Soul Surfer Movie Review

Like I said in my Ride the Wild Surf movie review, I like to think I was a surfer dude in another life. I think surfing is amazing to watch and more specifically that surf photography is beautiful. Actual narrative surf movies typically aren’t all that different from any other sports movie. Then along came a Christian independent film called Soul Surfer (2011) which was more of a story about a struggle with faith than beating competition.

13-year-old Bethany Hamilton (AnnaSophia Robb) is a dedicated surfer who was born to be in the water. But after a fun night out surfing and what should be a fun day in the water, she is attacked by a shark and loses her left arm. As Bethany is rushed to the hospital, she remains calm, and maintains her faith in God. Refusing to play the role of a victim, Bethany has to relearn how to do everything with only one arm, including how to surf. With the help of her friends, Alana (Lorraine Nicholson) and Holt (Kevin Sorbo), her parents (Dennis Quaid and Helen Hunt), and her Christian faith, Bethany tries to find a way to get back into the water, if that is what she is meant to do.

Possibly the most interesting aspect of this film is that it’s all based on true events. Bethany Hamilton is a champion surfer who nearly died from a shark attack that took her arm. In less than a month she was back on a surfboard and has since won several championships. She’s now 22 (as of writing this) and is a professional surfer. All of these are remarkable facts, and are remarkable feats for anyone to accomplish. However, in spite of Soul Surfer’s good intentions, the story just didn’t seem as dramatic as the real events.

The major flaw in the storytelling is that it doesn’t make Bethany easy to identify with; everything just seemed far too easy for Bethany. As a character in this movie, Bethany seems almost eerie in her optimism. Not once is her faith shaken or brought into question. She has a huge community who offer aid and support, her family bends over backwards to help her though this trying time in her life, she is sent huge bundles of mail from all over the country showing their support and sympathy. Everything just seems too happy and easy such that it doesn’t feel very natural.

Bethany is even offered a free arm from a prosthetics company which no doubt is seeking publicity, but the arm seems no more useful than the arm she rips off her Barbie doll earlier that day in a rare moment of depression. It was a bit uncomfortable to watch Bethany try to adjust, initially pretending nothing has changed. But she can’t even slice a tomato to help her loving family prepare dinner together. The whole recovery from this trauma seems over simplified.

Light at the end of the tunnel.
Similar to the shot used in Soul Surfer.

The surf photography was really incredible! It was gorgeous to look at and really captivated the feel of being on the waves. It made me want to hit the surf myself (and I tend to swim like a brick). In an extraordinarily creative bit of cinematography, Bethany has reached the hospital after losing lots of blood and she sees herself surfing through a tunnel created by wave with the sun visible at the end; she’s seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s almost poetic as a depiction of near-death for a soul surfer.

The Christian faith theme of the film seemed a bit dry to me. It seemed the depth of these characters’ faith was limited to quoting a scripture and wondering what God’s plan was amidst tragedy. Certainly that is a reasonable thing for a religious individual to wonder. But rather than showing us Bethany praying, seeking answers in the Bible, or relying on God to help her through her trials, the character is shown exercising self-determination, confidence, and seeking strength within herself. That’s fine and indeed makes for a strong character, but it makes me wonder why religiosity was included in the film at all.

Possibly my favorite religious scene is when Bethany is feeling hopeless (such as it is, given her unwavering happy optimism), and mentions the Bible verse Philippians 4:13 which reads, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” She ponders about how she is supposed to be able to do all things, such as surfing, through Christ when God’s plan apparently intended for her to lose an arm which makes surfing nigh impossible. We never get a conclusive answer to this, but it was interesting scene.

Soul Surfer was not a bad film. More than anything I loved the surf photography and how the film captured surf culture. I felt that the religious aspect seemed to flounder a bit. It seemed to me more like a simple, family-friendly drama then a faith-building tale. The low production value is brazenly obvious and sets the movie up for some sarcastic jabs from the audience. Soul Surfer is an innocent inspirational parable more than it is a harrowing story of personal tragedy. It’s a fun surf movie, a mediocre Christian film, and a sub-par drama. I’m glad I saw it, though. I enjoyed it, though I don’t think I’d bother seeing it again; it’s a renter. I’d recommend seeing it if you enjoy Christian films or surf movies. If you don’t fall into either of those categories, you probably won’t enjoy it.

Have you seen a particularly impressive faith-building movie? What was it, and what was so impressive about it? Comment below and tell me why!

The Dark Knight Rises Movie Review

We finally get to see the conclusion of an epic trilogy. Christopher Nolan has delivered to us two phenomenal Batman movies that I believe redefined superhero movies for us. They were more grounded and less flashy, they had stories with deep meaning, and discussed some philosophical ideas while still keeping us at the edge of our seats. So does The Dark Knight Rises (2012) deliver what we’ve come to expect from Nolan?

Eight years have passed since Batman (Christian Bale) vanished after taking the blame for the death of D.A. Harvey Dent. Batman took the fall for Dent’s crimes, a move that he and Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) both hoped was for the greater good. Criminal activity in Gotham City was crushed by the anti-crime Dent Act which was founded upon the lie of Dent’s pure reputation. That is, until a cunning cat burglar named Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) emerges with a mysterious agenda. Far more dangerous is the appearance of Bane (Tom Hardy), a masked terrorist whose ruthless plans for Gotham drives Bruce Wayne out of his self-imposed exile. But even if Bruce Wayne becomes The Dark Knight once again to protect the city that has branded him an enemy, Batman is no match for this powerful opponent.

Sometimes in a sequel, the movie will rush through some setting or character development on the assumption that you have seen the previous movies. That’s not an unreasonable assumption, but it makes for some pretty sloppy writing. In The Dark Knight Rises, key events from both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight are still weighing heavily on the main characters. We see Bruce Wayne draw inspiration from events that caused him to don the cape and cowl in the first place. We see Commissioner Gordon grieving the fact he is protecting the villain who attempted to kill his family. These plot points are developed enough in this movie to be significant within their context, but if you haven’t seen the previous two movies you may not appreciate their impact.

Bane is an intriguing villain. I’ve seen Bane in other media; in the 1990’s Batman cartoon show, The Batman & Robin movie, and even in the recent Arkham Asylum video games Bane is depicted as being little more than an immensely muscle-bound thug. The Dark Knight Rises shows us Bane as he is in the comics; he’s highly intelligent and physically monstrous. There’s this menacing discrepancy between his voice and his physical appearance. Thanks to his mask he sounds almost like Sean Connery speaking into an Optimus Prime voice box. Hardy gained thirty pounds of muscle for this role. As if that wasn’t enough, we learn that Bane knows all of Batman’s tricks of distraction and leverage. Batman cannot face this guy and hope to win. He is a genuinely unstoppable menace and an outstanding villain!

Anne Hathaway brilliantly plays Salina Kyle, Catwoman. Unlike Bane, we don’t get to hear much of her back story. She is manipulative, smart, cunning, and sexy. She can really take care of herself; she’s just about as tough as Batman is. People try to take advantage of her or overpower her and she twists the whole thing around to her advantage, sometimes without her oppressors knowing it until later. Catwoman and Batman share a lot of similarities, which makes the dynamics between their characters really interesting!

The Dark Knight Rises is almost like a superhero movie without the superhero. Bruce Wayne’s alter ego, Batman, doesn’t show up a whole lot. When he does it's great, but this story is about Bruce Wayne having to become Batman again after his self-imposed exile. Thanks to Bane, Bruce has lost literally everything; his wealth, home, physical wellbeing, freedom, his gadgets and even his anonymity as Batman. There is nothing else that can be taken from him; he is at his lowest low.  It’s harder to become Batman again than it was the first time, but his wounded, emotional arc is deep and interesting.

The story in The Dark Knight Rises can be interpreted more politically than philosophically than the previous two movies. Bane is an anti-capitalist villain with a plan similar to the Occupy Wall Street movement to destroy Gotham City, and their only hope is an unpopular billionaire entrepreneur. I could see some viewers getting politically offended by the story, but I don’t really think that Christopher Nolan was going out of his way to make a political statement. I think Bane simply saw the flaws in the society of Gotham (namely the class discrepancy which was a plot device in the previous movies), drove a wedge into it, and let the world crumble around him.  You can infer political and philosophical concepts from any movie. People will get different meanings from the same movie based on their views. You shouldn’t write off this movie just because you see a political analogy that contradicts your own views. It’s still a good movie.

My biggest complaint is that the tone of The Dark Knight Rises was much more somber and even more depressing than the previous ones. In The Dark Knight, The Joker rigs two ferries with bombs and invites each one to blow up the other before they are blown up themselves. But the passengers on each boat refuse to kill the others, showing that even when faced with death they still choose to believe in good. In The Dark Knight Rises as soon as Bane shakes the foundation of the social stratification, the lower-class immediately seizes the upper-class with hardly any provocation. These don’t sound like the same citizens who refused to blow each other up eight years ago. The Dark Knight Rises shows us a much darker view of people, and it didn’t settle well with me. We also see Batman sink to his lowest low and stay there for most of the movie. We see Gotham essentially destroyed, and see people lose hope. Sure, we need to see a good conflict or the story wouldn’t be interesting. But so much of the movie is spent in a somber tone it almost becomes depressing.

The Dark Knight Rises was painstakingly well crafted to give us a satisfying sense of closure to the trilogy. It gets a little bit convoluted here and there, and the pacing slows down in the middle. It’s easy to get swept up in some political allegories. If you take it at its face value, The Dark Knight Rises brings the trilogy home with a bang, even if it doesn’t quite meet the exceedingly high standards of its predecessors. Catch this in theaters if you can; I may go see it again. I’ll be getting this on Blu-Ray to complete my trilogy.

There are a lot of movie Trilogies out there now; Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, The Dark Knight, Indiana Jones, and The Matrix to name a few. Which is your favorite movie trilogy? Comment below and tell me why!