Review: Polar Adventure Biopic 'Amundsen - The Greatest Expedition' Leaves One Cold

In "Amundsen - The Greatest Expedition," director Espen Sandberg tackles the life and expeditions of the famed Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen (Pål Sverre Hagen), best known for having beaten British explorer Robert Scott to the South Pole. But there's so much more to the story.

Amundsen's original goal was to get to the North Pole. The film - much of it told in flashback during a conversation between Amundsen's brother, Leon (Christian Rubeck) and the married woman he had taken up with later in life, Bess (Katherine Waterston) - recounts how both Amundsen and his brother were captivated by the North Pole from the time they were boys, and grew up fixated on the idea of getting there.

Amundsen took a joy in dangerous journeys - and surviving them - that his brother did not; eventually, it was Amundsen, the younger, who kept on with exploration, while Leon stayed home and managed the financial affairs that helped sustain Amundsen's dreams.

The film briskly traces Amundsen's route to the South Pole, relating how he changed his plans to reach the North Pole once the claim (long regarded as unproven) of an American explorer, Frederick Cook, got there first, in 1908. (Another American, Robert Peary, followed suit in 1909, but his claim to have reached the North Pole is likewise regarded as unproven.)

There's no controversy about Amundsen and his team reaching the South Pole in 1911. The controversy arose from a reaction by the British, when Scott's expedition arrived a month later, and realized they were beat...then died on the return journey.

Scott relied on motorized sleds and horses with snowshoes; Amundsen, taking his cues from Inuit in the frozen Northern climes, used lightweight sleds and dog teams.

The film goes on to reveal Amundsen's subsequent adventures, failures, challenges, and successes, including serving as the leader of the first party to be verified as having reached the North Pole (albeit by flying over it in an airship in 1926).

The portrait of Amundsen through the years is one of a man either obsessed or disengaged; his thirst for daring expeditions never diminishes, while, before Bess, we see him take up passionately with another married woman, Kristine Bennett (Ida Ursin-Holm).

His original fixation never deserts him, and his intensity and single-minded focus on getting to the North Pole leads, in the film, to a falling out with his brother, who grows exasperated with Amundsen's profligate expenditures, including a small fleet of airplanes designed for polar flight.

Tales of greatness entwined with obsession are standard fare for any sort of adventure movie, and those lead to compelling narratives.

That's not so much the case here; once he's conquered the South Pole, Amundsen's life simply seems to echo the same refrains: Lofty goals, bullheaded persistence, and relationships that feel strangely incomplete.

In addition to romancing two married women, and generating constant friction with his brother and various male friends and colleagues, Amundsen adopts two Inuit children, whom he intends to educate in Norway; cultural imperialism is suggested in this, but not explored.

Indeed, when the movie departs from the ice its scattershot nature becomes apparent, and it seems not to know what to do with its central character.

What makes him tick? Is he really as hollow as he seems, practically lifeless unless contemplating an excursion to one or another landscape of frozen extremes? Why are his team members - with whom he makes these journeys, decade after decade, all of them suffering and growing older together - so loyal, and is he as lacking in loyalty in return as the film seems to suggest?

There is no lack of opportunity for a strong through line. Imperfect romance, band of brothers adventure, historical antihero; any of these concepts would be more than adequate to inform and unify the film, but it never settles on any one approach.

Despite the production values, often impressive, and fine performances, the film is apt to leave one cold.

"Amundsen - The Greatest Expedition" opens in virtual cinemas and VOD April 2.