Kon Tiki I love this movie. It is about a Swedish or Finnish or whatever explorer and his team who sails across the ocean on a raft to prove cross-continental colonization of a South American tribe took place in the orient. Funny how some of the best films are based on true stories. Anyway, the film is well acted, well told, well this and well that. Just go and check it out. Totally a ten out of ten kind of deal for sure. There is a reason why they picked this director to direct the latest POTC movie, which wasn't half bad by the way. In fact it was the second best Pirates movie made to date; not sure why the critics trashed it. Seriously, critics are killing Hollywood by calling trash treasure and treasure trash.

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.

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.

Better to watch the true story made by the people who actually did the epic journey. The documentary about the Kon-Tiki expedition of the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl, released in 1950. The true and accurate film made by the explorers themselves is much better. Too much irrelevant drama in this one. They even had to pinch footage from the original film to make this one watchable. Other films made by Thor Heyerdahl about his adventures are very good too. The Ra Expeditions, Aku- Aku, and Galapagos. The several books written by the real Kon-Tiki explorers are good reading as well. It is sad to see Hollywood style nonsense corrupting the story of what was a truly remarkable journey.