Dear Watchers,On this Genre Movie Wednesday, do you want to experience the apocalypse with the “Star Wars” actress Daisy Ridley or with the “300” actor Gerard Butler? Butler’s character and his family brave earthquakes, tsunamis and electrical storms on a journey to a (hopefully) better life in the lively sequel “Greenland 2: Migration,” one of the picks this week from our sci-fi expert Elisabeth Vincentelli. She pairs that choice with Ridley in a zombie movie, “We Bury the Dead,” that is more contemplative than scary. (It’s still a bit scary, though.) Read below what Elisabeth has to say about each film, then head here for three more of her picks. Happy Watching. ‘Greenland 2: Migration’
Where to watch: Stream “Greenland 2: Migration” on HBO Max. By escaping to Thule Air Base in the title country of the movie “Greenland” (2020), the Garrity family narrowly survived Earth’s near-total destruction. In the sequel, five years after the apocalyptic event, we catch up with the Garritys (Gerard Butler and Morena Baccarin) and their 15-year-old son (Roman Griffin Davis) just as the base they’ve been calling home is wrecked by an earthquake followed by a tsunami. They somehow manage to make it to Britain in a lifeboat and from there proceed to France. They are looking not for the last delicious cheeses in the world but for a near-mythical crater area where wildlife and plants are rumored to be making a comeback. “Greenland” was a gem of a survival story, and “Greenland 2,” with its weaker script, is not quite as good. Fortunately, Ric Roman Waugh, who directed both, still has a solid grasp of action filmmaking as he moves from one set piece to the next, and Butler and Baccarin work well together as a sturdy couple. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind seeing more entries in the “Greenland” series. ‘We Bury the Dead’
Where to watch: Stream “We Bury the Dead” on Hulu. In many zombie movies, the exact nature of what makes the dead come back to life — or something resembling life — is left vague. Maybe it was an experiment gone wrong, a lab leak, a new virus. Similarly in “We Bury the Dead,” written and directed by Zak Hilditch, it isn’t clear what kind of experimental weapon accidentally detonated over Tasmania. We know only that the United States is at fault, half a million people died, and now some of them are active again, walking around and loudly grinding their teeth — one of Hilditch’s creepiest, most effective ideas. In the middle of this is Ava (Daisy Ridley, from the “Star Wars” Skywalker trilogy movies), who has volunteered to recover bodies. What she really wants, though, is to find out what happened to her husband, who had been at a retreat in the now-quarantined zone. “We Bury the Dead” is essentially a thoughtful road movie as Ava makes her way through deserted roads and abandoned houses. (You know she is not in America, because nobody seems to feel the need to stockpile firearms or prance around in camo outfits.) As so often happens with zombie stories, Ava’s journey is about facing grief and letting herself embrace life again, but Hilditch proceeds delicately. Even the undead look forlorn.
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