This Norwegian Disaster Movie With 83% Rotten Tomatoes Has Found a New Streaming Home

6 days ago 5

You can ask anyone that loves foreign films to make a list of movies you should watch and, nine times out of ten, a Norwegian title is bound to come up on the list. One of the most celebrated movies to come out of the European country is The Wave, which took the world by storm when it premiered in film festivals and then in movie theaters. The story uses real events to construct a disaster scenario in which characters have to pretty much fight for their own lives.

The story of The Wave takes place in the small tourist village of Geiranger — the same general area where, in 1905, a rock-slide incident caused a tsunami that leveled the village. Geologists know that the chances of the same event happening again exist, and it is only a matter of when. In the story, that day arrives, and locals start to get desperate when they realize that fleeing the village is not an easy task. Worst of all, statistics suggest that, once the rock slide happens, a 300-foot tall tsunami will be formed and, after that, the entire town will be gone in a matter of minutes.

Needless to say, The Wave is extremely thrilling. In her review, Collider's Perri Nemiroff stated that the Norwegian production "puts Hollywood disaster movies to shame." Nemiroff pointed out the fact that, aside from being high-quality entertainment, The Wave constructs nuanced characters and features visual effects that were, at the time, "a major technical achievement." She capped the review off by writing that The Wave "is everything you’d want in a disaster movie and then some."

'The Wave' Was a Standout Everywhere

Nemiroff's opinion was echoed by other film critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, it landed a pretty good 83% score, which indicates that, at the very least, you should be curious to give it a watch. Not by chance, The Wave was submitted by Norway to compete for the Best International Film category at the Oscars, but it failed to get a nomination.

The movie was directed by Roar Uthaug, whose talent for action and thriller stories brought him to Hollywood, where he directed 2018's Tomb Raider. Recently, he helmed Netflix's fantasy thriller Troll. The cast of The Wave features Kristoffer Joner (Mission: Impossible — Fallout), Ane Dahl Torp (Deliver Me), Jonas Hoff Oftebro (Ragnarok), Arthur Berning (In Order of Disappearance), Silje Breivik (22 July), and Thomas Bo Larsen (Another Round).