disaster movie

REVIEW: Greenland (2020)

After it’s revealed that the comet that was supposed to pass by close to Earth’s atmosphere but not enter it, is in fact perhaps an extinction level threat, John Garrity (Gerard Butler), his wife Alison (Morena Baccarin), and their seven-year-old son Nathan (Roger Dale Floyd) embark on a perilous journey in search for shelter.

I love a good disaster film. In fact, I tend to love the not so good ones too. There’s something about the spectacle of them and imagining yourself in that situation and what you might do differently to the characters on screen. Greenland is one of the good disaster films. Perhaps I didn’t go into it with the highest expectations after Gerard Butler’s previous end-of-the-world-movie Geostorm which is bona fide fun nonsense, but Greenland really surprised me in how well it balanced the action and the characters.

There is spectacle in Greenland with John being sent flying by a shockwave or he and his family trying to avoid raining burning debris, and the effects are good, but the focus is on these three characters and what they’d do to survive and stay together. There’s news footage shown on TV of the carnage this comet is causing and bleak updates on the radio to give you and the characters a wider understanding of what’s going on in the world during this crisis, but having this family being the core of the film makes the threat more affecting.

There’s the big, standard disaster film stuff they have to deal with but there’s a lot of smaller, more personal stuff that’s even more tense and scary. Getting separated from one another, losing vital medication, it all helps round out each of the characters and get you invested in their fight for survival. The trip to a pharmacy in order to get medicine for Nathan is one of the most tenses sequences as you really start to see the collapse of society when people realise they have nothing to lose and only days to live.

Greenland really finds that balance for showing the good and evil in humanity. There are people who will stop to help someone just as they are committing a crime, there’s those who will do horrible things for selfish reasons, but there’s also people who are still kind and thoughtful in the face of such awfulness. People are complicated, and in an end of the world scenario when people are desperate, who knows how they could act.

There are a few clichés like how John and Alison are estranged at the start of the film and are attempting to give their marriage a second chance, so the fight for survival helps bring them closer again. The performances from Butler, Baccarin and Floyd make this family feel real – there’s one moment where Alison becomes desperate and emotional and Baccarin’s performance just encapsulates what a mother being pushed to the edge would be like.

Greenland is a really tense and gripping disaster movie that puts one family at the centre of it. If you’ve watched Greenland, or like the sound of it, I’d definitely recommend The Wave and its sequel The Quake – two Norwegian disaster films that focus in on a few characters and their relationships as they fight for survival. 4/5.

REVIEW: Skyscraper (2018)

Framed for the unfolding disaster, security expert Will Sawyer (Dwayne Johnson) must infiltrate the world’s tallest building as it burns to save his family who are trapped inside with criminals.

If the premise of Skyscraper sounds familiar to you, that’s probably because you’ve seen some variation of this film before and it hits some pretty generic action beats to move the plot along. It’s also very easy to make comparisons to Die Hard and The Towering Inferno. In fact, it’s not a stretch to say Skyscraper is a combination of the two. Luckily for Skyscraper it has Dwayne Johnson as it’s lead, so some terrible dialogue and recycled plot points are easier to ignore.

Honestly the charisma and star power of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson really has to be admired as he will make any generic action film watchable. Will Sawyer is a compelling character who happens to be ex-military and is an amputee with a prosthetic leg. Having the hero of this disaster movie be more vulnerable was a nice touch. While Will was still strong and capable of running through fires, climbing buildings and fighting bad guys, there are moments where he has to stop and check his prosthetic leg over. Plus, as the days turmoil goes on it shows how having a prosthetic leg can be both a help and a hinderance in this unique situation. There are some action sequences that make use of the prosthetic leg, but on the whole, it is just shown as a part of him and that he is just fighting to save his family.

The performances from the supporting cast are solid too with people like Noah Taylor and Chin Han showing up making you go “I know him from somewhere!” Neve Campbell plays Sarah, Will’s wife, and she actually ends up with more to do than you think.

The set pieces are pretty spectacular, and I imagine seeing Skyscraper on a big screen would’ve made them even more impressive – and maybe even a sense of vertigo. The sequences where Will is climbing outside of the building, or his family is running through the burning building are good though the closer hand to hand fight scenes are a bit harder to follow and look a little messy at times.

Skyscraper isn’t really anything new to the disaster/action move genre, and it’s more serious than you’d expect, but it’s still reasonably enjoyable even if you can predict a lot of what happens and everything gets wrapped up unexpectedly quickly. 3/5.

Q is for The Quake (2018)

Three years after surviving a deadly tsunami, geologist Kristian Eikjord (Kristoffer Joner) is estranged from his family as he struggles to deal with the fallout and the constant fear of another tragedy. When his friend and fellow scientist shares with him his data on the tremors in Oslo, Kristian rushes to the city to learn more and to try and save his family from an impending tragedy.

The Quake is the sequel to The Wave and stars the same actors as the central family. Much like its predecessor, The Quake puts many big budget Hollywood disaster movies to shame. By focusing on so few people, you become invested in their survival and how they fight to overcome such a huge natural disaster.

Everything about The Quake builds tension brilliantly. The first half of the film is focussed on Kristian’s research and how he struggles to connect with people when he feels he has to be ready to save people at any time. The Quake does a great job as showing the lasting effects on living through an ordeal like a tsunami and even if you survive it, there’s still so many things you must come to term with. The score is haunting and slowly amps up the tension as Kristian begins to put things together, even when others aren’t sure there’s anything to worry about.

When disaster does hit, it’s horrifyingly spectacular. In a strange way the catastrophe seems almost earnt as you’ve had to wait for so long, and by waiting, you’ve become more attached to the characters and are more invested in their fates. With the aftershocks and collapsing buildings, The Quake never stops being a nerve-wracking experience as everything that could possibly go wrong does.

The Quake keeps you on the edge of your seat but never forgoes common sense or character development. Just like the first film, it’s well worth the watch – even if it may make you slightly hesitant about visiting Norway any time soon, because as it says in the end credits, the country is overdue for a large-scale earthquake. 5/5.

REVIEW: Geostorm (2017)

When a network of satellites designed to control and prevent extreme weather patterns starts to malfunction, it’s a race against the clock for its creator Jake Lawson (Gerard Butler) to figure out what’s going on in the space station, while his younger brother Max (Jim Sturgess) tries to figure out a conspiracy on Earth, before a worldwide Geostorm wipes out everyone and everything on the planet.

Let’s get this out of the way. Depending on your taste in films and your definition of “good” Geostorm isn’t necessarily going to be classed as “good”. However, it is enjoyable. Geostorm is in the same vein as Roland Emmerich’s disaster films like The Day After Tomorrow and 2012, but unlike 2012 which has some truly awful characters that you don’t care about, Geostorm’s cast does well with what they’re given and for the most part portray likeable (yet often cliché) characters with decent chemistry.

The special effects are a bit of a mixed bag. The stuff in space looks great from the various high-tech satellites and rockets to the space station itself, but it’s the extreme weather that doesn’t always looks so great, from tsunami’s to large hail stones to tornadoes, there’s every kind of weather imaginable. It’s when sequence focuses on a character experiencing the disaster like Cheng (Daniel Wu) trying to outdrive molten lava exploding from the streets of Hong Kong, that are tense and exciting. The effects are most noticeable with a tsunami that hits Dubai, especially because the tsunami that hits New York in The Day After Tomorrow, a film released over 10 years earlier, still looks a lot better.

Geostorm is entertaining nonsense. The conspiracy in of why the technology is going wrong and who could be behind it and why, is predictable a lot of the time but the speed of which the reveals and action happen helps you forget about that. It’s the perfect film to watch when you don’t want to think too hard but there’s still some intrigue and some exciting moments. 3/5.

REVIEW: The Core (2003)

the core elenasquareeyesWhen the Earth’s core stops spinning, the only way to save the planet is for a team to drill down to the core and set it spinning again.

The Core starts with an ominous scene and from there the pace never really lets up. You’re introduced to our heroes and they figure out how to save the world with a ridiculous and dangerous plan. The action and special effects are pretty good, though some haven’t stood the test of time, the destruction of the Golden Gate Bridge is certainly memorable.

The Core has all the usual characters seen in disaster films. The team sent to jumpstart the Earth are comprised of the seasoned pilot (Bruce Greenwood), the young protégé who seems unbeatable (Hilary Swank), the nice guy scientist (Aaron Eckhart), the Government scientist who you’re not sure if you can trust (Stanley Tucci), the mad scientist who was once betrayed by someone else in the team (Delroy Lindo) and the nice guy scientists best friend (Tchéky Karyo). Back on top of the Earth you have the helpful hacker (DJ Qualls) and the General who doesn’t like to be told he’s wrong (Richard Jenkins). They might be what we’re used to seeing but one thing in The Core’s favour is that a lot of these characters have good chemistry and bounce off each other really well. Quite often you find yourself caring about them which often leads to heartache considering the film’s genre.

Besides the cheesy moments, The Core’s main problem is that it ends up being quite formulaic – there’s a problem, the crew have to figure it out, they fix it, someone may or may not die, and repeat. That being said, often you do actually feel something when one of the team ends up dead, there’s self-sacrificing moments and unlucky accidents and they both add drama to the film.

The Core isn’t necessarily a good film, but it is quite fun most of the time and has all the usual tropes for a disaster film. 3/5.