Greenland 2: Migration

Five years after the original comet disaster flick, Gerard Butler returns in GREENLAND 2: MIGRATION, a disappointing sequel to the surprising original.

The good news is that Gerard Butler and Morena Baccarin are back as John & Allison Garrity, still living underground in the encampment that they strove to find in the original film.

But that massive bunker is showing signs of wear and the Earth is starting to push back against the impact of the comet.

Fissures and lava emerge, earthquakes begin to roll, serving up plenty of action featuring good (not great) special effects. That's all fine, because the real core of the first film was the family dynamic of the Garrity's. Their son Nathan is now played by Roman Griffin Davis (The Long Walk) as a teenager stifled by the bunker and anxious to discover more.

They all get that chance as they begin a quest to relocate to a "Lost Horizon" like site in the comet impact crater, where legends tell of a perfect atmosphere unbothered by the massive electric storms and mayhem around the globe.

Is it true or just a myth created by the sparse survivors seeking to return to any kind of normal?

The journey becomes episodic, and some chapters along the journey work far better than others.

One of the best is a taut sequence in which the trio must cross the most rickety rope bridge since "Indiana Jones and the Tempe of Doom". It's loaded with cool visuals and suspense.

A stop along the way to reunite with Allison's mother, who's boarded up "Omega Man" style, taking care of forgotten Alzheimer's patients serves up a great sequence.

The best is saved for last, when the Garrity's meet Dennis Laurent (the excellent William Abadie), a French farmer and his family. Decisions there prove pivotal and set up the last, best half hour of the film.

This is the third film that Butler and Director Ric Roman Waugh have worked on together and their cinematic shorthand is securely in place. Butler is, without fail, a reliable action hero, but in this and the original Greenland, he offers up a more human, less superhero character that serves him well.

For a film that's barely more than 90 minutes long, it does have dull stretches. Maybe after "Silo" and "Fallout" and "Paradise", I'm just a little burned out on the whole "post apocalyptic population in a secluded bunker" genre.

At least this entry gives them room to explore beyond their confines, but beyond some pretty great visuals around their arrival on the London rooftops, nothing exceeds the norm.

Butler does fine work in that final thirty minutes, serving up an emotional and impactful finale, I just wish the film around him was worthy of his efforts.

The original got a surprising B+ back in 2020, alas, the sequel falls to a C, stuck in all too familiar disaster genre territory.