3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Greenland 2: Migration

2026, Ric Roman Waugh (Greenland) -- download

The original Greenland came out in 2020, during The Pandemic which I was calling The Pause at the time. Disaster Movie seemed an entirely appropriate response for a world that kind of felt like it was ending, but nobody really believed it was. We believed we would end up exactly where we did end up -- barely remembering that things were really different then and only shadows of the traumatic time haunting us. But in this first movie, the world did end -- the comet Clarke did hit the Earth, and the only survivors were those that made it to the bunker in Greenland. 

Except it didn't. Only a large chunk of Clarke hit the planet, likely many large chunks, but the world did not truly end. Civilized life did, but we persisted. Five years later, life in the Greenland bunker has become challenging and tenuous. Outside is radiation and toxic storms. Inside is boredom, tension and trauma. They have minimal contact with other bunkers and groups of survivors, as well as a rumour about a supposed paradise tucked inside the crater of the largest Clarke chunk, in southern France. Apparently the crater walls protect all within from radiation storms and other terrible stuff. 

The movie hand-waves this ridiculous idea away without so much as a quick argument around a bunker council table. I mean, the usual stuff of post-apocalyptic movies hasn't even happened. What about the atomic winter? Isn't it a mainstay of asteroid strikes that large amounts of material are tossed into the atmosphere bringing on endless winter? Maybe that happened in the first couple of years, but outside doesn't reflect it. Things are wrecked, but ... its all still there. And there are survivors in other bunkers and elsewhere.

And then a catastrophic earthquake strikes, tearing open the bunker and a tsunami wipes out pretty much all of the inhabitants. All but a handful are killed, and in that handful are our main characters John Garrity (Gerard Butler, Plane), his wife Allison (Morena Baccarin, Deadpool) and their now teenage son Nathan (Roman Griffin Davis, The Long Walk). They escape in a beached lifeboat before the wave kills everyone else. Everyone. Fuck you, Disaster Movie -- these people survived the comet strike and five years inside a bunker, only to be killed en masse so this movie can have an imposed road trip to a mythical New Eden. I just didn't like that premise. But it gave a reason to recreate the A to B trip of the first movie, like all great/terrible sequels do. 

So, Road Trip! The lifeboat makes it to the coast of England, Liverpool to be precise, where... well, things aren't wiped out, they are just rather typical examples of po-ap life. The military has its own bunker, which they keep survivors out of, but at least there are Outside Survivors. Five years on they have food, water and refuge from the tsunamis and radiation storms! Until the Garrity-s show up and a storm scatters them to all corners. Again, fuck you Disaster Movie. OBVIOUSLY these Outside Survivors have been surviving these storms, so then why does panic ensue. They must have safer refuges nearby but instead they all try to outrun the thing. Most don't. John trades his watch for a spot in a camper van for him and his family. 

And the movie continues the trip, interrupted by a series of violent spectacles that keep the focus on this little family, and only the family. They escape the sea, in that little lifeboat, with a few from the bunker. One dies at the gates in Liverpool, another is killed by raiders as they drive south. In fact, the driver of the camper van is killed when everyone stops for a respite and Clarke reminds us it still has quite a few chunks left to throw at the planet. 

That is the sequel-itis formula that just irritates the fuck out of me. Sequels often have to follow the beats and moods that made the first popular and memorable. The first Greenland had only the main characters traveling, each with some additional cast, who dies or move on without the others, until its only the little family left heading to Greenland. The first movie also had occasional bouts of rocks falling from the sky at precise angles, destroying cars and survivors. Sure, evocative scenes. And economy of cast is easier to manage. But...

Anywayz, from England, they cross the channel, which is, well, drained like a leaky bath tub. Apparently a great crack formed and all the water drained away. Exceeeept, there are lots of oceans & seas to either side of the English Channel -- the water should be still flowing. But no, they have to evoke scenes of po-ap wastelands so cross a desert between England and France, and cross over rickety ladders across the big crack, which then shakes & rattles dumping any other visible survivors into said crack, leaving our family again, alone, to head into France.

This is where they learn that the Clarke Crater is indeed a real thing and that there is a war being fought over it. Yes, there are enough out-of-bunker survivors in France, where the biggest chunk of the comet smashed into the planet to have armies fighting over entrance into this mythical paradise. A war that has a front-line and trenches and lots of bullets. While, again, very evocative in its depiction, it was so very very silly. The movie feels very much like it spit-balled a story & script in order to fulfill an agreement.