The Burning Sea (2021)

The Burning Sea is the kind of big-screen disaster thriller that earns its spectacle: it marries nerve-rattling suspense to a sobering, timely unease about what we’ve pulled from the ocean and what it might pull back. Director John Andreas Andersen stages the North Sea with muscular clarity—towering rigs, churning water, and claustrophobic dives—so the action feels physical, immediate, and frighteningly plausible. Kristine Kujath Thorp anchors the chaos with a grounded, human intensity, turning the film into more than a effects showcase as the scale keeps widening and the stakes keep tightening. If you’re allergic to peril-heavy, tension-forward disaster stories, it may feel relentless, but for anyone craving a smart, propulsive thrill ride with striking visuals, this one delivers.

The Burning Sea is clearly aiming to be a big, earnest Norwegian disaster thriller with an eco-warning baked into the spectacle, and on a technical level it often delivers: the ocean-floor peril, collapsing rigs, and rescue sequences have real scale and tension. The problem is everything connecting those set pieces feels prepackaged—thin characters, a romance that never quite earns its emotional weight, and a plot that telegraphs its beats so loudly you can see the “shocking” turns coming minutes away. If you want a smart, character-driven thriller or something genuinely surprising, this will likely feel like a glossy rerun of better disaster films. If you’re happy with competent effects, straightforward heroics, and a tense underwater rescue vibe, it’s a decent one-night watch.