THE QUAKE is the unexpected follow-up to THE WAVE, a surprisingly enjoyable Norwegian disaster movie of all things, in which a town was destroyed by a tsunami caused by a landslide. This one has the same character now recovering from that film's ordeal - and, in a nicely realistic touch, suffering from PTSD as a result - while at the same time discovering that a new 'big one' may be en route to Oslo. The first half is all suspense building and character work, which plays out in a watchable fashion, but the climax is the real treat here, a wonderful extended set-piece in a ruined building. The CGI effects are more than adequate and you can forgive the occasional lapses in which the bounds of physics are pushed to the limit and characters occasionally act in stupid ways; this is still much more realistic than an equivalent Hollywood movie like SAN ANDREAS.
Review of The Quake
