The Quake - Das große Beben

A movie about folks yelling "Julia!" the entire time, with a little bit of an earthquake mixed in.

I stumbled upon "Skjelvet" ("The Quake") by pure luck. I picked it up and saw that it looked very reminiscent of the 2015 movie "Bølgen" ("The Wave"). Then I noticed that it was the same actor in it, and since I enjoyed "Bølgen", of course I had to give "Skjelvet" a watch.

Good thing that I did, because "Skjelvet" turned out to be every bit as entertaining as the 2015 movie "Bølgen", and it turns out that "Skjelvet" is actually a continuation - a part II - to the 2015 movie. So that was quite a nice surprise thrown into the deal.

Writers John Kåre Raake and Harald Rosenløw-Eeg managed to put together a story that turned out to be as entertaining and adrenaline-filled as the predecessor movie, while Director John Andreas Andersen managed to bring the story to life visually and entertainingly.

I am very surprised with the level of fantastic CGI that they managed to capture and put into the movie, very much reminiscent of the 2015 movie "Bølgen". It all looked so realistic and downright amazing. So that is a great achievement in a Norwegian movie, because that is something you would usually associate with multi-billion dollar movies made in Hollywood.

Kristoffer Joner (playing Kristian Eikjord) in the lead really brought a lot of charm to the movie, and it was great to see him return to reprise this character. He definitely carried the movie quite well. The other actors and actresses in the movie also performed quite well, but it was Kristoffer Joner that carried the movie through and through.

If you have watched the 2015 movie "Bølgen", then you definitely should take the time and effort to sit down and watch this 2018 sequel "Skjelvet" because it is right up there alongside "Bølgen" in entertainment value and in intensity.

It's sad but true. The wave was amazing not just because of its suspense, but also because its characters'actions made sense. And what makes this one even worse is that they are the same characters only stupid! I didn't mind the slow build to the the actual disaster; what annoyed me the most was how everyone was lame and slow and just unbelievably wrong when it comes to their reactions! Scenes where they're supposed to be running for their lives, but instead having melodramatic moments. Human instincts don't work that way or else there would never be any survivors in any life-threatening situation ever! It was so irritating to watch them behave this way after the amazing performance of the previous film! It was a disappointment.

This Norwegian movie is a follow up to the 2015 disaster film "The Wave". Kristoffer Joner is back as geologist Kristian Eikjord , some three years after a tsunami disaster in Geiranger, Norway claimed 248 lives and for which he was considered a hero for saving many people.

However, Kristian is suffering from severe trauma and depression, directly related to that disaster. He has even separated himself from his wife Idun (Ane Dahl Torp) and his two children.

Kristian, via a colleague's death, begins to realize there could be another disaster, a major earthquake, about to strike Oslo. As other reviewers have mentioned, the build-up to the disaster is extremely slow and is filled with lots of melodrama and overacting.

It's only in the final third of the movie that things pick up dramatically with some high tension and truly horrific scenes worthy of a disaster flick. Overall, if one can have the patience to stick with this movie I believe it's worth a watch.

A few years ago, the film The Wave came out and became a big success in Norway. The same people have now made this and the same actors and characters are still here. The films are both catastrophe films, but the action is now moved to the capital Oslo. The title indicates well what is going to happen here? Unlike other movies in this genre, this attempts to convey feelings and a story about a family in dissolution. Pretty successful too, the protagonists manage to get a drama out of the situation they are in and their lives. Everything is clearly building up to the event as well as what we are going to see, namely the quake. The effects are good and perfectly done. Good sequences. The movie may be a bit of a hassle before it gets any action, but I can still recommend this movie to those who like this genre.