Jonah Naplan   January 11, 2026

Ric Roman Waugh’s “Greenland,” released straight to VOD at the end of 2020, was far better than it had any right to be. Unlike other disaster movies with that “the end of the world is fun” mentality, arguably founded by “Independence Day,” this one was rooted by an authentic emotional core and people that we cared about. The context of a global pandemic, too, made following these characters as they struggled to find safety no less of a stressful watch. The ending seemed to wrap things up pretty perfectly, so a sequel to “Greenland” certainly wouldn’t have been at the top of my list of projects I’d expect to see star Gerard Butler in next. And yet, here we are.

“Greenland 2: Migration” was made for a fanbase that doesn’t really exist and is so remarkably unremarkable that you might completely forget it exists, too. Also directed by Waugh, and written by Chris Sparling and Mitchell LaFortune, it’s a movie that’s neither good nor bad enough to stick in your memory after leaving the theater, and it unfortunately doesn’t expand upon any of the vastly overlooked strengths that made its predecessor such a gem. Set five years after the first movie, in the aftermath of the Clarke comet decimating planet Earth as we know it, John Garrity (Butler) and his family—wife Allison (Morena Baccarin) and son Nathan (Roman Griffin Davis)—have been spending their grim lives cooped up in a bunker in Greenland, trying and failing to rebuild what was lost with their consolidated community. It’s a theme the movie doesn’t touch on much beyond the opening scenes, a real missed opportunity for a sequel to a film that was so rich in subtext and surprising emotional weight.

When a massive tremor rumbles through the terrain, Garrity and his family are forced to abandon the confines of the bunker and manage to escape the destruction on a lifeboat bound for the Atlantic Ocean. Along with two other refugees (Trond Fausa Aurvåg and Amber Rose Revah), this misfit crew attempts to reach the south of France where Clarke’s largest fragment has supposedly created a thriving ecosystem of water and new resources. Their long journey to get there is essentially summarized in a few key sequences that bring a menagerie of casualties and chaos. None of them are particularly memorable, though, blandly directed by Waugh, who’s usually quite adept at designing effective action setpieces, but can’t seem to muster anything indelible here. As these brave survivors traverse the ravaged suburbs of Liverpool and what used to be the English Channel (now it’s an empty chasm of dust and despair that can only be crossed via a rickety rope bridge with roughly 10 times the danger of the one in “Temple of Doom”), you don’t exactly feel the same urgency or stakes that grounded the mayhem of the first movie.

Butler’s giving it his all, as always. After years of playing the same sorts of characters, he’s mastered that archetypal balance between the gruff workhorse and the warm father, and Garrity is another version of that. Going into “Migration,” you know exactly the kind of character he’s gonna play, exactly what his lines are gonna be, and exactly how he’s gonna say them. You can practically hear the Scot’s words of determination and comfort playing out in your head without even seeing the movie. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s something to watch for when making a film like this because the plot is already so predictable and you can probably telegraph exactly where it’s all gonna end up after a certain mid-movie revelation.

Even when the Garritys have a run-in with a struggling French family who allow them to shelter in their home, and dad (William Abadie) convinces John to take his daughter Camille (Nelia Valero de Costa) along with them, there’s still not much new going on here. What had the rare opportunity to expand the world of a mid-budget, non-IP action movie, and ask important questions about the decisions we as a society have to make in the aftermath of a disaster, and whether they’re ethical or unethical or if that even matters, is ultimately a bland misfire, simply because we won’t remember these characters, their emotions, or their journey at all.

“Greenland 2: Migration” is the latest in Gerard Butler’s catalogue of January thrillers (“Den of Thieves 2: Pantera,” “Plane”), and despite its challenges, it certainly won’t be the last. These movies are cranked out like clockwork every year, and the quality’s never important, so long as a profit is turned. Only the actual end of the world could make Butler stop.

Now playing in theaters.