Gerard Butler really wants January for himself. It’s him vs. Jason Statham at the moment, both in competing Ric Roman Waugh films! Greenland 2: Migration is a tough act to follow for Statham, as Butler is saving the world from an ever falling comet, while Jason is defending against a…corrupted bureaucracy? Score one for the Scot.
The first Greenland landed John Garrity (Gerard Butler), his wife Allison (Morena Baccarin), and his son Nathan (Roman Griffin Davis) on Greenland in a fallout shelter, as the comet Clarke destroyed most of planet Earth. 5 years later, we pick up with the family, still underground, and Nathan desperate to get out into the world. Well, methinks he might have his chance, as the new Earth fault lines and dwindling resources have Dr. Amina (Amber Rose Revah) hypothesizing that that giant comet crater in the middle of war ravaged Europe might contain the key to a new life on new Earth.
The secret sauce to a good disaster movie is the setpieces. Yes plural. They have to be plentiful, and varied. Waugh directed the first movie, so he has to remix what he did in the first in new ways. He writes in that Clarke’s fragments remain in Earth’s gravity, so he can smash a comet piece into Earth when things need to spice up. We get Planeteer based disasters for the Garrity family to overcome in addition to comets. Earth: giant gaping fault cracks to walk over, Fire: Volcanic lava approaches early in the film, Wind: from the comet piece’s tail, Water: well, you can’t get to Europe from Greenland when no helicopters/planes exist anymore. And Heart: in this case, manmade wars and conflicts. Every 15 minutes we get one of these. They’re all fun spectacles, but sadly no Captain Planet to save the day.
Well, maybe Gerard Butler is? Nothing special about the acting here. We’ve got our Garrity family as our anchor, and everyone else is expendable. After every new disaster, Waugh puts 1-2 more new people in our way to have them succumb to the next one. They exist to move the plot along, or be nice, sweet supporters of these random Americans for some weird reason. Sophie Thompson’s section is probably my favorite, because that one actually tries to make our actors into characters for 10 minutes. I guess that’s enough for a movie called Greenland 2: Migration.
And you know what, I’m not really complaining. Greenland 2: Migration is a stupid title for a silly film, that’s exactly what it wants to be. I can’t wait for the next one, on title alone. Greenland 3: Migration 2: Madagascar? I think it’d be hella funny to keep Greenland in the title as we get further and further away from it.