Jan 4 2021

Veronica Reviews Gerard Butler’s #SciFi Movie ‘Greenland’

Note: This post first appeared on the AMAZING STORIES Magazine blog…

I love dystopian science fiction in books, movies and TV shows so I was happy to watch “Greenland,” the new Gerard Butler action adventure film. Briefly, Clarke, a comet “from another solar system” is on its way to Earth when it breaks apart and at first is expected only to be a spectacular light show as fragments enter the atmosphere and burn up. Oh wait, maybe a few bigger pieces will hit the ground. No, on third thought, maybe whole cities are going to be wiped out by fragments the size of football stadiums. Oh no, wait a minute, this is going to be an Extinction Level Event!

And we know what happened to the dinosaurs when the last one hit…

When I read dystopian SF, I’m usually most interested in the buildup to the End of the World As We Know It (EOTWAWKI) event, the event itself and how people cope and survive (or don’t). This movie delivers all of that. In the early minutes of this movie we meet construction engineer John Garrity, his estranged wife Ali (played by Morena Baccarin) and his highly intelligent, needy, diabetic young son Nathan (well acted by young Roger Dale Floyd). Recently separated, the couple awkwardly comes back together for a weekend, mostly to reassure their son that life goes on and to host the neighborhood comet viewing party.

Imagine Garrity’s surprise when his phone blares an alarm while he’s at the grocery store on a last minute beer-and-snacks run and all the other shoppers are oblivious. “Must be an Amber Alert,” he says hopefully. Not exactly. The robocall of all time is to inform him his family has been ‘selected’ and to stand by for more information. Having a message appear on my phone from the Department of Homeland Security when I’m in the juice and cookies aisle would unsettle me too! Perplexed he rushes home, noting big convoys of military troops on the move and a sky full of planes.

He’s just in time for the neighborhood party in his living room. The group watches the countdown on TV and…nothing happens. The first fragment was supposed to land in the ocean, well away from any cities. Surprise! It wipes out Tampa and the blast is felt with disastrous effect where Garrity’s family lives, about 1500 miles away. And then his phone goes off again, and the message also appears on his TV screen. Probably not the greatest idea to have the detailed information that you and your family have been selected for evacuation announced by a robotic government voice while you’re standing in a room full of people who obviously were not so lucky. Instant us vs. them and you can feel the lines being drawn in what was a congenial, cohesive group literally a moment before.

The Garritys pack in a rush and make their escape from the lush suburb, but not without some truly heartrending scenes with the neighbors begging them for various favors. The computer message was quite clear the family couldn’t bring anyone else.

At various times in this movie I was reminded of “Night of the Comet” and “Deep Impact,” which isn’t a bad thing since I liked both of them, but it goes to show how “Greenland” manages to hit almost every dystopian trope as it goes along. I found the movie uneven in pacing although some sections were quite intense. It seemed long to me at two hours but the writers create quite a complex situation to resolve when the family members become separated due to a series of unexpected events.

I felt there were a few too many coincidences at work in resolving the aforementioned separation mixup but the complicated situation did allow the film makers to show how the impending catastrophe was affecting everyone and to deploy those dystopian tropes.

Hint: Maybe don’t openly wear and flaunt that ‘golden’ QR code bracelet which gives you access to sanctuary. This family is naïve to say the least.

When was the last time you saw a working pay phone? I guess that was my “c’mon, man” for this flick…

Or maybe it was the moment the radio announces “small molten debris will be falling in Upstate New York” and literally as the guy stops talking, the fragments hit exactly the spot where our party is. This is unintentionally amusing because earlier in the movie the point keeps getting made over and over that the government can’t seem to predict exactly where any of the giant fragments will hit. Bermuda or Tampa, you know? Plus or minus a thousand miles…. But those “small molten pieces” – tracked with pinpoint precision.

A few tropes got missed – no one ran out of gas and the power never went off. I felt there were far too many calm, good hearted people with way too much organization and working infrastructure to be believable, especially at the FEMA camp. With the world facing an extinction level event in a few days, would things really keep running so smoothly? Would so many people really stay at their jobs? Some, yes of course because I like to believe the best about humanity (and the military is portrayed as being particularly selfless, which I for one appreciated, as well as the diversity in their ranks). I guess the Garritys met every good person between Georgia and well, Greenland.

And their share of bad guys too, of course.

I don’t do spoilers so I’ll have to skip some of my observations on the latter parts of the movie.

I give this movie a solid B+. The acting was competent and the production values were great. It looked like a Hollywood production at $35M, not a movie of the week. Gerard Butler’s Garrity was a pretty believable ordinary guy doing his best to save his family. Morena Beccarin’s character is a mama bear when called upon to be one, which I always admire. Scott Glenn made a satisfyingly acerbic and pragmatic grandfather.

Maybe if a viewer isn’t a regular consumer of dystopian SF (or raised by a prepper like I was) the plot twists would be more surprising and fresh but the movie is a good contribution to the genre. The ending worked for me. Aspects of the epilog not so much – there’d be another “c’mon, man” here if I did spoilers.

Do we go the way of the dinosaurs? Well, what do you think? It is after all, Hollywood.

I’ve already rewatched a couple of parts. I doubt I’d sit through the entire movie again but I enjoyed the viewing experience overall. Get the popcorn and go for it.

Dec 18 2020

Veronica Reviews SONGBIRD New #SciFi Dystopian Film

VS Note: This post first appeared on the AMAZING STORIES Magazine blog…

As an avid consumer of dystopian science fiction novels, TV shows and movies, I was eager to view “Songbird,” a new movie from Director Adam Mason and Michael Bay, the producer of “A Quiet Place” and “The Purge”. Mason and Simon Boyes co-wrote the script. This movie was filmed over the summer of 2020 in Los Angeles and is touted as being the first movie to film and release following the shutdown.

Set in the near future when the even more deadly COVID-23 virus has arrived, the movie tells the story of Nico, a bicycle/motorcycle courier in Los Angeles racing against a deadline to save the woman he loves from one of the always dreaded quarantine camps. (Seriously, folks, if you find yourself in dystopia, make every effort to avoid being sent there because no one ever comes out).

I approached the movie purely as a movie, not as a vehicle to carry deeper messages to me about society, our pandemic issues or what’s going on currently in our world. To do this review I asked myself whether it was a good science fiction movie in the tradition of such things?

As a longtime resident of Los Angeles, I am always drawn in by opening shots of the freeways deserted and overgrown with rampant ivy. I get my bowl of popcorn and settle back to have 85 minutes of diversion from my own reality. At times watching this film, I felt it could almost be taking place today, although the film makers were quite good at extrapolating current events and taking things one or two steps further. And the way the main character gets to zip around an empty LA is everyone’s secret dream.

COVID-23 is so deadly that literally everyone now lives in perpetual lockdown, except for the very few “munis,” or people immune to the virus, of which Nico (K. J. Apa) is one. His previous career as a paralegal putting himself through law school has fallen by the wayside along with society crumbling and now he does contactless delivery of all kinds of things, some legal and some not, or so we infer, for his boss Lester (Craig Robinson). His job takes app-based independent contractor work one step further.

You’d think the munis would be living the great life but no, COVID-23 is more easily spread on clothing or objects than earlier variations and so Nico like everyone else has to radically social distance lest he give the disease to those he cares for. Top of the list would be his girlfriend Sara (Sophia Carson), who he’s never actually met in person, although they’ve poignantly talked through her closed door and constantly chat and share on their cell phones. Sara is luminous – I thought she was a wonderful heroine – and Nico is stalwart, determined and scruffily handsome with a great leather jacket. In my opinion the actors made the romance work and I was invested in these two characters.

There’s a subplot, with Piper (Demi Moore) as a rich socially distanced housewife muni going all mama bear to protect her immune challenged daughter from catching COVD-23. In this she’s assisted by her sleazy record producer husband, William (Bradley Whitford). The subplot comes front and center as the movie progresses and Ms. Moore took me through the spectrum of emotion as far as wanting to like her, distrusting her, hating her, admiring her cunning….I wouldn’t mind a sequel with her in the lead, frankly. She went a little over the top for my taste a few times but her astringent character was a good counterpoint.

The actual songbird is May (Alexandra Daddario), stuck at the Pink motel. Following her improbable dreams of being a singer only to arrive in LA at a particularly bad time leaves her locked down in the motel, left to eke out a living online in various ways, some pretty sketchy. Guess who her record producer was? I’m not sure why her dilemma gave the movie its title but okay. As I indicated above, symbolism is largely wasted on me. I wanted more of Dozer (Paul Walter Hauser), her disabled Afghanistan veteran online friend. He was a great character!

The technology includes a mandatory temperature and virus check every morning via your cellphone, which automatically reports you to the Department of Sanitation (DOS) if you fail. You’ll never look at your local DOS workers in quite the same way again, I promise you. When the creepy pre-recorded government voice tells you “We are here to help” as the armored vehicles roll up,you know you’re in trouble. Oh right, here comes the “You will be shot on sight” warning. Don’t step out of that house unless you have the magical muni yellow bracelet.

There was also a whiz bang contactless, UV sterilizing ‘parcel box’ at every single house and apartment and I want one of those. What a great idea! I did wonder who paid for all these boxes, including the ones in the lower income residences but that’s a quibble. I thought the movie raised more than a few questions of that nature, as to how the world was continuing on if everyone was in lockdown and only munis, hazmat-clad DOS workers, the police and the military could go outside. No one seemed to be in danger of not having enough food for one thing even if we never saw anyone delivering it, much less growing or packaging it. I had to suspend my larger world building questions eventually. This is not a movie fraught with futuristic tech or explanations.

The story was predictable in many ways, although some of the basic plot tropes took an unexpected twist, which was refreshing (no spoilers from me), especially around the Demi Moore character. Other things went down about as any viewer of many gritty cop and crime movies or shows will expect. I thought there were two or three places where the writers solved their plot problems with an unsupported easy fix. (Hello, random guy living in a parking garage with your AR-15, who pops in for about five minutes to proactively resolve one problem and is never seen again.) And no bad guy in the entire history of villainy has ever handed over his wares/started delivering his nefarious services without seeing the money first. That point particularly annoyed me. C’mon, guys.

The two villains were over the top, even for LA. The actress (Lia McHugh) playing the immune-suppressed daughter cried beautifully but when you find yourself wondering how she could generate all those floods of perfect tears on command, the movie is failing to carry you along in its story telling in my opinion. I did check my watch two or three times during the 85 minute run time, which is usually the kiss of death for me on whether I’ll end up liking the movie overall…but the final half hour or so is quite intense, high stakes and I stayed with it.

I’d give it a C+/B-, mostly because I loved the hero and heroine (and those actors), the ending largely satisfied me and I give the creators credit for finding ways to film and release a movie during the pandemic. Would I watch it again? The beginning, which sets up the situation, and the last half hour…maybe.

Available on certain paid streaming services.