Kraken review fjord-based rampage is monster movie with environmental message

A marine researcher is called to Norway’s Sognefjord after mass salmon strandings. She investigates a local fish farm where sonic delousing pods keep pens clean, but the farm owner upgrades the technology to impress Japanese investors. The intensified approach harms wild salmon and the fjord’s deeper marine life. The film builds tension by keeping the apex predator mostly out of view, only showing it briefly early and then letting it glide beneath the waterline. Repeated events show the fjord becoming unrecognizable, with warnings, fleeing crabs, and disturbing debris. When the predator finally appears, it delivers consequences while sparing one person and punishing the businessman, mixing moral messaging with horror and suspense.

"Marine researcher Johanne (Sara Khorami, cementing her Norwegian creature-feature credentials after Troll 2) is summoned to the Sognefjord after reports of mass salmon strandings. Her first port of call is the local fish farm run by Erik (Mikkel Bratt Silset), an old flame with whom she developed sonic delousing pods now used to keep the pens clean. But in a bid to impress Japanese investors, owner Avaldsnes (yvind Brandtzg) has cranked the tech up to the max, harshing the vibe not just for the wild salmon but the fjord's deep denizen too."

"Director Pal ie subscribes both to fishing's credos of patience and Jaws's of maximising tension by keeping the apex predator out of sight for much of the film. The tentacled one is barely glimpsed for the first two-thirds, sucking a couple of idiot jetskiers down into a whirlpool in the prologue and then preferring to glide suggestively below the waterline. All the more space for the film to repetitively bludgeon home its moralistic nature-out-of-whack messaging."

"an old timer warning the fjord is no longer the same, crabs fleeing the waters en masse, grisly flotsam interrupting the capitalists' champagne handshake. When he finally turns up, the cephalopod reads from the same scorecard, sparing Avaldsnes's whistleblower daughter Maria (Jenny Evensen), but not extending the same courtesy to the businessman. ie dips into close-quarters horror at points the scuttling bloodsu"

"Kraken could almost serve as an extended tourist promo other than the titular beastie that is, slewing off giant crab-like lice, and emerging from the depths to administer a stern 90-minute ticking-off about tampering with nature. Maybe it's because of the idea that people there live in greater harmony with nature. It is splendidly showcased in the shape of Norway's Sognefjord, the country's largest fjord, in this didactic but still-enjoyable action film."

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