Reviews

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  ★★★½ review by Mike D'Angelo on Letterboxd

  66/100

  A.V. Club review. Wish more of Hollywood's dumb disaster movies were this good.

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  ★★★★ review by bree1981 on Letterboxd

  Glasgow Frightfest 2016 Film # 7

  A Norwegian disaster movie from Roar Uthaug, the director of Cold Prey. Set in the small, lakeside, tourist town of Geiranger which sit's at the foot of the Akerneset mountain, a mountain that is always moving due to the water running through it and in constant threat of collapse which in turn would cause a massive tsunami which would wipe out the city.
  
  Kristoffer Joner stars as family man Kristian who works as a geologist monitoring the movement of the mountain, it's ultimately his job to work out if the mountain is in danger of collapse and sound an alarm giving the town 10 minutes to evacuate and get to higher ground. When we find out it's his last day on the job before he and his family move to another town we can pretty much guess what's going to happen.
  
  This is based on the real Akerneset mountain which one day will collapse and wipe out the town at it's base which I found really surprising. Shot on a fraction of the budget of your typical Hollywood blockbuster but you really couldn't tell as everything look's spectacular, there's no shoddy 3D effects here. The first half of the film introduces us to the various characters helping us get emotionally invested in them, Uthaug also expertly builds the tension as we know too well what's to come before he unleashes maximum destruction around the halfway point and the rest of the film becomes about Kristian fighting to save his family.
  
  Overall, this is a high stakes disaster movie that put's a lot of bigger budget efforts to shame, a truly gripping movie that had me on the edge of my seat for the whole second half, well worth checking out.

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  ★★★★ review by Dawson Joyce on Letterboxd

  More focused on the personal and human aspects as opposed to most other films of its genre, The Wave is one of the most gripping disaster films to come along in quite some time, with expertly built up tension, strong performances, and characters the audience can care about.

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  ★★★★ review by Fred Andersson on Letterboxd

  If they'd squeezed in one more disaster sequence I would say this is close to a perfect serious disaster movie.

  Sure, it pinpoints almost every cliche in the book, but isn't that what a good disaster movie should do?

  Can't wait to see what Roar Uthaug does with Tomb Raider.

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  ★★★½ review by Allison M. on Letterboxd

  An adventure thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat. I enjoyed it immensely.

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