bunch of astronauts trained as drillers, and pop off into space to drill a hole in an asteroid and save the earth.

As Affleck himself said, how hard is it to learn to drill? You point the drill at the ground and turn it on...

1/10

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Or...

they could have had a bunch of astronauts trained as drillers, and pop off into space to drill a hole in an asteroid and save the earth.

As Affleck himself said, how hard is it to learn to drill? You point the drill at the ground and turn it on...

1/10
But even the best drillers in the world struggled and nearly failed. Space rockets pretty much drive themselves these days.

11/10.
 
I'm feeling generous giving this film 5/10.

Lots of comments about it being quite realistic. I completely disagree. The entire insulin subplot was ridiculous. The schmalzy "divorced but everything's fine" relationship was nauseating and unrealistic. And the sheer entitlement of the main characters, continually doing things purely to advance the plot rather than having any grounding in reality, simply made them seem like arseholes rather than people I wanted to root for.

Hardened military person: "Sir, I can't let you do that!"
Hero: "But it's for my family!"
Hardened military person: "Oh go on then"

(Not actual dialogue but might as well be.)

Aside from that, the effects were only mediocre for a new film. I don't mind films where the effects take a back seat to the story (eg Seeking a Friend for the End of the World). But if a film is getting billed as a disaster film (which this is), and it doesn't show much in the way of disaster, it better do the drama well, with believable characters and decisions. Greenland doesn't.

There were some enjoyable parts, outside of the stupid insulin plotline and the suspension of disbelief needed to accept that these people above all others needed saving. They were too few and far between to save the film though.

Before watching it, my hope was for a film that focuses on the sheer impossibility of an effective human response to a disaster of this magnitude, and not a glamourised "one man rescuing his family against all odds" like so many other disaster films. Greenland hints at the former in its build-up, and in one or two of the military-related scenes. It could have been excellent if it made that its focus, but it didn't, it went the tried and tested "man's and family" route. Perhaps that's why I was so disappointed by it. An opportunity squandered IMO.

PS I enjoyed Armageddon because it knew exactly what it was: big, bold and stupid. :D
 
I'm feeling generous giving this film 5/10.

Lots of comments about it being quite realistic. I completely disagree. The entire insulin subplot was ridiculous. The schmalzy "divorced but everything's fine" relationship was nauseating and unrealistic. And the sheer entitlement of the main characters, continually doing things purely to advance the plot rather than having any grounding in reality, simply made them seem like arseholes rather than people I wanted to root for.

Hardened military person: "Sir, I can't let you do that!"
Hero: "But it's for my family!"
Hardened military person: "Oh go on then"

(Not actual dialogue but might as well be.)

Aside from that, the effects were only mediocre for a new film. I don't mind films where the effects take a back seat to the story (eg Seeking a Friend for the End of the World). But if a film is getting billed as a disaster film (which this is), and it doesn't show much in the way of disaster, it better do the drama well, with believable characters and decisions. Greenland doesn't.

There were some enjoyable parts, outside of the stupid insulin plotline and the suspension of disbelief needed to accept that these people above all others needed saving. They were too few and far between to save the film though.

Before watching it, my hope was for a film that focuses on the sheer impossibility of an effective human response to a disaster of this magnitude, and not a glamourised "one man rescuing his family against all odds" like so many other disaster films. Greenland hints at the former in its build-up, and in one or two of the military-related scenes. It could have been excellent if it made that its focus, but it didn't, it went the tried and tested "man's and family" route. Perhaps that's why I was so disappointed by it. An opportunity squandered IMO.

PS I enjoyed Armageddon because it knew exactly what it was: big, bold and stupid. :D

It's easy to pick fault with any film, and given that most of us don't have genuine experience of how people would behave in such situations, it's easy to question why people behave in a way that makes little logical sense. By the way. that's a generic defense, the comments about it being realistic are relative to the other films in the genre. If you think that Greenland is an outlier then I wonder which disaster films you hold in high regard, as a point of reference?

I enjoyed Armageddon too, but only in a fast food sort of way. And there's only so much "It's ok because it's supposed to be stupid" that I can take. It's hardly nourishing.
Outside of small independents, I think it should be pretty clear by now that they don't really make many genuinely intelligent films. The investors want a return and don't want to restrict the size of the audience.

So, all that said, I think Greenland was underrated and very entertaining, without being stupid.

edit I just thought of one film - The Mist - 2007. But that was a while ago, I'd have to go back and check again! Now that was genuinely depressing.
 
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Does self edited mode mean that you fast forwarded through it on rewatch? I assume you watched it at normal speed on first playthrough?

Obviously I'm making some assumptions! I'm just not sure how you can objectively appraise or reappraise something if you don't watch the whole thing properly?

I get the irony that all of us are subjective critics btw. FWIW I enjoyed deep impact too.
Rewatch yes. Already watched in 1 and a bit times last month.

FFWD through the whole Wife/Kid/Military bit. Thought it was nonsense.
 
Get's a 7/10 from me and the missus. Past two hours away quite quickly. Sound was very good and HDR boosted the HD presentation.
 
I watched it this evening and I enjoyed it. I liked the smaller scale family story which is in stark contrast to the usual big, brash disaster movies like Armageddon, 2012 and San Andreas. It was also much more enjoyable than anything the sci-fy channel usually puts out.

Butler was surprisingly restrained and although there were a couple of questionable moments/decisions it didn't spoil my enjoyment of the film. There were some real emotional moments in there and some tense ones too. Audio was great, nice surround effects during some of the action scenes and deep bass. Picture was also good. Overall I would go with a 7/10.

I also had issues trying to watch it on Saturday night. The picture would drop resolution then go up for a moment then drop back down so I gave up after a few attempts. I had no problem with 4K streams through any of the other platforms so I would say it was an issue with Amazon.

I ended up watching the noir version of Logan in 4K instead that I bought a couple of weeks ago, a fantastic film. I had actually forgotten how much swearing was in it.

And talking of the Mist, it is a bleak film and the ending is shocking but it makes for an unforgettable experience that really haunts you. I'm glad Frank Darabont went there though as King wrote as an excellent character study on fear, faith and human nature. I love the atmosphere and tension the film has, it's a throwback to classic b-movies and the characters are really memorable. It's a film I come back to every couple of years or so.
 
So I watched it again as getting rid of Prime shortly (with Netflix, Playstation & Disney+, something had to go). Sticking to my guns though that this is the second best comet film we've had to date, and a damn good bit of speculative disaster entertainment.

Going to have to disagree therefore with @kav 's assessment and say its as believable a portrayal as any. I'll concede that the old 'estranged couple' and 'kid that needs medicine' cliches are rather hackneyed at this point, but the latter is a major plot thread. Otherwise they would just get on the plane and be on their merry way. My only real critique of the parents behaviour would be their failure to hide their bracelets (asking for trouble), but I would put that down to them simply having more urgent things on their minds. Army officers making exceptions? Perhaps under the right pressures and circumstances- they are still human. The rest is mainly believable; panic and confusion, people getting separated, desperate selfish acts and acts of kindness randomly spread.

Visual effects lacked some polish in some places, but remember this isn't a big budget affair by any means: $35 million production budget which is small fry compared to what is regularly lavished on a blockbuster film.

I have some technical issues, but they are nitpicks really:

  • As mentioned before, comet tails don't necessarily flow in the direction of travel, so they wouldn't likely appear parallel to the falling debris (shooting stars).
    [*]The small meteor shower on the highway: the objects weren't falling fast enough. These things travel faster than high powered rifle bullets.
    [*]9 months underground- not sure that would cut it. More likely many years before the skies clear after an impact of that scale.
    [*]We see the ruins of several cities including Paris, but a moment later we see that France (along with Spain and the British Isles) is completely obliterated, and ocean covering where it used to exist. Bit of a visual effects gaffe there.

Personally I would have ended the film with
the family closing their eyes before fading to black- leaving the viewer uncertain if anyone survived
. But given that we're in a pandemic, I doubt that's the ending the filmmakers would want to leave is with!
 
I thought this was ok, will probably watch again in the near future. Butlers quite good in it as well, he’s believable and you find yourself rooting for him. Not sure on his wife, didn’t really care what happened to her to be honest.

Enjoyable film if you take it for what it is.
 
Personally I would have ended the film with
the family closing their eyes before fading to black- leaving the viewer uncertain if anyone survived
. But given that we're in a pandemic, I doubt that's the ending the filmmakers would want to leave is with!
I was expecting it to end on that note and was surprised about that there was extra stuff.
 

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