Greenland 2: Migration
review by Bobby Blakey
Director Ric Roman Waugh and Gerard Butler have had some great collaborations together including Angel Has Fallen and Kandahar. In 2020 they teamed up for the disaster flick Greenland that while great kind of got lost in the pandemic chaos of COVID. Now they are getting the team back together including his returning co- stars Morena Baccarin as well as Roman Griffin Davis, Amber Rose Revah, Sophie Thompson, Trond Fausa Aurvåg, and William Abadie. Could this next chapter bring more of the intensity, or will it be a world not worth surviving?
Greenland 2: Migration follows the Garrity family, in the aftermath of a comet strike that decimated most of the earth, as they’re forced to leave the safety of their bunker in Greenland to traverse a shattered world in search of a new home.
I was surprised by how much I really enjoyed the first film as I am not big into most disaster films. Revisiting it I think I enjoyed it even more which left me ready for more with the way it ends, but also wondering did we really need more and could it work. Thankfully with this next chapter they have delivered a sequel that is as good if not better than the first film.
To be fair, the film is really the same idea as the first about a journey of survival but being the aftermath of the world, how it is now makes for a different tone and backdrop. They have injected the same amount of non-stop chaos and emotion into this one, but with a new direction and dynamic that keeps you invested from beginning to end. With any of these films there is a level of disbelief that you must throw aside seeing everyone but them seem to get killed, but that doesn’t mean everyone is always safe.
With all the issues this family had in their relationship, health and survival I was
glad to see that they evolved them with the times albeit with still some issues to deal with. They kept it still here but toned down the focus on their son’s asthma so not to just rehash the same thing as well as the trust and anger issues they were fighting through and allow them to just be a family. This makes it more engaging with them, wanting to be together and working as a unit as opposed to at odds and lets the audience be there instead of choosing sides.
The cast are all good and dive right back into these characters like it was yesterday. Where this film really shines if the scope and level of destruction and edge of your seat action that plays out at a breakneck pace. There is very little time to rest through its less than 2-hour runtime as it feeds you just what you need and keeps it edited tight. This isn’t breaking down any walls to the disaster genre necessarily, but it does that rare thing of surpassing the original and being a story that feels like it needed to be told. The films can play great back-to-back even with the time lapse and if you were a fan of the original then this is a welcome return to this world and the people trying to survive it.
Decide for yourself and check out Greenland 2: Migration in theaters now from Lionsgate and STX Films.
