Disaster movies from Hollywood'€™s major studios usually feature these clichés: nature gets mad at humanity and then stomps upon us with massive forms of natural disasters '€” whether they be earthquakes, tsunami, fires or the combination of any of them '€” that eventually lead to the death of millions of people and the survival of a few selected good-looking main cast members.

What also usually takes place in Hollywood disaster movies is the extravagant display of computer-generated special effects to create believable visuals of an unbelievable disaster that comes in mammoth proportion. This is normally the most important selling point of Hollywood disaster movies: the ability to present the horrors of natural disaster as realistic as possible for the audience sitting comfortably in the cinemas.

Hollywood disaster movies concentrate so much on bringing spectacular displays of death and disaster that they often neglect the quality of stories and characters. This is where The Wave offers a lot more than just displaying death, torment and one disaster after another.

The Wave kicks off by telling the audience that the film they are about to watch is scientifically based on the actual mountainous terrain of Norway. Actual news footages of landslide-triggered tsunami that had taken place in Norway over the last century is presented at the beginning of the film to build a credible background.

We are then introduced to a geologist named Kristian (Kristoffer Joner) and his happy little family: his wife Idun (Ane Dahl Torp), son Sondre (Jonas Hoff Oftebro) and daughter Julia (Edith Haagenrud-Sande). They live in a small town called Geiranger, a real place in Norway that is constantly under threat from the nearby mountain Åkerneset, which could collapse into the fjord and cause a massive tsunami.

Much of the first part of the film revolves around the introduction of the main characters and the town they are living in. Director Roar Uthaug and cinematographer John Christian Rosenlund captivate the audience as they display the beautiful scenery of Geiranger and lives of people there through a dynamic play of camera angles as if they want to show us what they are about to destroy in the latter part of the movie.

Kristian is about to leave his current workplace at the local seismology center. After years of watching computer screens to monitor whether the mountain shows the slightest hint of going into avalanche mode and destroy Geiranger, Kristian finally lands a job in the oil industry in the north of Norway.

There is a bit of family drama going on as Sondre seems to be less enthusiastic about moving from Geiranger to the northern part of Norway, unlike his mother and sister, who cannot wait to move up north, which has more stable terrain and a better-paid job for Kristian.

As Kristian bids farewell to his co-workers '€” Arvid (Fridtjov SÃ¥heim), Jacob (Arthur Berning), Margot (Laila Goody) and Georg (Herman Bernhoft) '€” suddenly an alarm goes off at the seismology center. A computer screen shows that sensor cables have detected that ground water has suddenly disappeared in some parts of the mountain.

Worried about a potential avalanche, Kristian initially insisted to stay in the seismology center to offer help, but his co-workers told him to calm down and begin moving his stuff from his home.

A passionate geologist, Kristian finally finds out what might have happened to the sensors and he knows the results will not be pretty for the town and its residents. Just before he drives his car into the ferry that will take him and his kids up north, he goes right back to his old office and explains to his co-workers about what might happen if they do not act fast.

Now, usually in a typical Hollywood disaster film, the co-workers will take Kristian'€™s warning lightly and they will ignore him until everything is too late, but in The Wave, they actually act like normal people and pay close attention to what the scientist before them has to say.

Realizing the potential catastrophic destruction that will happen if Kristian'€™s prediction comes true, his co-workers decide to put on a yellow alert and conduct 24-hour monitoring of the mountain, but even this is soon proven to be futile in the face of nature'€™s rage.

The Åkerneset crumbles into the fjord and triggers a 24-meter tsunami raging toward Geiranger. Kristian, his family and the rest of the residents have only 10 minutes to reach high ground before they are drowned.

The dramatic and suspenseful panic following the tsunami rises up constantly and keeps the audience on the edge of their seats. There is an awesome scene that should not be missed in which audience can have a somewhat direct visual experience of being swallowed by a raging tsunami.

The special effects used by the Norwegian film crew in creating the tsunami and the destruction it leaves are not inferior to their Hollywood-made counterparts. They are indeed as massive and daunting as a large tsunami can be imagined, but they do not end up being excessive and eventually kill the much-needed drama on the face of humanity in a large-scale disaster.

The Wave is a disaster movie that features it all in the right balance. It has death, for sure, but it does not ignorantly glorify it. It features highly crafted special effects, but it does not make them central to the theme or to become overkill in terms of the drama and the stories within its narrative.

'€” Photo courtesy of Moxienotion

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