The plot revolves around Johanne (Sara Khorami). When strange things occur at a fish farm—things like the fish being so afraid they fling themselves onto shore en masse—she’s the only scientist who can figure out what’s going on. It also forces her to begrudgingly return to her small home town and revisit her past, because that’s how these things go. She encounters an old flame, Erik (Mikkel Bratt Silstet), her friend’s daughter, Maria (Jenny Evensen), causes a ruckus, a businessman, as a stand-in for the mayor from Jaws, rails that they must keep everything open and running as-is for the sake of the town. All of this, of course, leads up to a many-tentacled beastie running wild in the third act.
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Like I said, there are a lot of familiar beats. I swear to god, for a second it even looks like Kraken is going to turn into a Norwegian spring break movie straight out of Piranha. And for the most part they’re fine. The story isn’t anything special, nothing is particularly memorable, but the actors do the job and the characters fill the space well enough.
Once the monster mayhem fully kicks in, you’re in for an exciting ride, full of action and thrills, and cool, goopy aquatic creature effects. The problem is it takes its sweet time getting there. After a pair of jet ski enthusiasts are devoured right out of the gate, things drag for quite a while. The filmmakers try to set up emotional stakes and ratchet up the tension, which are admirable goals, but with the stock characters and set up, it’s never as effective as it needs to be.
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The film also tries to do too much in too brief a space. There’s the personal with Johanne, but they try to delve into the scientific side of things too deeply in a way that doesn’t pay off. The fish farm uses a cutting-edge sonic device to defeat a parasite, a tool introduced via a Jurassic Park-style cartoon, and they get deep into the technological weeds without ever being convincing. At the same time, things like the origin of this creature are never actually explained. That’s probably for the best, but they go out of their way to explain some things and totally avoid others. With three credited screenwriters, and more story-by credits, and you feel all of those hands in the pot. It’s like they tried to keep everything in to appease everyone, and the result is a shallow mishmash.
This is a nice looking film, slick and sturdy in a way that calls to mind other similarly-slotted recent Norwegian disaster movies, like The Wave, The Quake, and The Burning Sea. The natural beauty of the fjords are on obvious boon, and add a primal edge to the mythological feel and ambiance—there’s a very Loch Ness Monster vibe to the whole thing. Again, the visual effects and creature design are strong, and bolstered by a brooding, ominous score that hits in a visceral spot.
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In a movie like Kraken, much can be forgiven if the creature action pays off, and fortunately for us all, it does. Oie knows how to shoot and edit around their limitations, and tentacles flail, people are torn apart, everyone, and I mean everyone, is in peril, and thanks to a little parasite guy, there are even bits lifted straight from Alien. It’s super exciting and harrowing, and delivers precisely what you’re looking for in this type of tale, it just takes a long, gradual time to get there, and that’s going to be the hang up for many folks. If you can wait it out, you’ll be rewarded, but a lot of people will have checked out by the time things really start to move. [Grade: B-]
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