How sad is this?

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

I remember learning about "the wave" in school, we had watched the older made for TV movie. Rainer Wenger reminded me of some of the teachers I had in high school. Some of the students's attitudes reminded me of how we felt and acted in school. The teachers did, at times, get us to stand up and move around to wake us up, so it's not like Wenger was doing anything that would necessarily stand out at first. The trouble I had with this story-line were the bizarre fights and run-ins the students had with townie anarchists (only way I can describe them) and the ending. I doubt Germany has roving anarchists looking to fight teenagers. That part makes no sense to me. I thought the way Wenger was ending the experiment was realistic. He had the students reflect on their experience in The Wave and read some excerpts on stage in an auditorium. In real life, Ron Jones did enjoy the power of being the leader beyond what he imagined and it took him a while to come to terms with that. Wenger was much quicker to realize that and to admit that to the students. I also had trouble with how into "The Wave" Tim got. Enough to buy a gun, shoot a fellow student and himself? That's a fast progression to happen in a week. Even with those two troubles I feel this movie showed how fascism/autocracy could start and rise. We're all susceptible.

"Die Welle" is a 100-minute movie from 7 years ago. It was written and directed by Dennis Gansel, who adapted an American short story for this one. Gansel is trying to become a known name in America in the next couple years and we will see if his attempt becomes more successful than the ones of Henckel von Donnersmarck and Uli Edel. This movie here features some of Germany's most established actors (Vogel, Paul, Kroymann) and some of Germany's biggest rising stars (Riemelt, Lau, Ulrich, Matschenz, M'Barek). Max Riemelt is a regular in Gansel's movies as well. Lau won a Best Supporting Actor German Film Award for his portrayal here. I believe that, even if his characters are not too different most of the time, he is a pretty talented actor and there will be certainly a lot more to see from him in the future."Die Welle" is a great example of an actually creative approach to putting the German Nazi past on the screen. There are so many movies out there that deal with the topic and are all basically the same, but this one here is a refreshingly different way of coming to terms with our past. Well done. It is not perfect by any means, but very watchable for almost the entire movie. I personally felt that the final scene at the auditorium was a bit too showy for my taste and it is certainly very different from the 1981 45-minute version and much more in your face. Also, I was not particularly wowed by the scenes with Paul and Vogel. The scenes with the kids were just better and more interesting except the escalation scene during the water polo game, in which the violence did not feel too credible. And Ulrich's character turned a bit too much into a second Sophie Scholl as the film went on. A bit of a shame as the movie's take on freedom pf press and opinion was a good one. A bit more subtlety would not have hurt this film. However, I really liked the final shot with Vogel in the police car. The screenplay is mostly fine from start to finish and Vogel and Lau give pretty good performances. Vogel's character is also very interesting. He did not get enough approval from his teaching colleagues, but the kids love him. He is a bit of an outsider as well and that is why he enjoyed all the appreciation and kept pouring oil into the fire not realizing the intensity of the flames he was creating. This film is certainly worth a watch. It was the most successful German movie in cinemas here in the year 2008, made even more money than the Oscar nominee "The Baader Meinhof Complex".

The Wave. It is a German movie and based on a social experiment by a teacher on its students that goes out of control. It works as a study of human behavior that manipulating mind of many at once is not a rocket science.The Wave is interesting because of its authenticity, its well etched characters, sharp dialogs and most importantly the underlined idea. Jürgen Vogel playing the accused and victim of the wrong doing does well and few key students characters support him well. As a nitpicking, what movie lacks is an unpredictable climax after surprising and engaging development of the story.I am going with strong 7 out of 10 for The Wave. Given the idea, it could have been much more impactful but still it has enough to entertain you and make you think at the same time.

At a German high school, a new age teacher is trying to make his students understand dictatorship by forming a week long experiment forming a form of dictatorship called die welle, the wave. But as the days past by, the small group grows stronger and bigger, becoming something more than a school project, something that can't be controlled. Strong massages are passed through the movie, without tiring the audience or boring them. The story line is honest and realistic, showing the characters as they are, with their broken families, their problems, their character's weaknesses, explaining at the same time the reasons why the wave had such an impact on them. The thrill grows more intense as the project starts to get over control, however that stops violently with the ending, that grabs the big 10 out of 10 of the film. Some technical weaknesses can be overlooked by the nicely written scenario though and the great performances. So 7 out of 10, because it is a strong movie, but it spoils at the end.