THE WAVE Review

If we were to take a little field trip 40 years or so back in time, we’d see a different type of blockbuster film dominating the big screen. Superheroes had not yet conquered Hollywood. Back then, Mother Nature was the big box office darling. From earthquakes and tsunamis to disastrous fires and devastating accidents, we wanted to see massive amounts of Avenger-scale destruction that only the elements could concoct.

Fast forward to present day and we now watch Thor and Hulk destroy cities in the name of the good fight. Even Godzilla has returned to the cinema to continue his rapturous reptilian rampage. Monsters and heroes are what we seek today, but what of the good ole days when Planet Earth herself was what we feared most? There have been the occasional attempts to bring back that old school tale of man versus nature. THE PERFECT STORM was a memorable outing and who can forget TWISTER?

Herein lies the dilemma. As an audience, we’ve become so desensitized to large-scale disasters on screen that they don’t feel real anymore. As we lose our taste, Hollywood feels the need to add more and more CGI and more insanely preposterous circumstances [a la THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW] in an effort to up the ante and draw us back into the mindless, adrenaline-fueled chaos. How far will our suspension of disbelief bend before breaking under the pressure of prolonged exposure to ridiculous premises?

I’ve said it once if not a hundred times. Regardless of the genre, a good film must have a decent story. I like my schlocky genre flicks as much, and likely more, that the next guy. There’s something to be said for movies so bad they’re good. On the other hand, that’s not a diet one can thrive on exclusively. So I ask, where are the fun genre films with story and character?

I would argue that THE WAVE is a prime example of a return to quality, story-driven disaster genre filmmaking. This Norwegian film (natively titled Bølgen) was directed by Roar Uthaug and combined the thrill of films like INTO THE STORM with a cautionary tale perspective more susceptible to storytelling techniques that keep the audience engaged in story and character, rather that what fantastical effects some talented nerd can conjure up in a computer suite.

THE WAVE touts all the intensity we’ve come to expect from a natural disaster film, but backs that up with a refreshingly unexpected level of scientific authenticity that makes the film more than just a popcorn-munching thrill ride. Uthaug slowly develops suspense based on a simple question in the viewer’s mind… when will the wave hit? At no point is the audience wondering if the wave will strike. The marketing and the title of the film itself assure us of the ultimate payoff.

No, what Uthaug delivers is the promise of the money shot, but only after we sit willingly through the first hour of he film. With this committed attention Uthaug provides a slow-burn drama, focused around one man amongst a small clutch of geologists responsible for monitoring and studying the mountain standing high above the tourist town of Geiranger, Norway. THE WAVE actually relies heavily on and even features scientific details both to enhance the drama and realism, but also in turn [like it or not] even educates us somewhat. Oh, God! Not that!

Get over it. Uthaug actually does a remarkable job with taking what many of us would otherwise probably write-off as another boring PBS science special and crafts an engaging commentary and how we can get too comfortable sitting at the top of the food chain and feel a bit invincible, all the while forgetting that our one natural predator is Mother Nature herself. Uthaug tells a story that has human and family drama, but that also calls us out on our tendency to get lazy and apathetic in the face of how much we know versus how much we admit to not knowing.

Kristoffer Joner plays Kristian, a geologist on his way out of his current position as he and his family prepare to relocate. During their preparation, he finds himself drawn back into the mountains hold as he struggles to shake an uneasy feeling that something is not right. Joner is in the drive’s seat of this film, as his persistence and conviction nudge the plot along amidst countless skeptics and naysayers until the boy who called wolf turns out to have telling the truth all along.

Ane Dahl Torp plays Idun, Kristian’s wife who works in the popular hotel on the water’s edge of the fjord that lies within the mountain’s shadow. Idun is eager for her family to move on and finds herself slightly impatient with Kristian’s reluctance to move on, but his gut tells him he’s needed in order to prevent a terrible disaster. While his efforts are valiant, once again, we know what the pay off is to be in THE WAVE, and it’s not watching it from a safe, dry distance. Seriously, I’m not spoiling anything.

While the first act of THE WAVE does take a bit of patience, it also develops some strong characters and introduces us to some basic science that is interesting, if not theoretically practical. It’s this attention to detail that adds to the film’s realism and believability. There are a few moments that scream typical genre fare, such as when they determine the large crevice in the mountain is contracting instead of expanding as they’d expected. Two of the geologists took this as an invitation to physically venture into the crevice for a closer inspection.

If this had been a horror movie, it would equate to the teenage jock responding to the blonde cheerleader hearing a strange noise by volunteering to go into the dark basement alone to check it out… and, we all know how that ends. Otherwise, the handful of other minimally questionable genre moments come during the catastrophic wave action in the final act of the film, but at this point we’ve delayed gratification so long that the payoff stands on it’s own, pleasantly underplayed CGI magnificence.

When it’s all over the the waters have cleared, THE WAVE stands tall amongst it’s predecessors, quite literally as the film’s antagonist is a massive 85-meter tall wall of rapidly-moving water propelled by the collapse of a mountainside into the fjord. If you’re a fan of the disaster genre, do yourself a solid and check out this very fluid, fresh take on a natural nightmare.

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

THE WAVE opens in St. Louis on Friday, March 4th, 2016 exclusively at Landmark’s Tivoli Theatre.