THE WAVE (2015) ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Riar Uthaug
Kristoffer Joner, Ane Dahl Torp, Eili Harboe,
Jonas Hoff Oftebro, Edith Haagenrud-Sande,
Fridtjov Såheim, Laila Goody, Arthur Berning
A suspenseful ecodisaster thriller from Norway, about a geologist whose job is to monitor the seismic activity on an unstable mountain and hit the alarm button if it looks like the mountain is about to crash into the fjord. Once the alarm sounds, the locals have exactly ten minutes to get to higher ground to escape a tsunami that will level everything in its path. Plausibility gets stretched pretty thin after a while, but the pace is efficient, the effects look good, and Kristoffer Joner has real charisma as the obsessive/compulsive scientist whose warnings (of course) go unheeded until it's too late. Viewers susceptible to claustrophobia should beware: The scenes that take place inside contracting cracks in the mountain are intense. Followed by a sequel, "The Quake", in which the same characters try to survive an earthquake in Oslo.
