The surviving Garrity family must leave the safety of the Greenland bunker and embark on a perilous journey across the decimated frozen wasteland of Europe to find a new home.
“Greenland 2: Migration” picks up five years after the apocalyptic events of 2020’s “Greenland,” and while the sequel ambitiously widens its scope across the post-apocalyptic remains of Europe, it collapses under the weight of its own illogical world-building. Once again, led by Gerard Butler as John Garrity, the film aims to be a survival epic, but the tone is too timid and the characters too one-dimensional to sell this vision.
The story opens with John trekking across the toxic surface world in a hazmat suit and ventilated mask. This sets up the stakes for this post-apocalyptic world as a toxic graveyard devoid of breathable air. Unfortunately, the film almost immediately abandons its own rules. After an earthquake destroys their bunker, John and his family (Allison, played by Morena Baccarin, and Nathan, now 17, played by Roman Griffin Davis) must navigate across the ruins of Europe to find shelter. Before long, characters ditch their masks altogether, because apparently, the air just stopped being poisonous. No explanation is offered; this is just one of the film’s many plot holes.
Amber Rose Revah plays a scientist who accompanies the Garrity family, insisting there is a crater rumored to exist with a pocket of breathable air and a clean atmosphere. Audiences are encouraged to suspend disbelief, especially at big-budget disaster movies like this, but for me, this was so fundamentally absurd it almost pulled me out of the film entirely. That impact zone would be the most irradiated place on Earth, not a post-apocalyptic Eden.
Much like its predecessor, the film is locked into a PG-13 rating that neuters its apocalyptic potential. Civilization’s collapse is portrayed with restraint, flattening human behavior into bland archetypes rather than the mortal horror such a scenario demands. This is most evident when the family stumbles upon a fully functional hospital community guarded by elderly women. It’s safe, supplied, and civilized, yet John dismisses it as “no place to raise our son.” This is where the film truly ran out of steam for me.
There are flashes of excitement, notably a canyon-crossing sequence involving a poorly constructed rope-and-ladder bridge. It’s thrilling in the moment, even if the logistics make no sense whatsoever. Ultimately, “Greenland 2: Migration” wants to be a bleak odyssey about survival and parenthood, but its one-dimensional characters, nonsensical science, and watered-down tone leave it stranded between ambition and execution.
In Theaters Friday, January 9th
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