Prime Time: Greenland 2: Migration (2026)

With most people back in their main roles, both in front of and behind the camera, Greenland 2: Migration is an unexpected sequel to Greenland, obviously. Considering that film was about an Extinction Level Event (ELE), you would suspect that the story was all done. Not so. There may be some hope for those who found a way to survive. Especially if you're the Garrity family (made up of Gerard Butler, Morena Baccarin, and Roman Griffin Davis, the latter replacing Roger Dale Floyd as the youngest family member).

It is five years after the events of the first movie. A number of people are living in an underground bunker, but more trouble is coming. The environment is still harsh and dangerous, which forces people to come up with a plan to move. There's rumour of a habitable environment at a major comet impact point, but getting there will be a hell of a challenge. Your odds seem greatly improved when Gerard Butler is the head of your family unit though.

Mitchell LaFortune joins Chris Sparling on the writing duties this time, and the two of them have a fairly easy task. Remind viewers of the current situation, put the latest events in motion, take characters on a journey that keeps putting a number of obstacles in between them and the potential safety and optimism of their final destination.

Director Ric Roman Waugh feels very much at ease with his job. He knows what needs to be done, and he keeps most of the scenes focused on the star, Butler. It's a shame that he doesn't do much else though, with the experience of watching this movie akin to the trudgery that the onscreen characters go through. You could argue that nothing in the rest of the movie is as intense or entertaining as the opening scenes, and that makes the 98-minute runtime drag out as it becomes a case of waiting for what seems like an inevitable finale.

Butler does fine in his role, once again being enjoyably stoic and a very capable, if reluctant, hero. Baccarin gets less to do, but remains alongside him in a pretty thankless role. Davis has one or two moments that show him struggling to stay adjusted to post-comet life, but it feels like lip service to something that would surely be much more intense and difficult to process. There are a few other characters allowed to pop in and out of the narrative, but things stay pretty firmly held on the fate of the central family unit.

If you liked the first movie then you'll find some moments to enjoy here, but it's a big step down. There's no real sense of urgency, aside from the moments in the first act, and it's hard to feel truly worried about people we last saw surviving "the end of the world". Fingers crossed that we don't get a third movie, although that would probably involve a war for Greenland between the people living there and the inane 47th President of The United States.

5/10

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Prime Time: Greenland (2020)

Having done his time protecting the President Of The United States, saving the world from terrorists, and even catching a dangerous submarine, Gerard Butler now gets to focus on trying to keep his onscreen family safe. I'm sure he has had a previous family-in-peril needing his strength and courage, but I can't think of any specific title just now, Because so many Gerard Butler movies just blur into one another. Which isn't that big a deal for me, mainly because I happen to like Butler anyway.

Butler plays John Garrity, a structural engineer. He's currently going through a difficult patch with his wife, Allison (Morena Baccarin), but the two of them try to put a brave face on things for the sake of their young son, Nathan (Roger Dale Floyd). They need to work even harder to keep brave faces when John receives an automated call as people group together to watch a passing comet. It turns out that the comet isn't just going to provide a pretty lightshow in the sky. It has bits falling into the Earth's atmosphere that will destroy entire cities. And one major chunk will bring about an Extinction Level Event. Heading to safety, the Garrity family finds numerous obstacles in their path, and the clock is ticking.

Written by Chris Sparling, a writer with a filmography that varies wildly in quality from the greatness of Buried to the sheer awfulness of ATM, Greenland is an entertaining disaster movie that wants to pretend it's a bit more grounded than most. It's really not, especially when you consider the coincidences required during almost every major plot beat, but it somehow manages to find a nice sweet spot between the more bombastic disaster movies and the likes of the more thoughtful, and disappointing, Deep Impact (note, don't hold me to that, as I am long overdue a revisit of Deep Impact, having not seen it since it first came out on VHS).

Director Ric Roman Waugh has an action thriller background (his previous film before this one being the Butler-starring Angel Has Fallen) and he capably delivers the goods here. You get some chases, you get a fight or two, and you also get some decent CGI causing big problems. The fact that this is a disaster film is almost secondary to the fact that it's a Gerard Butler film, for better or worse.

Butler is good in the lead role, one that doesn't really stretch him or take him out of his comfort zone, but it at least places him in a developing situation that feels a bit different from many of his other interchangeable movies. Baccarin is also good, even if she has to spend a lot of the movie hoping that she can stay alongside Butler while he offers protection and the possibility of escape. And then you have Floyd, a young actor who somehow manages to avoid being too annoying, even as his character makes things a lot harder than they otherwise could have been. Hope David, David Denman, Scott Glenn, and Holt McCallany are the other main names appearing here and there, all in small supporting roles as Butler, Baccarin, and Floyd attempt the seemingly impossible.

If you like disaster movies then there should be enough here to keep you entertained. If you like dramas with a bit of action dotted throughout then likewise. And if you like Gerard Butler movies then, well, you've probably seen this before spotting this review.

7/10

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