User reviews

Nova Zembla doesn't hold up to the promises made. In fact, it fails utterly, which, truly, is a shame. An adventurous story, a beautiful setting and (for Dutch standards) good acting but all that cannot make watching this film bearable.

The storytelling is unbelievably slow. While being promised an action-packed heroic story it instead halts drastically every time a little climax should be due, resulting in the opposite. And if your film is to be made for a Dutch audience based on a classic Dutch history lesson almost every Dutch person will remember, you just can't get away with it. Not even with showing random scenes of Doutzen Kroes' breasts.

The cast was fine though and the acting wasn't particularly bad. The lines didn't seem forced and it all had a genuine feel, which is often lacking in Dutch films. The technical side of this film wasn't bad either and the effects, costumes, locations and props are a rare perfect blend.

It is clear this film lacked the experience of a great captain and should be a learning opportunity for inexperienced director Reinout Oerlemans. Nova Zembla fails to hoist the colours and sail full speed ahead and instead feels more like a rowing boat without oars. A typical trailer-beats-film.

While I think the 3D-effect in today's cinema should enhance the human experience to get a certain feeling of stepping right into the scene, the three dimensional engineers of the Nova Zembla crew are taking the effect way too far. The extreme shallow dept-of-field (DOF) of most of the scenes creates an very unnatural effect. Not like the human eye it would see. 3D in Nova Zembla brings unnecessary unsharpness to wide shots instead of crisp details. It reminds me more of early cartoons and anime/manga than state-of-the-art improvement of the modern cinema experience. A missed chance for Reinout...

On the other hand, the shots from above (like the viewing angle used in the shots where we can see the boat from above) are well filmed. And the 3D-effect while filming from a lower angle through the grass does a great job. But those are just minutes of the whole movie play time.

it is strange to define it. it is a homage to pioneers of geographic adventure, a history lesson, an inspired trip at the true essence of adventure, not ignoring the portrait of noble heroism ,but giving a realistic story . sure, using the precise expectations about artistic virtues, it is far to be a great movie. but it is a decent one. and this fact remains a significant good point. or,maybe, a reasonable portrait of brave men and theirs fight against nature.

There are a lot of things that can be said about this (typically Dutch) movie. Without a doubt, the adventures of Willem Barentz during his third voyage to find a way around "the North" and his stay on Nova Zembla merited an epic movie.

Even though Reinout Oerlemans is a very inexperienced director the quality of the production is mostly "acceptable". Great camera-work in general and pretty decent acting.

The biggest problem with the movie, however, is the script.

It deviates from what really happened in so many places it defies belief. Why Reinout Oerlemans and Hugo Heinen would have strayed so far from the truth is difficult to understand as much of the real story would have added to the tension.

They completely missed the reason for Barentz to become stuck in the ice contrary to his previous two attempts in sailing through the arctic, for instance. There are many more examples of "truth is stranger than fiction" to be found in this movie.

In the end the movie is dull and not very engaging. Constantly giving the viewer the sense of missed opportunities by the script.

The true story of Willem Barentz' voyage could easily have beaten "Titanic" in terms of suspense and majesty. Instead, this attempt can only be called a mediocre, unnecessary and (in places) simpleminded distortion of reality.

Making a movie about such a 'big' event in Dutch history seems like a very good idea. But, after sitting down for sometime in the cinema i started to get bored. Then more bored and eventually I couldn't take anymore boredom and had to get up and leave the cinema. This is one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time! The storyline is disappointing, and doesn't seem to follow a clear path. The Characters are shallow, and the actors seem to take no effort to give some depth to their character. This would be a hard task anyway, since the conversations between the actors are so weak that it would be a big effort to make anything worthwhile come out.

The gorgeous Doutzen Kroes makes her first movie appearance with a weak performance. I am a big movie fan, but this one, in spite of all the buzz in the Netherlands, is best to avoid!

The Age of Exploration (or age of Discovery). Those 200 years (more or less) from 1450 to 1650, when a few brave men coming from Western Europe, traveling in fragile wooden ships and armed with primitive fire weapons, basically conquered the world. It's strange that very few movies have been made out of that era. Perhaps this is so because this era is now a bit politically incorrect (since it many times involved Europeans invading and conquering Native people). But movies dealing with early polar exploration should not have such a problem, since there were few if any native people there. So here comes this fine film from the Netherlands that tells the true story of Willem Barents, the Dutch navigator that seeking a Northern route to China (Spain, being in war with the Netherlands at the time make it difficult for Dutch ships to go to the east through the Cape of Good Hope) reached in 1596 (more than three centuries before the North Pole was reached) the island of Nova Zembla in the High Arctic Sea, an island that is now a part of Russia. However, the ice soon broke the ship and the crew has to spend in the island a harrowing winter. Shot in 3D mostly in Iceland, this film is handsomely made, with a good, classic storytelling. The story is mostly told through the eyes of Gerrit de Veer, the young, inexperienced chronicler in the expedition. Famous Dutch model Doutzen Kroes has a small role, appearing mostly in flashbacks, as Gerrit's fiancé back in Holland (she was obviously hired because she was believed to be a box office draw, not because her character was really needed in the story).

A terrible movie. The first Dutch 3D movie is a big disaster. It's overrated, the movie is to slow and the storyline to thin. The actors are below average especially Doutzen Kroes. She's not a actress, just a beautiful model. The beginning of the movie is hopeful but after 20 minutes it's over. The 3D effects are not that good. You must use these kind of effects in movie with a spectacular storyline. This movie is to boring and there is not one moment where you can say "wow". I know it's very difficult the tell something about the rich history of Holland but I'm not sure if that is what the director wanted. He just wanted to make the first Dutch 3D movie, that's it. Overall......stay at home and maybe you consider a DVD rent in a couple of months.

I think the main problem here is the directing. The director does not have a lot of experience or talent, and it shows in the movie. The 'making of' segments of this movie, and accounts from the actors, paint a picture of a director who pretty much goes berserk the entire time, and has a directing style that consists mainly of yelling and screaming. The result is that all creative input from a talented cast is killed off right away. It is kind of similar to dominant, loud, and demanding parents, which inevitably produce shy and beaten down kids. Bringing out the best in your actors requires a certain amount of trust. If you ever had a boss who is not in control, and hence wants to control each and every second of your life, you know what the result is. The movie quickly becomes a drag, and I had several instances where I just wanted to walk out. I stayed because of Doutzen Kroes...the question is only: what the heck was she doing in that movie ?

Doutzen Kroes is beautiful, yes. She is even beautiful enough to carry the entire movie, but not on her push-up bra alone. Director Oerlemans put her in the film to give the male audience a reason to buy a ticket. I did not (I watched on DVD), and so I missed the 3D-effects. Just like I missed the polar bear. Turns out I haven't missed anything at all. The original story is exciting enough, but Oerlemans manages to make it a child's tale, and a boring one for that matter. The reason is in Oerlemans' view towards his audience. He produces so much crap with his Eyeworks-company that he is convinced all people want to see is crap. Just look at the pictures provided with Nova Zembla on IMDb to understand who Oerlemans considers to be his biggest star: Oerlemans himself. All Oerlemans ever does, is promote himself, hoping that one day we will believe him. The media hype in The Netherlands when Nova Zembla was launched was utterly embarrassing. Look at Arnie go! Look at Arnie with the real Spielberg-beard! One Big Oerlemans-commercial, broadcast every evening for weeks in a row. I am very sorry for all the (good) actors in the movie and for Doutzen Kroes and Semmy Schilt, who are not actors. Just as Oerlemans is no director.

The very clever thing about this picture is that Reinout Oerlemans got so much money for making it, and so much praise for having made it, when - as seen by the result - he had no idea what he was doing. If he actually did direct the performance of the actors, he steered them in the wrong direction. From the looks of it, he just let them do whatever they could think of. Many a time not the best way to go. Reinout seemingly never watched a technically good production, as aired daily on televisions around the world, because technically this film is a dud. Lighting is very much below par. Dutch films of the seventies got away with it, maybe even eighties. But nowadays this is a big no no. As far as editing it concerned: I don't know what stake Reinout had in that part of the post production process, but it is worse than any amateur could have done. Maybe I am too close to this subject, being an editor myself. But someone with some sense should have stopped this senseless shredding of scenes. So: no directing of actors, no directing of cutting, and no directing of lighting are the obvious drawbacks that immediately catch your eyes. In fact, this picture scores so badly on these points, that I too could not keep watching. Too bad, because the story itself has all the hallmarks of a great picture.

a good story, great ambitions of director, a shallow movie.and everybody is innocent. because desire to create a blockbuster was so great but details are ignored. to present a page of history is not an easy mission. and it is first sin of this project. a huge mountain and an army of Liliputans. and, for make the business more complicated - usual 3 D which, in this case,a real burden. it is not a bad film but only smoke of expensive cigar.because,wanting to tell all, it fails to provide anything. old clichés, dusty characters,great adventure without any crumb of emotion. so, second sin of movie is to create expectations. the last sin - Doutzen Kroes. beautiful, charming, she is only chain for too heavy pendant.

Firstable I thought this will be a typical dutch movie when I ordered a ticket to watch this movie with a load sex etc in it.

When I start watching it in the cinema, it became clearly that it's an different style of movie. It was clearly about our own history and nothing more, but be aware that you know something about our history to know what's happening about it. Even there aren't big acting stars in it, but that's making the movie more realistic and of course it's an tribute to those heroes which have been trying it to reach the far east via the north of Nova Zembla (the first ship who was able to was invented in 1932 by an Russian ship)

It's absolutely worth to watch.