peefyn
I wish they would have taken a different approach to this story it is based on. It's an unbelievable one, but I feel that by trying to make it more movie like, they've also made it even less believable. The movie does not need a duffer. I seems like they felt a need to have a character add some conflict to the adventure, but I would much rather that they focused on the actual conflict: the people versus the ocean and the weather. And even the ocean feels a bit too dangerous in the movie, as every time anyone gets even close to the water, it's full of sharks.The above, together with some quite cheesy scenes in the first act of the movie, makes this brilliant story more dumb than it ought to be.But it still really awakens my sense of adventure, just as a story about the Kon-Tiki voyage should.
Katoo
I was intrigued by the story of Thor Heyerdahl and his Kon-Tiki expedition which took place in an era without GPS, mobile phones etc. This is sooo normal for us now, even though I myself have lived 3/4 of my life without this technology as well.I very much liked the look of this movie, almost reminded me of the glorious technicolor movies of the '40s-'50s in which it is actually situated. You can feel the blistering sun out at see and sense the tropical heat in Fatu Hivu, the use of colour and light is outstanding, in the Pacific as well in the scenes shot in Norway. Loved it.I understand Thor Heyerdahl wasn't the most sympathetic bloke around, but even in a movie about him there could have been made more effort in trying to get the audience to understand his motives. We see a brief synopsis of his life in Fatu Hivu, but the movie switches to it straight from his Scandinavian childhood without much explanation. Why did he become a zoologist and geographer in the first place? Unless I missed this, I still don't know why. It kind of got in the way of me understanding his sudden and uncontrollable drive to prove the theory of Tiki.Heyerdahl obviously was a very driven, ambitious and intelligent man, stubborn and a bit of a dictator as well. Very few successful men/explorers would have survived without these characteristics, so that's fine. In the movie, they tried to show another side of him, more vulnerable, privately doubting his decisions, sometimes even being afraid (and he only shows that in private, never to other people). When the movie premiered, actor Pal Hagen was the same age as Hayerdahl when he made the voyage. When you consider this, a young man, only 33, undertaking this epic trip, that must have been a daunting command. Hagen did a great job in portraying Heyerdahl in this stage of his life. I also liked actor Gustaf Skarsgard as Bengt and Tobias Santelman as Knut.There are a lot of scenes leading up to the actual raft trip, and some flash-back scenes as well (with one about Thor and an injured Liv trying to get help by alarming a sailing boat passing Fatu Hivu: what was that for and what did it mean for the movie... I still can't figure it out). The actual trip is more about the first 20 days when they seem to be drifting in the wrong direction; as soon as they catch the right current, next we know they are crashing into Raroia. That's ±75 days gone in a few minutes.There are some other irregularities. The way the Kon-Tiki crew is choosing, for instance. Apart from one childhood friend, and a refrigerator salesman, there is no explanation for any of the other crew members other than that they are Scandinavian and that they have some sort of skill that Thor can use. I read that each of these men were in fact very, very skilled technicians, smart and experienced. In the movie however, they come across as amateurs, a bunch of randomly generated men, not very stress resistant. That clearly was so not the case, I was sorry that the director/producers thought it would be more interesting to create some tension between these men whereas in reality they were a well oiled team, disciplined and focused. I mean, at the end of the movie they show that Herman went to become a UN international representative for Fishing! And in the movie he was just a scared, shiftless refrigerator salesman who doubts Thor all the time and is constantly thinking they will all die at sea.And the parrot/shark killing scene was indeed OTT, as well as the fake beards at the end (that was even ridiculous).I liked the movie, did not love it. But it has made me interested in the figure of Heyerdahl and the many, many expeditions he did after Kon-Tiki. Meanwhile, DNA investigation has proved that Polynesians do descend from South Americans, if in percentage much less than from Asians.An entertaining movie. I can understand its nomination for the Oscars, the look and feel of it are great, but I can equally understand why it didn't win. I'm going to try and find Heyerdahls own documentary, which DID win an Oscar in 1951.I was sorry to not have been able to watch it in Norwegian, which I think would have made the dialogues between the actors more wooden than it now was. For commercial purposes, and English version was made.
Fluke_Skywalker
'Kon-Tiki'--based on the real life exploits of explorer and ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl--is certainly a handsomely made film with a refreshingly old fashioned sensibility to it that will likely feel like a breath of fresh air in this day and age of brooding heroes and dark gritty genre films, but unfortunately it lacks the necessary drama and peril to really lift it above average.The characters are very thinly drawn and never really developed as the story progresses, and once the cast of blonde haired Norwegians begin growing their bushy beards I'd challenge anyone but their mothers to tell them apart on sight.
