REVIEW: ‘Greenland 2: Migration’ Is All About Family

Sequels are all the rage, and while I didn’t think I needed another Greenland (2020), Greenland 2: Migration naturally picks up five years after the first film and picks up the question: What happens after the world ends?

Directed by Ric Roman Waugh and written by Ric Roman Waugh and Chris Sparling, Greenland 2: Migration returns audiences to the Garrity family, John (Gerard Butler), Allison (Morena Baccarin), and their son Nathan (Roman Griffin Davis). Having lived in the underground fallout shelter in Greenland for five years, the family has fallen into a routine. 

Nathan is a restless teenager trying to see the stars. John is scavenging what he can from ships that wash ashore to repair systems in the shelter. And Allison is sitting at a table, voting for the shelter’s next moves with others who were invited to safety. But with fragments of the asteroid that hit Earth still stuck in the planet’s gravitational field, the hits keep coming, pun not intended. 

With every new impact, the tectonic plates shift, tsunamis get triggered, and the world changes yet again. Kept from rebuilding, the shelter is all that they have. That is, until it isn’t.

Greenland 2: Migration is a sequel we didn’t ask for, but it makes sense entirely.

Forced to the outside, the Garrity family and other survivors wind up making the bold choice to head for the Clarke crater, the crater left behind by the initial impact of the asteroid. With walls so high that the air is protected and just enough of the building blocks of life established and saved within, Clarke is the goal. And maybe, that’s where their future and the world’s future will take hold. 

With just enough recap at the start of the film, Greenland 2: Migration wastes no time getting the audience settled into the Garrity family’s life, only to pull them out of it again. Last time we joined them on their trek for survival, there were more people, more boundaries, and now, it’s all about their resilience in the face of even sharper stakes and less room for mistakes. 

Greenland 2’s greatest strength is that the focus isn’t the disaster itself; it’s the family trying to survive. More importantly, it’s a father’s story about the last act he can do for his family. It’s about protecting what you love and how that bond survives it all. This is a character study as much as it’s a large-scale look at the end of the world, and that’s what makes it good. 

The chemistry between Morena Baccarin and Gerard Butler is astounding. Already solid in the first film, the love and care on display between the two of them come through in small moments. It’s seen in the ways that they look out for each other or hold each other as the other sleeps, and even in the moments where the camera focuses on their hands touching. 

Gerard Butler and Morena Baccarin’s chemistry is the foundation of the film. 

For all of the large action set pieces and moments of peril, the tenderness on display from this action lead is Gerard Butler at his very best. In love with his wife and proud of his son. The family unit allows Greenland 2: Migration to do more with its screen time and build emotional stakes throughout each act. 

At the same time, that doesn’t mean that the setting and the circumstances aren’t as large as in the first film. In a few ways, they are bigger: a tsunami, a crevasse where a body of water once was, and even a warzone. Gunfire and elemental danger plague the family and drive home the reality that danger comes from nature and other people. 

However, Greenland 2 chooses to operate under the old adage that most people you meet aren’t even thinking about you. That neutral element keeps the film focused on our main characters while still building a world around them. When marauders descend, it’s not because they are evil and looking to harm that family specifically; it’s survival.

With fantastic set pieces, they never outshine the family drama in Greenland 2.

Alternatively, when the family receives a helping hand, it’s not because of who they are, but just that they’re there. This movie never tries to place good and bad; instead, it plays in a neutral space where self-interest and survival are the core tenets, and sometimes that means helping others as much as exploiting them. 

Driving this home is the film’s final act, as they get closer to the Clarke crater. Entering a warzone, the film shifts its focus from electrical storms and radiation poisoning to flying bullets and grenades. But outside of some exposition moments that detail Western and Eastern Europe fighting for control, the script doesn’t spend much time on the why, so much as just having our character exist in this. 

While the story streamlines showing and not telling, slight pacing hiccups sometimes make moments feel too belabored. However, the use of natural locations and landscapes helps compensate, pulling the audience into the vast open world that our characters find themselves in. 

More action than the first, Greenland 2: Migration is thrilling and emotional.

From a technical standpoint, the intimate camerawork balances with the sweeping, intimidating disaster set pieces and death-defying moments, never feeling out of place. This balance is due ot the seamless blending of practical and CGI effects, as well as natural landscapes. To put it simply, everything feels cohesive in a way we don’t usually see in Hollywood blockbusters. 

Where it stands, Greenland 2: Migration is a blockbuster in scale, but its intimate focus on one family makes it unique in its genre in terms of execution. It’s hard not to care for the characters in the film, and shockingly, Greenland 2 doesn’t coat its characters in plot armor. Instead, every lull into comfort can be shattered by a tragic moment. 

Audiences don’t get disaster films nearly as much as they used to, and as a follow-up to an already good one, Greenland 2 stands out and refreshes the genre. It’s an example of how and why to make a sequel to a film that no one necessarily thought or asked for, and I mean that as a compliment. 

Greenland 2: Migration answers what happens after the world ends and does so with a personal touch that makes it a must-watch to start the year. This isn’t a film looking to push outside its genre; instead, it wants to tell a story within it. 

Greenland 2: Migration is in theaters now, nationwide.