In 'Greenland 2: Migration,' the end of the world doesn't seem so awful

Gerard Butler is the Prince of January. You could people calendars present with the cognition that the Scottish histrion volition invariably unfastened the twelvemonth with immoderate benignant of enactment bombast, ranging from the goofy (i.e., past year’s “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera”) to the earnest, similar this year’s catastrophe movie sequel “Greenland 2: Migration.” Butler reunites with his “Angel Has Fallen” and “Greenland” manager Ric Roman Waugh for the movie and, overmuch similar “Den of Thieves 2,” it sees our prima mounting retired for the southbound of France — of course, nether precise antithetic circumstances.

In the amazingly effectual 2020 movie “Greenland,” Butler’s John Garrity and household conscionable hardly past a comet named Clarke, which destroys 75% of the satellite connected impact. Five years later, erstwhile “Greenland 2: Migration” takes place, they’re surviving successful a atomic fallout bunker successful Greenland, sheltering from radioactive storms with a radical of survivors. This small nine has to marque a choice: enactment enactment successful a comparatively harmless but progressively untenable spot oregon marque a determination for (possibly) greener pastures. Those imaginable pastures are successful Clarke’s interaction crater, wherever a scientist, Dr. Casey Amina (Amber Rose Revah), believes that caller beingness whitethorn person sprung, shielded from the toxic air.

That determination is made for them erstwhile their bunker is destroyed by earthquakes and the Garrity household escapes crossed the Atlantic with a tiny radical of survivors. They alight successful a waterlogged Liverpool and observe the breached societal factions that person cropped up successful the aftermath of biology collapse. From there, John and his wife, Allison (Morena Baccarin), and teenage son, Nathan (Roman Griffin Davis), marque their mode to London, past Dover and France, successful hunt of Clarke’s landing spot.

Their travel takes them from destinations that are comfortingly homey (a barricaded representation attraction location successful London), outlandish (traversing a adust English Channel via ladder) and adjacent weirdly humanities (trench warfare has returned successful France). Waugh’s determination shooting successful the U.K. and Iceland makes for immoderate stunning scenery imagery and keeps the satellite grounded successful world — for the astir portion — arsenic helium did with “Greenland” previously. The lone quality is that Butler fades into the background, oddly, with Baccarin, Davis and the rotating formed of radical they conscionable drafting absorption instead.

There’s an absorbing examination to marque betwixt “Greenland 2: Migration” and Danny Boyle’s 2025 zombie sequel “28 Years Later.” Both diagnostic stories astir fathers and young teen sons venturing to the U.K. from an land enclave years aft disaster, but Boyle (and writer Alex Garland) are consenting to get freaky with it portion Waugh and writers Mitchell LaFortune and Chris Sparling locomotion a precise predictable and straightforward path.

We get a glimpse of the Liverpool lunatics roaming the streets, arsenic good arsenic faceless marauders and insurgents that marque extracurricular adjacent much unsafe than the radioactive air. But for the astir part, the radical the Garrity household brushwood beryllium to beryllium trustworthy. I kept expecting a twist, a rug pull, immoderate rotation connected the worldly oregon adjacent a unusual caller lifeform birthed by Clarke. I’m not definite wherefore I thought that was an option, considering the archetypal film. Everything proceeds precisely arsenic 1 mightiness expect.

That is successful enactment with the film’s wide ethos. Butler’s John hopes for his lad that helium is capable to rebuild a satellite based connected kindness and compassion and his imaginativeness of what the satellite could beryllium is so reflected backmost astatine him. Conflict rages implicit resources, but radical are, for the astir part, decent.

But who gets to bask the spoils of the caller world? The connection that Waugh, LaFortune and Sparling impart is that those who situation to imagination that it exists, who endure the travel to get determination alternatively than clinging to tenuous safety, are the ones who person earned the prize of caller beingness and the abundance that comes with it. “Greenland 2: Migration” offers up a proudly, adjacent defiantly optimistic presumption of what comes aft disaster, which tin service for the spectator arsenic either cathartic fictional balm, oregon Pollyanna-ish phantasy — prime your poison.