Great idea but flawed execution

grantss

Great idea but flawed execution.

The central plot of The Wave was a good one. A teacher is teaching his class on autocracy, so decides to get them to behave as if in an autocracy. Within a short space of time he unintentionally creates a fascist sect.

The implementation, however, is less good. Characters are badly formed, and are often extreme. The teacher is a one-dimensional hippy, trying to be cool and getting his students to like him. Some of the kids are too ridiculous to be real, eg the kid who is always making silly jokes and pranks without any repercussions.

Some scenes just go nowhere, and/or are badly thought-out. Some of it is plain unrealistic. The ending is fairly predictable.

In between there are moments of true profundity, especially as you can draw parallels between the sect and actual fascist groups in history, especially the Nazis. However, even these moments are diluted by not following through with the parallels.

Overall, worth seeing, but could have been so much better. A tighter script, better developed characters, a bit more thought into the sub-plots and scenes, a more profound and unexpected conclusion.

For a great exploration of a social experiment gone wrong, and a group as a microcosm of society, rather see The Experiment / Das Experiment. The 2010 US remake isn't too bad either but the original German version, made in 2001, is brilliant.

score 6/10

grantss 9 June 2015

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3254433/