The Quake is a Norwegian disaster film and a sequel to The Wave. If you enjoy disaster films and don’t mind reading subtitles, then I would highly recommend it. While I think that it would be helpful to see The Wave first to see how dramatically changed these characters are from the effects of the first movie’s disaster, it isn’t absolutely necessary if you are not invested in them. Because it is a Norwegian film and not American, even the worst interpersonal conflict is still fairly civilized, empathetic and decent than ours would be.
The Quake unfolds three years after the events in The Wave and follows a geologist who is still haunted by the events from the first movie. He is separated from his family who moved unwittingly to the next danger zone, which he discovers after he finally get a colleague’s message about his prediction of the impending titular disaster. Will this geologist become functional enough to convince and save his family again?
The point of disaster movies, including The Quake, is to reunite the family literally and emotionally, but because I watched this movie soon after Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, I’m also beginning to think that they are fantasies for shitty people who only get one thing right and feel as if it is vindication for all the horrible things that they have intentionally or not inflicted on other people so they don’t have to change, just be really good at one thing as if it is enough. While this reassurance never quite works in the Tom Cruise movie, it does work in The Quake even at its most absurd moments. As I mentioned earlier, there is a colleague who kind of acts like the geologist’s ghost of Christmas future, but not as a cautionary tale. That colleague’s daughter, Marit, gets to retroactively learn by working with the geologist that her father actually loved her by trying to keep everyone safe and never interacting with her. “Some things are more important than a daughter, son or family,” grumbles the geologist. Keep that same energy up when they put you in a home and don’t visit.
If The Quake was an American movie, Marit would be a possible love interest for the geologist, but thankfully the filmmakers wisely refrained from doing so, which lends more credibility to the geologist’s PTSD. If there is another sequel, who knows what the filmmakers will do since Norwegian blockbusters are awfully similar to ours. Shout out to Marit for basically stopping her whole life for a guy that she doesn’t know just because they had someone in common whom she had issues with. Better woman than me! I could invite someone over to my house then get impatient if they are there a minute longer than the time that I had in my head.
If you don’t care about the personal dynamics in The Quake, you are going to have to wait seventy-six minutes for the real action to begin although there are plenty of foreboding moments sprinkled throughout the movie to keep you satisfied until the main event. Your patience will pay off during the last half hour of the film, which is nonstop, seismic mayhem. Here is a satisfying one-word teaser: dominoes! It is 1970s epic disaster goodness with twenty-first century CGI expertise. I also liked that anyone could get killed off although your chances increase proportionate to how disapproving of the geologist you are. Apparently he is Mother Nature’s little boy so don’t be mean to him even if he deserves it. Also Mother Nature, it is good for children to leave the next and strike out on their own with their own opinions. We don’t want his son to learn the wrong lessons from this disaster.
I know that if everyone acted wisely in a disaster movie, then there would be no movie, but I was sick to death of Julia. Are you your daddy’s daughter or what? I know that she is a kid, but she has more disaster experience than the average kid yet she was constantly in need of rescue. At this point, she should be an old pro at this. I think that she is faking it to get them to show that they care since nobody was actually watching her performance. She was thinking at least on the subliminal level, “Well, the least that you can do is save me.” Also this family needs to get to know the settings on their cell phones such as quiet mode, texting, etc. Shout out to wardrobe for the sweater of love, melancholy and missed connections. I know that I watch too many disaster movies if I see construction cranes and think, “Chekhov’s cranes” instead of Chekhov’s gun. In real life, if I see a cluster of cranes (Iceland), I immediately think about the worst case scenario and walk through the area as quickly as possible. I’m from New York City. I’m not overreacting.
I would have enjoyed one scene that explains how the geologist is financially able to sit around obsessing. Does he still have a job? Independently wealthy? Does Norway just have a financial safety net for its citizens who have mental health crisis? How do you become a citizen or at least an authorized guest? Would you get the same benefits if you were the latter? Asking for a friend….
The Quake is way better than The Wave because overall the story is better crafted, and while The Wave was visually gorgeous, there is not a lot of variety after a huge wave obliterates your town, but an earthquake is the gift that keeps on giving: liquefaction, fires, falling, rubble, etc. As disaster movies go, it was one of the best.