HBO Max's Hit Mad Max Meets Twister Franchise Is One of the Best Action Series

In a genre as storied as action movies, it’s hard to find something that feels like it breaks new ground. In the 2020s, however, one of the leading names in action starred in a franchise that has brought a new perspective on the large-scale, effects-heavy spectacle. Gerard Butler‘s Greenland, and the 2026 sequel, Greenland 2: Migration, imagines an apocalyptic event and one family trying to survive. Combining cutting-edge visual storytelling with a script that never forgets that the people are the most important part of the movie, it has become a hit on streaming that will grab newcomers from the beginning, right up until the second movie’s credits.

Gerard Butler Fights To Save His Family From Extinction in ‘Greenland’

In the first film, Gerard Butler plays John Garrity, a structural engineer and family man expecting to watch the near-miss of an interstellar comet. To his horror, the comet does not miss, instead splintering and hitting Florida, causing a knock-on catastrophe that will trigger an extinction-level event in a matter of days. Fighting his way through a society in free-fall, he seeks shelter for himself, his wife (Morena Baccarin), and young son (Roger Dale Floyd). He hears of a rumored military shelter in Greenland, but it’s going to take everything he can to make sure his family survives.

Gerard Butler’s $90 Million Action Sequel Doubles Domestic Box Office Haul of His Guy Ritchie Bomb

Gerard Butler’s new movie had a lukewarm box office debut.

The sequel, Greenland 2: Migration, is set five years later and sees the Garritys safe but frustrated, living life in a bunker, sheltering from the storms and radioactivity resulting from the previous disaster. With their new home compromised, they face another impossible journey through the worst side of nature, and the most desperate side of humanity, in order to get to an impact site in France, where they may have a chance not just to survive, but to thrive.

The Greenland Movies Are a Mix of ‘Mad Max’ and ‘Twister’

Gerard Butler as John Garrity disheveled in a living room in Greenland. — Gerard Butler as John Garrity in Greenland.

What makes the movies enjoyable as action films is the unbeatable gauntlet set down by nature itself: when your home planet turns against you, where do you run? There are echoes of 1995 action classic Twister in the way that weather events become characters in and of themselves. They can’t be shot at or reasoned with, our heroes simply have to survive it. This leads to nerve-shredding moments such as a sequence in the first film, where John must drive along a highway which is being pelted by flaming debris falling from the sky, struggling to keep his wits about him as they fall indiscriminately.

The movies also have shades of the Mad Max movies, showing a society where civility has evaporated and people do what they can to keep going, even if it’s at the expense of others. The world-building is present in Migration, where John and his fellow bunker survivors sail through the eerily quiet city of Liverpool in England, now submerged in water with only the tops of buildings visible. The unnervingly peaceful scene is broken by violence, as locals fight to enter a rescue bunker. Brutality, segregation, and tribalism all become everyday ways of life for those the Garritys encounter, much like it is in the George Miller-directed franchise.

Gerard Butler’s Blockbusters Keep Humanity at the Heart of the Action

Hollywood has destroyed the world many times, from the snow-covered Lady Liberty in 2004’s The Day After Tomorrow, to the exploding landmarks of 1996’s Independence Day. However, what makes the Greenland films so impactful is not the wide-scale devastation, but the effects on those who survive it.

John and his fellow survivors are flawed, vulnerable, and scared, creating an emotional grounding that allows you to invest in their struggle by putting yourself in their shoes. In both films, director Ric Roman Waugh invites you to ask yourself what you would do, how you would feel, and how you might survive in these circumstances. The action genre isn’t particularly well known for its emotional depth, but Greenland’s choice to place feelings at the forefront means the stakes rise and the action scenes are that much more thrilling.

Those dismissing Greenland and its follow-up as simply another take on his 2017 flop Geostorm will miss two of the most engaging and entertaining action movies of recent years. With scenarios that will speak to everyone’s ecological worst-case scenario, and a human core weaving through the carnage, it’s a duo of movies that will leave their mark.