Riding Giants Reviews
Top CriticThis is vicarious cinema at its best.
Instead of weighing the film down with spaced-out surfer-dude quotes, director Stacy Peralta traces the sport's origins back to the ancient Hawaiians.
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| Original Score: 4/5
Before seeing Riding Giants, my ideas about surfing were formed by the Gidget movies, Endless Summer, the Beach Boys, Elvis and lots of TV commercials. ... Riding Giants is about altogether another reality.
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| Original Score: 3.5/4
Peralta has a knack for taking a niche sport and drawing out its universal appeal.
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| Original Score: 3/4
In some ways, Riding Giants overlaps Step Into Liquid. The two complement each other.
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| Original Score: 4/4
There's no denying that much of this is spectacular.
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| Original Score: 3/4
The film's utterly deadpan approach sets it apart from such previous surf movies as The Endless Summer and Step Into Liquid, which were as much adventure travelogues as anything else.
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| Original Score: 3/5
Peralta has done a marvelous job at showing the intimidating waves and the guts it must take men (and occasionally women) to ride them.
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| Original Score: 4/5
By the end, you're numb from the waves of information crashing down on your head but you're also worn out and happy, unexpectedly touched by the story of men who climbed the highest mountain around.
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| Original Score: 3.5/4
It's difficult to imagine a movie that deals more thoroughly with big-wave surfing, but Riding Giants can't match the novelty and interest of Peralta's 2001 hit, Dogtown and Z-Boys.
| Original Score: B
It's a big wet kiss to the heroes and history of an ancient water sport.
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| Original Score: B+
As he did with skateboarding in Dogtown and Z-Boys, documentarian Stacy Peralta explores the culture, not just the activity, arguing that surfing is as much a lifestyle as it a sport.
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| Original Score: 3/4
An aficionada of the saltwater documentary, I am thrilled to report that Riding Giants, Stacy Peralta's exhilarating account of the revolution and evolution in big-wave surfing, is among the best of this breathtaking genre.
| Original Score: 3.5/4
Awe-inspiring documentary about the history of big-wave surfing.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Giants offers a thrilling, informative history of a sport-subculture.
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| Original Score: 3/4
An entertaining if audience-specific look at the history of surfing.
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| Original Score: 3/4
A top-notch surfing documentary.
An exhilarating, often mind-blowing history of surfing.
Catching the perfect wave may not be something most of us will ever do, but it's comforting to know that somebody is out there catching it for us.
| Original Score: 3/4
[T]his film ranks right up there with last year's Step Into Liquid as a top surf doc.
Even those who've never waxed a board will be engaged and amazed.
Magnificent if overlong.
| Original Score: 3.5/4
The waves get progressively higher in Stacy Peralta's overlong but entertaining historical surfing documentary.
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| Original Score: 3/5
Peralta shows himself to be something of a big-wave challenger here by breathing in bigger gulps of geography, history and culture.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Offers a highly engaging immersion into a culture of larger-than-life characters driven by their thrill-seeking instincts.
It may take willpower not to run directly from the theater down to the nearest shoreline, just for a whiff of whatever saltwater magic sauce the big-wave stars featured in Peralta's vibrant docu are on.
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| Original Score: A-
Peralta has become a more relaxed filmmaker, and when he trusts the haunting sight of a giant wave breaking to speak for itself, the movie reaches the sublime heights of its subject.
Seems intent on selling the sport rather than examining why people are willing to risk their necks to challenge nature at her most volatile.
