Opening

87% Star Trek Into Darkness May 16
24% Erased May 17
91% Frances Ha May 17
41% The English Teacher May 17
42% Black Rock May 17
77% Pieta May 17
—— Populaire May 17
21% 33 Postcards May 17

Top Box Office

78% Iron Man 3 $72.5M
50% The Great Gatsby $50.1M
47% Pain & Gain $5.0M
37% Peeples $4.6M
77% 42 $4.6M
56% Oblivion $4.1M
69% The Croods $3.6M
98% Mud $2.5M
8% The Big Wedding $2.5M
60% Oz the Great and Powerful $1.1M

Coming Soon

—— The Hangover Part III May 23
77% Fast & Furious 6 May 24
—— Epic May 24
94% Before Midnight May 24

Morning Light (2007)

tomatometer

33

Average Rating: 4.8/10
Reviews Counted: 33
Fresh: 11 | Rotten: 22

Breathtaking scenery aside, Morning Light is geared more for the sailing enthusiasts than for the average viewers.

33

Average Rating: 4.8/10
Critic Reviews: 15
Fresh: 5 | Rotten: 10

Breathtaking scenery aside, Morning Light is geared more for the sailing enthusiasts than for the average viewers.

audience

58

liked it
Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 344

My Rating

Movie Info

A group of 15 young sailors prepares to compete in the most revered open-ocean sailing competition in the country, and the director and editor of the 2006 surfing documentary Riding Giants keep their focus on the water in order to capture the adventure of a lifetime. Racing in the Transpac is no easy feat; after enduring six months of grueling training, the daring young crew of the Morning Light will engage in a 2,300-mile endurance against the most experienced sailors in the country. In the

PG,

Documentary, Sports & Fitness

,

Mark Monroe

Jun 16, 2009

$0.1M

Walt Disney Pictures - Official Site External Icon

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All Critics (35) | Top Critics (15) | Fresh (12) | Rotten (23) | DVD (5)

Morning Light is a sunny, saltwater-splashed tale of inspiration.

October 17, 2008 Full Review Source: Washington Post
Washington Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The documentary is enjoyable, though it could have been edited more tightly.

October 17, 2008 Full Review Source: USA Today
USA Today
Top Critic IconTop Critic

For those who love sailing, Morning Light will confirm their passion and please them right down to their Top-Sider encased toes. For the rest of us, this sailors' tale just smacks of naval gazing.

October 17, 2008 Full Review Source: Toronto Star
Toronto Star
Top Critic IconTop Critic

If you don't speak the jargon of sailing and racing, most of the conversations between teammates mean very little. Impenetrable editing reduces the action to a meaningless blur.

October 17, 2008 Full Review Source: Seattle Times
Seattle Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The aristo-brats are required to jump into a swimming pool and tread water for five minutes with their shoes on. Horrible! Still, one of them nearly drowns, proving that he shouldn't be allowed near a body of water larger than a bottle of Poland Spring.

October 17, 2008 Full Review Source: New York Post
New York Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

These eager young amateurs have the kind of passion nobody could fake.

October 17, 2008 Full Review Source: New York Daily News
New York Daily News
Top Critic IconTop Critic

(T)his may be one of those achievements in human endurance that doesn't elicit cheers, but sneers. It's just too picture perfected to be powerful.

July 12, 2009 Full Review Source: PopMatters
PopMatters

A vanity project...[but also] a sincere love letter to sailing, as seen through the eyes of a handful of very lucky youngsters. [Blu-ray]

June 28, 2009 Full Review Source: Groucho Reviews
Groucho Reviews

Edited to induce seizures, Morning Light should appeal to fans of MTV and water sports.

June 12, 2009 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine

The film pulls in too many different directions to be a winner.

June 11, 2009 Full Review Source: Movie Metropolis
Movie Metropolis

Any time...personal history is touched upon, it is quickly shoved under the carpet in favor of yet another sailing montage, complete with compulsory sunset.

March 13, 2009 Full Review Source: FILMINK (Australia)
FILMINK (Australia)

Morning Light fails as film or TV. It's essentially a vanity project for sailing enthusiast Roy E. Disney.

November 7, 2008
Kansas City Star

This flat, uninspired sailing documentary from the Walt Disney studios has surprisingly little to say.

October 23, 2008 Full Review Source: rec.arts.movies.reviews
rec.arts.movies.reviews

All good intentions aside, Morning Light is nothing more than a glorified television documentary.

October 21, 2008 Full Review Source: Boxoffice Magazine
Boxoffice Magazine

The film may interest sailing enthusiasts. For the rest of us, Morning Light is a yawn.

October 18, 2008 Full Review Source: San Diego Metropolitan
San Diego Metropolitan

It's just so Disney. It could make you very cross.

October 18, 2008 Full Review Source: Jam! Movies
Jam! Movies

It's extremely good at communicating the joy of sailing, of putting its finger on the unique aesthetic appeal it offers its addicts and of making us believe that it is a precious gift that will enhance the future of these young people.

October 17, 2008 Full Review Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Audience Reviews for Morning Light

It's a fine little documentary but it comes off more like a commercial for the race more than anything else. It tells us about the people chosen for the TransPac sailing race and their six month training. But it all goes really fast and then we are in the race and then it's over. There are eleven people on the team but we really don't take time to get to know them.
Plus there are voice overs read by the kids on the boat that don't have any emotion to them. That got old real fast.
December 22, 2009
superclerk25

Super Reviewer

If you've never sailed, you shouldn't watch this movie. If you think this was intended to be a blockbuster... to be judged on sales figures, pretty faces, star names... please stay away; you'd have no reference point nor would you, understandably, have the slightest reason to be interested in its content.

If you have sailed, on the other hand, you know exactly what it's about. It's not about editing or a story line. Even if it was just a story told around the dinner table or at a bar near some seaside, to a sailor it would be moving and engaging.

Beautiful views, settings, situations - the thrills, the frustrations - that can only be experienced from the vantage point of a boat being thrashed about on the vast, open sea. For what it was intended to be, this documentary hits the target.
January 1, 2010
Lou Savage
Lou Savage
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