Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Kon-Tiki (2012) - Heyerdahl's great adventure retold wonderfully

11/11/2014

Kon-Tiki (2012) - Heyerdahl's great adventure retold wonderfully

♥♥♥♥♥

+ Best Adventure Movie of the Year
+ Best Norwegian Film of the Year

The fantastic poster for Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg's Kon-Tiki

Most unusually (for a film of today), Kon-Tiki was shot simultaneously in Norwegian and English with the same cast, so the English version could be screened in English-speaking countries. This review is based on the Norwegian version, (which I recommend, simply because it is more naturalistic.)

Thor Heyerdahl can neither swim, sail or use a sextant, but he's got a bold theory about where the Polynesians originated from and a body full of daring and lust for adventure, which is going to help him prove his theory in practicality.

Kon-Tiki is a fantastically handsome film, which quickly grips its audience with the natural beauty of its sets and locations and injects us into its relatively simple, true story about having a wild idea and the crazy will of steel to make it happen.

There's good acting across the board here: Particularly Pål Sverre Hagen (Ragnarok (2013)) as Heyerdahl and Agnes Kittelsen (Happy Happy/Sykt Lykkelig (2010)) as his beautiful, home-bound wife, as well as Anders Baasmo Christiansen (North/Nord (2009)) as the co-sailor, who fears for the mission and for his life. - He is the only one of the sailor-characters who is totally recreated fictionally for the film, and the way his character has come to be is an important and good addition to the gallery.

Kon-Tiki is adventurous, at times nail-bitingly suspenseful and visually stunning. It was Oscar-nominated as Best Foreign Film, but lost to Michael Haneke's Amour (2012). This aside, it is still one of the best Norwegian movies ever made. Period.

It is directed by the two big stars of Norwegian film-making in the new millennium, Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg, who directed the great, impressive WWII-resistance movie Max Manus: Man of War/Max Manus (2008). They also directed French producer magnate Luc Besson's curious, unsuccessful Bandidas (2006), but have since Kon-Tiki been a hot ticket in Hollywood again and have now been hired to direct the next Pirates-movie, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017).

Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg: 2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

Top 10: The best adventure movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

- There's sharks in Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg's Kon-Tiki? The anwer: Yes, there's awesome shark scenes in the film

Watch the great trailer with English subtitles here

Cost: 15.5 mil. $

Box office: 22.8 mil. $

= Flop

[Kon-Tiki is the most expensive Norwegian film ever made, a huge endeavor filmed over 3 months in 6 different countries. It made 14.1 mil. $ of its total gross in Norway, which is absolutely incredible in a country with only 5.1 mil. people. Its American gross was 1.5 mil. $. Although financially a flop, the film is still very ballsy and successful in many other respects, namely critically and quality-wise.]

What do you think of Kon-Tiki?

Other great sailing-adventures you think are recommendable?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

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Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

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Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

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Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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11/11/2014

Kon-Tiki (2012) - Heyerdahl's great adventure retold wonderfully

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