Disaster movies hardly lend themselves to sequels given that the entire premise is predicated on cataclysmic global destruction that annihilates huge swathes of the planet and causes untold devastation, which isn’t exactly the sort of thing that can be mined repeatedly. However, while it’s a concept Hollywood has yet to master, 2018’s The Quake showed that Norway knows how to get it done right.
Director Roar Uthaug landed the Tomb Raider reboot on the strength of The Wave, his 2015 opening installment that found Kristoffer Joner’s geologist and his family trapped in a desperate battle for survival when a 250-foot tidal wave begins to wreak havoc across the country in the aftermath of a landslide.
Fast forward three years (with John Andreas Andersen stepping in behind the camera), and the Eikjord clan find themselves in trouble yet again when a 5.4 magnitude earthquake strikes right in the center of Olso.
As far-fetched as it is for the same family to get caught up in two massive-scale disasters that fling them right into the epicenter of the chaos, both The Wave and The Quake won stellar reviews from critics.
The former was Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with an 83 percent score, but the second chapter fared even better by securing an 85 percent rating on the aggregation site. The Quake was a solid hit at the time after earning $14 million at the box office on a budget of under $6 million, but it’s now making a worldwide splash on streaming.
As per FlixPatrol, the sequel that turned out a great deal better than it had any right to be has landed a prime position on the iTunes ranks, which could lead to Norway’s disaster epics finding a new lease of life among overseas audiences.