Soul Surfer

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Pretty stringently based on the true story of Bethany Hamilton (played here by a charming up-and-comer AnnaSophia Robb) focuses on an ageless plot of courage and will despite adversities. Raised by loving parents surf aficionado Tom (Dennis Quaid) and wave sliding Cheri (Helen Hunt) Bethany is privy to a happy laid-back childhood, more akin to that of a dolphin, than that of a scrawny land-lover. Cutting the waves is second nature and Bethany claims to be one of the top young surfers on Kauai, Hawaii. Additional purpose and love is found in religion, where Sarah Hill (Carrie Underwood) acts as her mentor and role-model. This world, perfect beyond reality, comes to a close due to a random shark attack, which deprives Bethany of one arm and seemingly ends all hopes to fulfilling her surfer dreams... Reminiscent of a cheap TV move with soap opera overdose "Soul Surfer" hold true to exaggerated clichés, unable to let go of its comfort area. Clumsily laid out from the word go with Bethany's sugarcoated queasily perfect life, the movie does admittedly seem to start to catch an emotional engagement with the audience after the ordeal. Nonetheless after these brief scenes dominated by Quaid and Hunt (who nonetheless churn out a relatively weak performance) the overall amateurish drive is reinstated. Largely to blame is an atrocious display of wooden lollipop acting by Underwoord, who remains uneasy, distant and without presence throughout her thankfully limited screen time. Her major input does however coincide with a key cheesy sequence in typhoon-stricken Thailand, which smile-inducingly is presented as Bethany's turning point (as in 'Gee... These poor little infantile third-rate people on the other side of the world have it worse than I do... Oh boy! I'd better start surfing again! That will sure as hell help them!'). Reeking with soap with mild dramatic pull "Soul Surfer" somehow manages to subjugate a decent cast and a terrific story into an annoying teen flick, which aggravates a serious viewer to indifference. Any emotional involvement has more to do with the authenticity of the inspiration, than to actual portrayals on-screen. 3 stars for the true-life Bethany. The movie itself deserves a 1.

I have seen Blue Crush, Open Water, and 127 Hours. All very good movies that involve either surfing, sharks, or a horrible arm losing accident. I generally like movies with either Denis Quaid or Helen Hunt in them. Alas this is not a good movie. The family is presented as having no problems and everyone is sunny and happy. In all scenes that involve teenagers the actors are all constantly holding forced smiles - the kind that stops at their lips and does not make it to the eyes. There are pretty much no Asians which I find really strange in a story based in Hawaii, and the one girl that is "mean" does not have blonde hair. This could have been a great story if the writing was not so stilted, the message of faith felt like something other than "if you love Jesus everything will be OK" and there was a bit more realism with the characters. I am surprised that this made it all the way to the big screen, I would have put this as a Lifetime movie of the week, it has that level of story and acting.