MOVIE REVIEW: Kraken

Images: Nordisk Film Production and Samuel Goldwyn Films

KRAKEN— 3 STARS

In the cult-beholden genre of monster movies, the market has largely been cornered by two countries: The United States and Japan. Thanks to 1925’s The Lost World and the seminal King Kong eight years later, the U.S. of A. can call itself the originator and has kept up a steady output of cheesy wonders for decades. However, since the 1950s and the Showa era debut of the Godzilla franchise, the Land of the Rising Sun has expanded and improved the monster movie with its kaiju variety. Other than a few B-movies a half-century ago, like Denmark’s Reptilicus in 1961, not many other countries have dared to dabble. This month, Norway musters the courage to enter the big screen conversation with Kraken.

LESSON #1: LEARN YOUR HISTORY— Now, if all you know about the name “kraken” is the vague giant sea monster seen in two generations of Clash of the Titans movies, similar appearances in the blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean series, and being the intimidating namesake of the newish NHL hockey team hailing from Seattle, you should do a little homework. Point of fact, the kraken is a myth of Norwegian origin dating back to the 13th century, meaning, unlike the borrowing and bastardization done elsewhere, Kraken gets to depict the giant cephalopod in its native waters. 

Directed by Pål Øie, the film is set in the oceanside harbors of Vangsnes, Norway, of the Sognefjord, an area teeming with recreational water sports, steady tourism, and jaw-dropping glacial topography. While prosperity is riding high in the community, the gray-bearded elders (embodied by Hans Morten Hansen’s Hallvard) remember an unexplained appearance of some sort of enormous, shadowed creature from 1972. Forgotten by most, they took the sighting as an omen and a warning that has gone unheeded.

At present, a local salmon farm has employed a special Sonic Lice technology that has enabled their shoals to grow and thrive free of waterborne lice parasites. The company’s top executive, Jostein Avaldsnes (Øyvind Brandtzæg of Gold Run), is pitching the superiority of the finished product and its earning potential to visiting Japanese investors, hoping to land a lucrative deal to expand the operation. Alas, rumors are swirling, thanks to Jostein’s own whistleblowing activist daughter, Maria (TV actress Jenny Evensen), that something is ecologically wrong with their methods, as large groups of wild salmon have been filmed leaping out of the water for their safety.

What could possibly cause that? The unproven sonar technology radiating through the entire fjord, or something far worse? Tasked with finding out in Kraken is Johanne (Troll 2’s Sara Khorami, stalwart as the smartest person in the room) of the Institute of Marine Research. She is the former co-inventor of the Sonic Lice technology with her old beau and the farm’s chief engineer, Erick (Mikkel Bratt Silset of Netflix’s Norseman). Thrust back together with what begins as a cursory inspection, a larger mystery grows, just as the body count does of reported missing people or mangled remains found on the water.

Leave it to a thriller specialist like Pål Øie (The Tunnel) to put forth a proper Creature Feature with Kraken. Ever since the opening scene of the movie, showing two young jet skiers pulled under the dark surf to their presumed demises, a fan or student of the game knows exactly where the film is going. When done right, the predictability becomes a strength for creating tingling suspense and the type of exotic excitement movies like Kraken are supposed to promise. 

To that end, Kraken, conceived by a combined team of five writers with story or screenplay credit, including Øie, hits its marks. Hallvard’s old urban legend kickstarts the story, reminds mankind they shouldn't interfere with nature, and dangles the plot's clues while the assigned human menu options are given the room to flex their expertise or build their future flaws, which will likely match their chances for eventual survival. Glimpses here and there demonstrate the danger, punch the senses, and keep the audience's attention. Thanks to Steven Spielberg, Rule #1 is to hide your monster as long as you can. For 55 minutes of 100, the movie does just that. Once that door is opened, right on time, all the pre-climactic effort has done enough to deliver the spectacle.

LESSON #2: THE FORMULA WORKS FOR A REASON— Reinvention isn’t always necessary when the decades-old formula is sound. The creativity in something like Kraken comes from keenly delivering the monster movie checklist with savvy filmmaking and a temperance to limit overindulgence as a way to balance the fantasy with the realism. Pål Øie demonstrated how to do this effectively with the rescue movie tropes in 2019’s The Tunnel by keeping the cast small and the drama taut and relatable. Taking a page from Deep Rising of all places, Øie sticks to our handful of characters and their plight to get off the facility, dodging one pursuing tentacle at a time. 

Matching Godzilla Minus One, Øie is working with a tidy budget on Kraken, meaning less needs to be more in the effort to look and sound scary. The topside and underwater cinematography from Sjur Aarthun and Amund Lie make every dive and surfacing scene carry the hint that something is just off frame or under the water line, waiting to pounce. Likewise, the combination of an alarming musical score by Roy Westad (The Riot) mixed with the sound design to muffle noises and cries inside the churning brine adds to the created tension, especially for a creature that preys on noise.

While there are certainly bolder, more emotional, and more bloodthirsty Creature Feature entries out there, Kraken does enough to scratch the entertainment itch for this genre. For this movie, the foreboding existence of a big, bad sea monster capable of thorough destruction is enough. There’s no need to channel Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich and blow every cinematic wad in the world. No massive crowds are running for their lives ahead of massive property damage. No one is screaming, “It’s the Kraken!” That’s improved patience and confidence to make your own thrills count.

LOGO DESIGNED BY MEENTS ILLUSTRATED (#1397)