Soul Surfer is almost a good movie, its flaws are easy to forgive in light of the fact that the story is as inspirational as anything that will be released this year. Even when the film dips into sappy melodrama and cliched sequences, its story is uplifting enough to help the audience through the running time.
The film’s voice-over narration by Bethany Hamilton, played by AnnaSophia Robb, affords us a clear window into her world and the world of a surfer and makes the tragedy that befalls her all the more terrible. We need to care about Bethany so the attack and subsequent narrative has more weight, and Robb, along with the rest of the cast, do a good job in setting up the premise of the film.
The film’s family dynamic is played out nicely; the parents, played by Dennis Quaid and Helen Hunt, are good in their respective roles and have plenty to do in terms of driving the story. The minor characters like Bethany’s friend and her family fill out a cast that, while never distracting to the story, are nothing special. All in all, the cast does the most with a script that had no less than seven credited writers on the story, which doesn’t necessarily make for an incoherent narrative, but rather, makes for a story that has no real voice.
One of the overlaying themes of the film is faith, based in Christianity, which is obvious in its approach but never preachy. The faith aspect revolves around Bethany’s involvement with a church youth group and its youth leader, played by Carrie Underwood. Underwood makes her film debut here, and its really nothing to write home about, however, that isn’t to say that her performance is bad, it just is. Director Sean McNamara, whose credits are deeply rooted in Disney channel fare and not much else, has a style of his direction which makes for a film that goes through the motions within the standard three-act structure while not making any leaps or bounds.
It’s hard to call this film anything more than inspiration on demand, but the movie may have a hard time finding viewership outside of a faith-based audience. That’s not to say that the film shouldn’t be viewed by non-believers or that a general audience won’t get anything out of the film; this is a film that takes the sports movie formula and plays out an inspiring yarn in a beautiful setting. It’s worth noting that the surfing sequences in the film are a lot of fun to watch while the shark attack was about as heavy as the drama got and made for an impressive sequence.
Soul Surfer is a decent family flick that doesn’t reinvent the sports genre, but does it’s best to leave the audience with a sense of how tragedy can bring out the best in someone through strength, perseverance and a little bit of faith.
[Rating:2/5]
Review by Anthony Charles
