Greenland 2: Migration (2026)

2 Stars (out of 4)

Cheese Crater

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

After the unexpectedly gripping Greenland (2020), it might have made perfect sense for a sequel to revisit the Garrity family and see how they're getting on; this turns out to be not such a hot idea.

It has been five years since the Clarke Comet wiped out much of the earth and left it a wasteland. The luckiest survivors live underground in Greenland, including engineer John Garrity (Gerard Butler), his wife Allison (Morena Baccarin), and their now-fifteen-year-old son Nathan (Roman Griffin Davis). Rebuilding has been impossible due to falling comet fragments, ongoing radiation, earthquakes, and storms.

John makes regular trips to the surface to scavenge for materials while Allison serves on a board, arguing about concerns that supplies are running low. Dr. Casey Amina (Amber Rose Revah) believes that the original crash site in the UK may have just the right conditions for the earth to repair itself, although others believe that theory may be too good to be true. When a massive quake destroys the bunker, John grabs his family and decides to head for the only hope they have: the Clarke Crater.

Made by the same writing (Chris Sparling) and directing (Ric Roman Waugh) team, with the addition of a second writer, Mitchell LaFortune, Greenland 2: Migration drops everything about the original that worked. Its compact time frame, its sense of urgency, and its conflicted characters built to something with an impact.

This sequel meanders from one set-piece to another, each one set up pretty much like the previous one, with virtually no character conflict at all. Whatever the Garritys were going through before has been fully resolved, and they all get along great. (The only problem is that John has the occasional bout of "movie cough.") The movie behaves as if the family are the most important trio on earth. People die around them, and they keep on going as if nothing happened. Even a pause for a burial comes back around to being all about the Garritys.

Characters give them supplies, guns, and even vehicles at every turn, and they frequently get special treatment. When they reach a particular bus, they are told that "people wait days for this bus." But when John says "please," he and his family are given seats, and the bus departs immediately. There's no suspense, and the ending is entirely predictable. Greenland 2: Migration leaves off with John's wish that a new Edenic world started in the crater will be about "kindness, compassion, and understanding," which is a nice sentiment, but the 98 minutes it takes to get there is a chore.