Good movie but grossly overrated

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

KON-TIKI is a realistic re-enactment of Thor Heyerdahl's famous voyage in 1947 in which he crossed the Pacific on a raft made of balsa wood. Well-cast and with an eye for authenticity, this takes the viewer on a journey with a bunch of tanned actors in the middle of a wide and desolate ocean with only the sun for company. The only real problem with this film is that there's little conflict in the narrative and that which does take place feels a little bit exaggerated. Scenes of the characters being attacked by sharks and the like are familiar but well portrayed, and the cast members are certainly all up to the job.

First time I read the book of Thor Heyerdahl when I was 10. Have been reading it 10 times since then and for me Thor Heyerdahl is a true modern hero, much like James Corbett or some other few guys, who at one side are men of science, realistic planners, believers of knowledge and studying rather than emotional Indiana Jones's. At the other side they are people with great courage, true humanists and deeply in love with nature - as human is just a part of this organism we call "life in planer earth".Watching this movie was deep disappointment, especially knowing it was made in Norway.The book about expedition has several dimensions.First one is a planning phase. That's the most calculative part of the story and it has always wowed me, how much different planning there actually was. All the logistics - materials, people, building, money, supplies etc. Documents, approvals etc. The right crew - gotta make it work.Heyerdahl's expedition was ultimate masterpiece of planning & organizing in a very short time - they got the money, they got all the supplies. They got true balsa wood although they were repeatedly officially told to forget about it. They built this complex raft exactly like its ancestors were built 1000 years before, and they made almost nothing wrong. Its an ode to smart and patient men with hands of gold.The second dimension was the expedition itself - process of learning ocean, of learning to control the raft, of learning to navigate, of adapting to extreme living, of dealing with your fears being far from any land, of forming a well functioning team and building friendships. Process of everyone rising to their specialty in this new environment. Third one is being @ Raroia and Tahiti. It's a different one and is missing from this movie at all.Unfortunately - all this good stuff is gone from the movie, replaced by weird, overly simplified melodramatic approach. Why the cheap drama? To carry out a great idea, which is doable, but unspeakably difficult - it takes a lot of wisdom, most precise planning, cooperation. It takes learning, patience, lot of processes which are ultimately exciting to follow.Why throw all of it away and replace it with a hollow, fictional dramatic elements, that either never took place or had never any importance whatsoever?Whats really wowes you in the book - is their courage and confidence to themselves. In the movie there is like a bunch of scared schoolboys on a raft, when actually they were all very highly qualified scientists or specialists - handpicked by their personal qualities who made this story happen with their will.In addition - as this movie tries to tell the true Kon-Tiki story, it's really annoying there's so many details, which are simply wrong. Herman Watzinger wasn't simpleminded refrigerator salesman - he was cooling engineer in the middle of his doctoral studies - he took care of all the thermodynamic, meteorological and hydrographical measurements. Also a true leader, tough guy, strong as a bear (citing to Heyerdahl).Also - it wasn't Herman, who harpooned the whale shark - it was Erik Hesselberg. And he didn't do it out of fear rather than out of excitement. Also - the dance around the radio device is total bs - Thor was actually against of bringing the radio - ancient sailors didn't have any radios and also - he did not feel any appeal to the wires and electric switches whatsoever. Finally Watzinger convinced him its a good thing, they can help out meteorology stations in US etc. Also - sharks did not touch the parrot, it was just a big wave on a stormy day. Sharks prey bigger objects than the parrot. This was really stupid moment and the following was just as ridiculous - Knut didn't catch the shark to get revenge for eating a parrot :D They used to catch sharks with their bare hands all the time for sport - the descriptions about this "sport" are far more exciting in my mind. Also - Watzinger didn't splash in the ocean just wondering on the log. It was another occasion and he just went swimming. As it turned out, raft was moving so fast it simply drove away from Watzinger, although he was a great swimmer. Then they saw a shark approaching to Watzinger - and Haugland went in with the rope - barely saving Watzinger. Also - all these stupid confrontations between Thor and crew members, where Thor acts like sociopath leader - are total bs. This whole group dynamics is just simply wrong - there was no such things at Kon-Tiki. Although Thor was a captain - Hesselberg was only true sailor on board, who did all the navigation. And as they were all grown men, there was rather a cooperative spirit on board, they were about business. In real life - it did not center around Thor - everyone got their fare share of adventures. So they all were pretty famous to the end of their lives after the expedition. So all in all - avoid this movie, read the book! Then watch the documentary. And then watch documentary about Thor Heyerdahl's grandsons Olav's same expedition in 2012, on identical raft named Tangaroa.

Oscar's BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE PICTURE nominee of 2012 from Norway, KON-TIKI is an ambitious endeavour from directors-duo Rønning and Sandberg (currently are recruited by Hollywood to shoot the fifth instalment of PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN franchise), to recount the story of Norwegian national legend Thor Heyerdal's monumental near 5,000- mile expedition on a balsawood raft (named Kon-Tiki) sailing from Peru to Polynesia in 1947, to simply prove that it is possible for South Americans to migrate in Polynesia in pre- Columbian times.The astonishing cinematography during Thor (Hagen) and his five equally audacious companions' maritime adventure is first-rate, sometimes reminiscent of Ang Lee's LIFE OF PI (2012), the most admiring shot starts with an overhead frame of the raft in the nighttime, slowly the camera elevates itself above the atmospheric layer and showcases a space vista as if it is from a revolving satellite, then the shot continues to retrace back to the raft from the same overhead angle, but now it is the day time, the sleight of hand is not for anyone, Rønning and Sandberg confidently conjure up that magnificence, they might be a fitting choice to revive Johnny Depp's nautical escapade. Certainly viewers are more intrigued in Thor's journey, but the film spends a leisurely 40- minutes before embarking on the heroic mission, tries to give a comprehensive overlook of Thor's motivation, from the inspiration during his Polynesia study times to the setback where nobody is willing to publish his works for 10 years unless he can corroborate his theory. Also his deepest fear of water (due to a childhood incident), which creates the irony that he actually cannot swim, plus family entanglements, he is married with Liv (Kittelsen) and they have two young sons, his steely conviction to perform exactly as the ancient people have done, without any modern enhancement to fortify the raft, with triggers a major chasm en route with Herman (Christiansen), a refrigerator salesman, whose incentive to join the journey is explicitly overlooked. Not just Herman, apart from Thor, the film doesn't overtly manifest other members' motives as well, from the aspect of character study, it is not well-done. Once the voyage commences, actually the undertaking is not as perilous as one might fancy, apart from a heavy rainstorm, the immature conduct when facing a genial whale- shark and a close encounter with a group of great white sharks (with two of them hauling a giant shark out of the water just using a harpoon and a pair of bare-hands, it is quite a stretch even for a Nordic), the threatening disruption of the raft never comes off, neither is a maelstrom nor a discouraging orientation confusion. Generally speaking, the crew is in harmony, tensions have been tentatively built, but of little avail, indeed, it is the heroic act of Knut (Santelmann) saving a drowning Hermann with sharks swimming around, comes as the most gripping moment. The final obstacle is the dangerous coral reef when Kon-Tiki approaching the land, again, the most horrific fear is our imagination, reality truly bits, but for Thor and his team, is pretty clement. Pål Sverre Hagen establishes Thor as a believable leader in spite of his baby-face, but the script never touch a darker side of his psyche, as a controversial figure in real life, we only glance at his bigotry fleetingly in this all-sanguine hagiography.Now, the 1950 Oscar-winning documentary, what I find is a 58-minutes version, almost 20 minutes short of the runtime indicated on IMDb (anyone watched the 77-minutes version?), is made by Thor himself, entirely based on the video and photo footages they shoot and some informational legends, with Thor chronicles his daredevil mission in perfect English (a post-dub maybe), which serves as an apposite double bill with the 2012 crowd-pleaser. Firstly, the footages show that the real waves are much choppier but the spirit is always high, and six men living on a crowded raft floating on the sea is actually quite eventful, fishing novel species (sometimes a delicious shark), consolidating the raft regularly, marking the direction and verifying the speed, communicating through radio and of course, shooting the whole adventure while danger is alway on their tail, really can appeal to a certain type of enthusiasts, why it hasn't been milked into an enthralling 100-days getaway adventure? Maybe not in a primitive balsa raft, but a more modernised and safer means, but small- scaled, for maritime adventurers, could be a profitable business.Also, the perishing of the seventh member of the crew - Lolita, a female parrot is dramatised in the 2012 feature, so is the conflict between Thor and Herman, all is embellished to make the picture more engaging, while in the documentary, in a matter-of- fact fashion, Thor never mention any dissension among the crew, only focuses on their novel discoveries and daily activities, plus the reception when they finally reaches the island land, with the local Polynesians. In view of the version I watched is a curtailed one, and I cannot estimate what is missing, but, one sure thing is that even with these footages alone, the journey is no less captivating than the 2012 re-enactment created by cinematic magic, only if there would be more talking-head interviews with the original members, I firmly believe, each individual would bring about a different but vicarious impression on audience who are stunned by their groundbreaking deeds!

This Oscar-nominated Norwegian film follows explorer Thor Heyerdahl on a journey across the Pacific Ocean on a small balsa-wood raft. In it, he has to overcome sharks, stormy waters, and his own fears.I had skimmed by this on Netflix, but had always decided to skip it because the Metascore wasn't that high. 63? I'll pass; I'll just watch a best picture winner. Man, was I wrong. Don't let an critic reviews fool you - Kon-Tiki is a must-see.First off, the acting is great. From Thor's character to the rest of his crewmen, everyone showed a great deal of emotion and struggle on the course of their expedition. Whether leaving their wife or six-month-old baby behind, all had reasons to be homesick, which was clearly noticeable by all the hurt in their eyes.Also, it is really exciting. This is a true story, so the events are actually realistic, unlike many of the adventures in films such as Life of Pi. Thor and his crew battle both sharks and rough waves, and each time, their raft is far from unscathed. This is more than just a drama.The only reason I didn't give it higher was that it was pretty abrupt in the beginning. Thor decides to make the journey within the first ten minutes, so it seems without much motive there.Lastly, don't let anyone under the age of ten or eleven watch this. There is a shark scene that is intense and shows some blood and guts. If an under-ten-year-old is not squeamish or easily-bothered at all, it may be fine, but I'd recommend that they not watch it yet.