Thor Heyerdahl's own Kon-Tiki, the absolute pinnacle of adventure documentary filmmaking, makes this look every bit as crummy as it is. This fictionalized film is so much less profound, reducing an extraordinary expedition to every conceivable cliché. The approach is fundamentally wrong by not starting immediately on the raft; there's initially no grittiness or danger, just a silly, predictable subplot where Heyerdahl assembles a misfit crew. Things improve once they set sail, particularly since they have enough close encounters with wildlife that this occasionally plays like a creature feature. But even then, the drama between characters is overwrought and unconvincing. Where the original Kon-Tiki conflated these men as bold heroes, this makes them look sniveling, incompetent and uninteresting. That'd be an interesting deconstruction if only this weren't so dreadfully paced and written.
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