Considering the disaster of a year we’re currently enduring I didn’t imagine I want to see – much less enjoy – a movie about a comet slamming into the planet – though could it make things any worse?

Judging from Ric Roman Waugh’s Greenland, the answer is “Yes. Yes it could.”

That being said I really enjoyed the movie mainly because, despite the subject matter, it never managed to transform into a Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich-style disaster movie, where whatever Earth-shattering – or Earth invading – dilemma becomes the primary attraction, while the people that have to do their damndest to survive it are secondary, if that.

In fact, Greenland often felt surprisingly intimate despite massive stakes and Waugh never let the spectacle overwhelm the human relationships, which is good because despite being nothing that we haven’t seen before, it somehow felt fresh.

Though I’d be negligent if I didn’t mention the performances of Gerard Butler (John Garrity) and Morena Baccarin (Allison Garrity), which are grounded enough that the movie never threatened to become Die Hard With A Comet – which would be another type of Armageddon (1998) all together.

And I should mention that I tend to despise child actors – all the screaming they inevitably end up doing makes me feel powerless, which is why I don’t have children and avoid movies featuring them – though Roger Dale Floyd (Nathan Garrity) irritated me less than young actors typically do, so there’s that.

And I learned another thing from Greenland: Watching first run movies from home isn’t a good idea. In a movie theater I tend to stay put and soak it in, even if I don’t particularly care for the movie.

When I’m home? I move about, check Twitter or email or play an occasional game of Fruit Ninja or Toon Blast if things get slow.

Not an ideal way to enjoy cinema.