Back in 2020, with the pandemic in full swing and the end of life as we knew it creeping beyond the theoretical, GREENLAND gave us a way to focus our collective anxiety on a civilization ending comet name Clarke and one man’s struggle to save his family. On some level, though, we knew merely getting to that eponymous island, and the underground bunker build to withstand anything except a direct hit, would only the be the midway point of the story of John Garrity, his family, his friends, and the human race. Hence, GREENLAND 2: MIGRATION, which is a solid sequel to that 2020 original, which saw Clarke slam into southern Europe and end civilization as we know it. It’s a several years on now, and Garrity getting wife Allison (Morena Baccarin) and son Nathan (Roman Grifith Davies) are dealing with the new normal of the aftermath of a literally and figuratively earth-smashing cosmic event. As with that first film, it’s best not to think about the narrative too much; it’s not the point anyway. Further as with that first film, it’s about what is not only best, but also what is most endearing about humanity, like debating what constitutes classic rock-and-roll, or remembering a special day with some of the last dried flowers in Greenland, things that make us as a species worth saving.
In those years, the repercussions of that impact have kept everyone bunker-bound, stretching resources only meant to last for two years, and stretching the effects of cabin fever. The air outside is unsafe to breathe, and radiation storms ravage the surface with boiling masses of black clouds traveling at almost supersonic speeds spit and lightning and contamination. To be caught in one is instant death, if you’re lucky, a fact that has not deterred John from making scavenging trips to the surface in search of replacement parts for the bunker’s filters and generators, and most recently that dried flower he can gift to Allison. Alas, the ongoing effects of a comet crashing into the planet continue, among them tectonic plates resettling in ways that create lava-spewing fissures and, of course, earthquakes. When the latest swarm destroys the bunker, John and his family go in search of the Promised Land, in this case, the actual impact crater where, theoretically, the air is fresh, the soil uncontaminated by radiation, and new life can arise from the ashes of the old.
What GREENLAND 2 does best is give us a dazzling primer on the Earth Sciences, not to mention the physics of a comet that broke apart before crashing, thereby leaving fragments that continue in a slowly decaying close-earth orbit. You know, leading to those shooting stars in the sky zooming with high winds and flaming destruction. As the family makes its way from Greenland to England to France, the landscapes are at once familiar yet eerie and not just from the way one city has become half-submerged, and the countrysides are populated with insurgents, marauders, and the occasional decent soul. Hence, we are treated to the speculative theories of post-apocalyptic geopolitics that seem as reasonable as the marauders engendered thereby are unreasonable. Human ingenuity and compassion still make their mark, though, even if the decisions with which our characters are faced test both.
As I said, what is best about both films is the case it makes for why human beings deserve to survive, from those pressed flowers that are as important as a replacement valve, to a ward where it is always Christmas, to a father who does what is best for his daughter even though it breaks everyone’s heart. The writing is sentimental without being sappy, and our actors are brave without being oblivious. Even in moments of relaxed celebration, there is an undertone of urgency and melancholy subsumed beneath the drive to survive. All of it is is framed in a film that keeps the action going from one dangerous predicament to another with very little breathing room. There are tense walks across a rope bridge over an abyss, an expanse of vitrified rock where most of the White Cliffs of Dover once stood, and a desperate sea voyage in an escape pod of infinite vulnerability in a sea rocked by post-temblor tsunamis.
GREENLAND 2: MIGRATION is never dull and with Butler as the grizzled papa bear leading his people to the Promised Land, it gives us emotional stakes to go with the spectacle. Human beings may be physically puny things in the grand scheme of things, a fact of which we are constantly reminded, but resilient enough, and big-hearted enough, to earn a place in the new world.
Your Thoughts?