There wasn’t much special about 2020’s oddly-timed disaster thriller Greenland beyond sheer competency. Director Ric Roman Waugh and writer Chris Sparling seemingly looked at the genre and made the right sort of decisions as far as keeping the pace brisk, the focus squared on an average family, and hoping that the modestly budgeted feature could get away with enough in the visual effects department to have the intensity necessary for audiences to latch onto. It did decently enough for a pandemic-year release, but shined on VOD enough to make way for this sequel. With all the same people returning, was there enough reason to justify another go-round with an already destroyed Earth? Well, whether or not one wants to thematically sync the state of the world with the state of things in reality, Greenland 2: Migration, similarly, gets down to brass tax and delivers what’s essential for a film like this.
Gerard Butler returns as John Garrity, the structural engineer who was among the people chosen to be evacuated to a bunker before Clarke, the interstellar comet, rained down destruction over most of the Earth. It’s now five years later, and John, his wife Allison (Morena Baccarin), and their son Nathan (Roman Griffin Davis) are holding on with the other survivors, scavenging what they can and taking whatever measures they can to keep their tight quarters functional. That is, however, until the comet’s destruction has aftereffects that compromise the bunker. The solution? The Garrity family will journey across the wasteland of Europe in hopes of chasing a theory about a portion of the map that’s unaffected by the comet and its radiation fallout.
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One of the smarter moves made in the first film was not making the audience wait. While a big chunk of the comet was bound to hit Earth, enough versions of disaster were underway early on and throughout. Whether that was smaller pieces hitting Earth and causing damage or the natural chaos of having thousands of people trying to evacuate an area, the stakes felt pretty constant. This was especially true in keeping us centered on Butler’s character, who was no action hero, just a good guy (flawed, even, as the marriage was estranged at the time). Rather than whipping us around between the government and other stray characters, the focus was clear, the goal made sense, and the action delivered. This film follows that logic in even more straightforward terms.
While there are plenty of areas where the thrills get kicked up a notch, there’s no real wonder in what’s being seen. That’s not to say the film takes a position of “been there, done that,” but there’s little drama existing outside of whether or not the family can make it through the various forms of disasters along their path. The Garrity’s meet up with different sets of characters, team up with some who either stick around for a while or serve as the person that can be killed off to spare us from losing a main character. It’s not badly arranged, but functioning as a dystopian drama with occasional action set pieces only goes so far if the film is less about surprises and more about efficiency.
All that said, it’s still well made. Waugh has enough skill to develop these set pieces in a way that shines a light on the difficulty of everything involved. Whether it’s the stunts, effects, physical toll, or whatever else, even without the budget of a Roland Emmerich disaster movie, it’s clear the filmmakers are pushing what they can to make a pretty solid-looking movie when it comes to showing the end of the world in action.
For their efforts, the actors are mostly fine. Butler has made an entire second act of his career about playing characters who give everything to whatever it is they are responsible for. Does that make him a fantastic performer at conveying what’s needed each time out? Well, he gets the job done, but it does feel honest, which counts for something. Here, he’s solid as a level-headed guy trying to protect his family. Baccarin is a good enough sparring partner, as they have a nice enough chemistry. Jojo Rabbit’s Davis is also fine here, looking grown up, and trying to lean into the idea of taking qualities from his father.
We don’t get a ton of studio disaster films at this point, so in the realm of what’s being offered here, it’s refreshing to not only see one that plays out as earnestly as these Greenland films do, but act as though they can both show the world being destroyed but still feel small scale enough that the characters are key to what makes them watchable. Whether or not there’s much else to take away from these films regarding any further commentary is sort of besides the point for a meat-and-potatoes survival thriller like this. As it stands, this was a fun enough additional journey.
Greenland 2: Migration opens in theaters on January 9, 2026.
