Kon-Tiki

2014 has been a year for all things Scandinavian, and this release of Norway's most expensive blockbuster yet proves no exception to the trend. 
Half a century ago, Thor Heyerdahl was one of the most famous men on Earth. He’d recently completed a 100-day expedition across the Pacific on a rudimentary raft (in order to prove his theory that South Americans migrated to Polynesia in pre-Columbian times), written a bestseller about his experience, and adapted it into an Oscar-winning documentary to boot. 
Now, fifty years later, directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg have dramatised Heyerdahl's journey in Norway’s most expensive film yet. If over the ensuing decades the wind somewhat left his sails, Kon-Tiki is proof that Heyerdahl still commands respect in his native Norway.
Two and a half years after its domestic release the film finally hits our shores, propelled by a string of award nominations. The most expensive Norwegian film of all time, Kon-Tiki dramatises his journey in a glossy lost-at-sea adventure mould, à la All Is Lost or Life of Pi. All the tropes of the expedition epic are in place, from the doubting scientists to the crew member who loses his marbles. Yet some have said the film lacks depth, and what it offers in spectacular cinematography it appears to lack in historical accuracy or convincing special effects. Some have criticised the dull superficiality of this two hour long exploit of a boatload of attractive blonds stranded at sea.
Heyerdahl's is, nonetheless, a fascinating story of discovery and human resilience. Whether Kon-Tiki can do something original with this material remains to be seen.