Metacritic reviews

The tension never lets up.

What’s admirable about Pioneer is its succession of interesting environments, both below and above the water’s surface, and the quietly appealing figure at the center of the international intrigue.

Its greatest asset, and another trait it shares with Mann and Fincher's work, is a careful attention toward the particulars of its milieu in a way that doesn't call attention to those period touches.

As far as conspiracy thrillers go, Pioneer is as paranoid as they come.

Pioneer features underwater sequences so breathless they’ll thrill even James Cameron (director Erik Skjoldbjærg made the original Insomnia) but Petter’s truth-chasing is at times too frantic and melodramatic.

Political chicanery and psychological mystery entwine with some stunning underwater sequences but don’t gel entirely satisfactorily.

Pioneer delivers insidious, shadowy tension, while it’s genuinely surprising to find yourself so engrossed – story glitches notwithstanding – in key issues like compression sickness and divers’ gas supply.

Mr. Skjoldbjaerg, who also tapped Norwegian history with his bank robbery re-enactment “Nokas,” doesn’t convey a creeping atmosphere of moral rot so much as an irksome glumness.

The more tangled the plot becomes, the more hackneyed Skjoldbaerg’s tactics get.

With no compelling characters in sight, and a director whose formal acumen begins and ends with forbidding locations (in this case, underwater), Pioneer has to lean on its drab story.