Kon-Tiki-2012

Directors Joachim Rønning, Espen Sandberg

Starring Pål Sverre Hagen

Scott’s Review #78

Reviewed June 28, 2014

Grade: C+

I don’t know what’s happened to the nominating process for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar (it’s been controversial for years). Still, you used to be able to count on any of the five nominated films to be interesting, edgy, and even controversial.

These days, a few of the nominated films barely squeak through, rise above mediocrity, and are such mainstream stories.

Kon-Tiki (2012) is one such film.

It tells the tale of a Norwegian scientist determined to sail, via raft, from Peru to the Polynesian islands to prove a Sun God, centuries ago, made the same voyage.

He forms a team and off they go.

Supposedly based on a true story, the team faces the typical challenges in an oceanic adventure: bad weather, sharks, the raft in peril, and dissent among the ranks.

These high-sea clichés have gotten to me recently. The film is similar in context to Life of Pi, also made in 2012.

It’s not a bad film, but there is nothing special about it either, and it has glossy and safe written all over it- the score is Spielberg to the nines, who has nothing to do with this film.

The five adventurers are bronzed with buff bodies when nobody was buff in the 1940s when this film is set, and the scruffy beards, after months of sailing, look perfectly phony.

For the top-tier foreign language group, I expected something more cutting-edge and with more substance.

Oscar Nominations: Best Foreign Language Film