What would Werner Herzog do? What would Mel Gibson do? Imagine either director handling the story of a 13-year-old Christian surfer losing her left arm to a fourteen-foot tiger shark. Neither filmmaker graces “Soul Surfer” with his fevers. The quick-as-blink, out-of-the-deep-blue bite comes about a half-hour into this bland uplifter based on Bethany Hamilton’s 2004 autobiography “Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, Family, and Fighting to Get Back on the Board.” “How could this be God’s plan for me?” asks Bethany (AnnaSophia Robb). The counselor (Carrie Underwood) for her church youth group, who links microscopic close-ups of a fly’s eye and a walnut to Jeremiah 29:11, cannot answer, but the comeback competitor will eventually figure out that surfing and life are kinda alike. Director Sean McNamara and three co-writers base their script on a story by those four and three others, plus the two co-authors of Bethany’s autobio. All that effort leads to a plot that is phobic about friction. Bethany’s parents (Helen Hunt, Dennis Quaid) quarrel for less than a half minute. Bethany experiences no complications like infections, although one of her brothers gets upset at the food in the hospital cafeteria for maybe a half minute. When he later picks up a garden hose to squirt the impolite media on the front yard, his dad stops him. Bethany signals her issues by breaking off the arm of her Barbie doll. Her mom tries to help by finding a photo of the Venus de Milo statue on the Internet. Bethany feels better. That ancient armless chick could not surf. Although a “Pray For Surf” poster decorates her bedroom and her dad reads the Bible at her bedside, the film feels scrubbed of meaningful Christian content. “Jesus Christ” turns up in the cast bios and end credit thank-yous, but not in the dialogue. As for local color about the surfer teen subculture, this makes “Blue Crush” (2002) look like Margaret Mead’s “Coming of Age in Samoa.” Would Jesus end His film with a rainbow and the inscription: “The End… Is Just the Beginning?”? Heaven did not forbid. With Lorraine Nicholson, Sonya Balmores, Jeremy Sumpter, Chris Brochu, Kevin Sorbo. 106m. (Bill Stamets)
Ray Pride is Newcity’s Senior Editor and Film Critic. He is a contributing editor of Filmmaker magazine.
Ray’s history of Chicago Ghost Signs is planned for publication next year. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram. More photography on Instagram.
Seeing The Elephant: A Review Of Babylon The boisterous, brawling yet melancholy "Babylon," is a variation on film history, but more drawing for drama. It's gaudy and mean, celebratory and sorrowful.
Fine Line: A Review Of Shortcomings It's a season for the comeuppance of a curmudgeon in Randall Park's smart, biting "Shortcomings," adapted by Adrian Tomine from his graphic novel of the same name.
Spawn Sacrifice: A Review Of The Creator "The Creator" is richly detailed, punchy, pulpy, punkish entertainment that still has highly serious subjects in mind, without growing didactic and with substantial heart.
What would Werner Herzog do? What would Mel Gibson do? Imagine either director handling the story of a 13-year-old Christian surfer losing her left arm to a fourteen-foot tiger shark. Neither filmmaker graces “Soul Surfer” with his fevers. The quick-as-blink, out-of-the-deep-blue bite comes about a half-hour into this bland uplifter based on Bethany Hamilton’s 2004 autobiography “Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, Family, and Fighting to Get Back on the Board.” “How could this be God’s plan for me?” asks Bethany (AnnaSophia Robb). The counselor (Carrie Underwood) for her church youth group, who links microscopic close-ups of a fly’s eye and a walnut to Jeremiah 29:11, cannot answer, but the comeback competitor will eventually figure out that surfing and life are kinda alike. Director Sean McNamara and three co-writers base their script on a story by those four and three others, plus the two co-authors of Bethany’s autobio. All that effort leads to a plot that is phobic about friction. Bethany’s parents (Helen Hunt, Dennis Quaid) quarrel for less than a half minute. Bethany experiences no complications like infections, although one of her brothers gets upset at the food in the hospital cafeteria for maybe a half minute. When he later picks up a garden hose to squirt the impolite media on the front yard, his dad stops him. Bethany signals her issues by breaking off the arm of her Barbie doll. Her mom tries to help by finding a photo of the Venus de Milo statue on the Internet. Bethany feels better. That ancient armless chick could not surf. Although a “Pray For Surf” poster decorates her bedroom and her dad reads the Bible at her bedside, the film feels scrubbed of meaningful Christian content. “Jesus Christ” turns up in the cast bios and end credit thank-yous, but not in the dialogue. As for local color about the surfer teen subculture, this makes “Blue Crush” (2002) look like Margaret Mead’s “Coming of Age in Samoa.” Would Jesus end His film with a rainbow and the inscription: “The End… Is Just the Beginning?”? Heaven did not forbid. With Lorraine Nicholson, Sonya Balmores, Jeremy Sumpter, Chris Brochu, Kevin Sorbo. 106m. (Bill Stamets)
