Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | Film | January 9, 2026
The original Greenland went straight to streaming and soon thereafter to HBO Max (in America, at least) back in 2020. While it was only slightly better than mediocre, it felt genuinely refreshing at the time to watch a decent new movie during the dog days of the pandemic. This was true despite its subject matter (the end of the world), which couldn’t help but remind us of the pandemic we were very much still in the midst of. It was a huge hit in the PVOD market (IndieWire estimated it made $60 to $80 million in profit on a $35 million budget), and here we are, five years later, with a sequel landing squarely in the January dumping grounds, where Gerard Butler thrives! (This is the fourth Butler movie released in January.)
The sequel picks up five years after the events of the original, which, if you recall, involved a comet that nearly wiped out humanity, save for a haven in Greenland where Butler’s character, John, managed to get his family to safety. That safety, however, proved to be short-lived. John, his wife Allison (Morena Baccarin), and their son Nathan (Roger Dale Floyd) have been living in an underground bunker because the air is too dangerous to breathe, comet debris still rains down from the sky, and the atmosphere regularly whips up lethal radioactive storms with little to no warning.
Oh, and there are also earthquakes. One of them destroys the bunker and kills most of the people inside. It’s the first of many many warnings for the film’s characters to stay as far away from Gerard Butler as humanly possible. John’s mission in Greenland 2: Migration is to shepherd his wife and son from Greenland to Southern France, where the crater left by the comet’s impact has allegedly produced the “building blocks of life.”
What’s interesting is that there are actually quite a lot of people still roaming the Earth who somehow survived those five years. At least until they encounter Gerard Butler. The worst thing you can be in this movie is a supporting character in a Gerard Butler film, and if you ever meet someone who looks like him during an apocalypse, run. Immediately. In the opposite direction.
Try to enter a military compound with Gerard Butler? You’ll get shot. Help Gerard Butler by driving his family from Liverpool to London, and the rocket-like debris you’ve successfully avoided for five years will suddenly strike you dead. And for the love of God, do not attempt to navigate ladders or ropes between cliffs. Gerard Butler and his family will survive. Pity the poor fools who happen to share the same frame.
Of course, Butler’s character himself is dying from radiation poisoning. He has six weeks to get his family from Greenland to Southern France because this is a Dad Movie, and nothing appeals more to a Dad than sacrificing himself so his family can have a better life. It’s stirring stuff, except for the moviegoer sitting next to me, who snored so loudly I could barely hear Gerard Butler grunt.
What I’m saying is this: Greenland 2: Migration is not a fun road-trip movie across the continent. It is bleak and miserable, but also not terrible (unless you’re a supporting character). Ric Roman Waugh (Angel Has Fallen), as he did with the first film, makes solid use of the budget. There are some decent action sequences for a B-level disaster movie, and no one does “weary but deeply devoted father and husband” better than Butler.
And if you’re related to Gerard Butler? Stay in the safe zone. Stay within five yards of him at all times, and you should be fine. This apparently includes sprinting through an active war zone, because obviously Shangri-La — a peaceful, serene land full of the building blocks of life — is going to be surrounded by warring military factions, even in a dystopian hellscape where radioactive storms will kill everyone in Gerard Butler’s line of sight except his family.
If nothing else, Greenland 2: Migration confirms that Gerard Butler is less an actor in these movies than a walking extinction event. His greatest superpower isn’t survival, strength, or grit. It’s proximity-based annihilation. The closer you stand to him, the worse your odds get unless you share his last name.
Still, for a January sequel nobody asked for, it’s decently made, grimly competent, and wholly committed to the bit. If you like your disaster movies joyless, your dads self-sacrificing, and your supporting characters disposable, this one will do just fine. Just remember the most important survival rule: in the apocalypse, follow Gerard Butler only if you’re legally part of his immediate family.
