It's hard to resist the retro charms of this old-fashioned adventure/thriller. Step aside, Indiana Jones — you got some fierce competition going on in "Kon-Tiki," the true-to-life tale of Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl and his epic, 8,000-km sea voyage from the Peruvian Coast to Polynesia.
This is not to be confused with "Kon-Tiki" the documentary, winner of an Academy Award in 1951 (filmed by Heyerdahl himself, who left no stone unturned in promoting his undertaking). Directed by the Norwegian filmmaking team of Joachim Roenning and Espen Sandberg ("Max Manus"), this "Kon-Tiki" is a redux — starring the golden-haired, blue-eyed Viking prince Pal Sverre Hagen as Thor. Critics the world over are raving about the fact that Hagen is the spitting image of Peter O'Toole in "Lawrence of Arabia," and adding extra cache and romance to the whole proceeding. In Tokyo, the film pundits are in secret awe of Thor's hair, that goes wild on the South Pacific. Who's the stylist and is he available?
Anyway, Lawrence had the Arabian desert at his command and Thor has the big blue ocean to frolic in. The pair do share certain complexities of character; despite the enormity of their respective missions, these men weren't straightforward heroes — Lawrence (based on the real life British Army officer T. E. Lawrence) was accused of being a charlatan and a media monger. Heyerdahl for his part, made no secret of his love for the limelight, (an aspect that "Kon-Tiki" delves into more than once) and his determination to traverse the Pacific to prove a pet point seems, at first, plain weird.