'Greenland 2: Migration' Review: A Generic, but Entertaining Apocalyptic-Survival Thriller
- Dan Bremner
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
By Dan Bremner - February 7, 2026
The second unlikely Gerard Butler sequel in the space of a year (something I never thought I’d be writing, especially after Den of Thieves somehow got a follow-up before this did), Greenland 2: Migration arrives six years after the original, perfectly slotted into the January dumping ground that Butler (and Jason Statham) has basically made his own. It’s unnecessary, clearly inferior to the first film, and absolutely not something anyone was crying out for… but it also killed a fairly painless 100 minutes.
Rather than escalating the end-of-the-world stakes, Migration wisely pivots to something smaller and more manageable. The planet is already broken, this is now a post-apocalyptic road movie about survival, movement, and finding somewhere new to belong. The Garrity family are forced out of their Greenland bunker and sent trekking across a ravaged landscape in search of a rumoured safe haven, encountering the usual mix of hostile survivors, moral tests, and bleak reminders of what’s been lost. It’s a solid enough hook, even if the script rarely does anything different or interesting with it.
Gerard Butler once again carries the film through sheer stubborn sincerity as John Garrity. He’s not doing anything new here, but he remains watchable as a weary, determined dad whose sole personality trait is refusing to give up on his family. Morena Baccarin and Roman Griffin Davis (replacing Roger Dale Floyd) give fine support as the family unit, while everyone else exists to die along the way of the treacherous road trip. The film leans hard into themes of compassion, sacrifice, and human kindness in the face of collapse, sometimes to its benefit, often to its detriment. The emotional beats are extremely on-the-nose, occasionally veering into saccharine territory, but there’s at least an earnestness to it that keeps it from feeling cynical or sneering.
The location shooting gives the film a surprisingly decent sense of scale, and some of the landscapes are genuinely striking. When the action kicks in, it’s competent enough, with a handful of tense sequences that briefly recall the grounded thrills of the first film. Unfortunately, those moments are undercut by some ropey CGI, particularly storms and environmental effects that look suspiciously stock-like and occasionally drift into video-game cutscene territory.
Where Migration really falls down is in its lack of urgency and purpose. Without the ticking clock and immediate extinction threat of the original, the film feels looser, flatter, and far more generic. The road-trip structure quickly settles into predictable survival tropes, and ideas around borders, migration, and rebuilding humanity are introduced only to be brushed past with frustrating simplicity. The ending, in particular, feels hand-waved and naively optimistic given the trauma the film gestures toward but never fully explores.
Greenland 2: Migration is the definition of a diminishing-returns sequel. It doesn’t disgrace the original, but it also doesn’t justify its own existence beyond being another sturdy Gerard Butler vehicle to be dumped in January. There are much worse films like this, and I admired its sincerity more than I expected to, despite how laughably cheesy it was. I just wish it didn't feel so generic overall. Long Live Gerry January.
'Greenland 2: Migration' is available now on digital platforms.
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