Kon Tiki is a Norwegian film based on the true story of
explorer Thor Heyerdahl and his crew, who crossed the Pacific Ocean on a
balsawood raft. The film is sort of a mixed bag, but I am going to start with
the positive. First of all this is a very beautiful movie, the cinematography is
very well done and absolutely beautiful. We get magnificent shots of the raft
out on the ocean chasing the sunset and look as beautiful as the best Hollywood
films now a days do, though at times it tries too hard to do exactly that.
Nonetheless the film has many shots that give the audience a sense of how
lonely it must be for these six people out on a raft in the middle of the
ocean. They managed to get an overall very epic feel and the camerawork does
impress when you keep in mind that a lot of the film was actually filmed on the
ocean. The films score is also very perfect and in my opinion couldn’t have
been more perfect for the film. The score is nothing ground-breaking, however
it definitely has a great sense of adventure, while at the same time hitting
the right notes for the more emotional scenes.
The cast of
the film is for the most part very good, however I felt many of the actors
portraying character that were not on the raft, were somewhat weak and it kind
of took me out of a couple of scenes in the movie. Pål Sverre Hagen was very
good as Heyerdahl in the movie, his performance was a good as it could have
been and I really feel that his role here could bring him offers from
international movies. He perfectly portrays the social awkwardness and slight
lunacy of this man, Thor Heyerdahl. That being said I was disappointed that the
film didn’t explore the character more, I was hoping it would give us an even
deeper understanding of drove him and who he really was. This is where the film
lacks, its script. It seems every scene of the film has a very obvious reason
for being here, yet the way ever scene gets to its point, often feels very
forced. Often it was the lack of good realistic dialogue that made many scenes
feel flat and like they might as well just stand there and explain what he
learns in this scene. Every scene tries to bring one thing to the film, and most
of them do, however then you realize the film is very shallow underneath. The
film tries to explore Heyerdahl and have certain scenes to set up certain
character traits for, yet the film fails and giving him proper depth and his
character ends up disappointingly one-dimensional. It seems every scene had one
thing it wanted to tell us, but there was not a single other thing to take from
this scene and so it became like looking at a PowerPoint presentation with
bullet points, but not having the speaker expand on them. I also felt that the
movie before they got on the raft was very dull. They were necessary for the rest
of the film however I felt like it should either have compressed down to about
five minutes or expanded and explored more thoroughly. Once they got on the
raft however, the film became very enjoyable. The film is full of some very
exhilarating moments including sharks and whale sharks among other things. What
is great about the sharks are used in this movie is that their presence is
there almost instantly from the moment the journey begins, however instead of
having them attack right away, many scenes are set up so that you are certain a
shark will show up and scare you, yet it doesn’t for a while and it builds so
much suspense because of this.
One major
issue I have with the film, again with the script, is the raft journey slowly
build and shows many challenges they encounter, however then as some conflict
is resolved, the film all of a sudden skips to the last day of the journey,
which gives you the impression that they had all these difficulties and
near-death experiences within the first two weeks or so and then all of a
sudden everything just went fine for the rest of the trip. Despite having a
very suspenseful scene after this scene, it does become somewhat of an
anticlimax to the film and it made me feel kind of cheated. Also I am kind of
curious why the director chose to have suck popping colours in the film, it
seems very as scenes that take place on a tropical island look like a cheesy
commercial for a travel agency. What this movie lacks the most however, is an
identity. The film seems like it tries really hard to be an epic Steven
Spielberg movie, rather then embracing its own style and nationality. Seeing
foreign films can often be an interesting break from American films, as they
bring a fresh style influenced by their culture, however here it feels like the
movie really wants to be a Hollywood movie. Though that’s not necessarily
something that drags the film down, however I believe it could have been much
more interesting if it had more of a style of its own rather then just ripping
the style of big Hollywood director. That’s not saying the style doesn’t work
well for the movie, it just feels like tries too hard to be something its not
at times. Nonetheless the film has a great sense of adventure, once they get on the raft
that is, and though the character are not particularly deep, complex or even
all that interesting, it is still quite enjoyable to watch them interact on
this balsawood raft.
3.5/5
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