All Critics (98)
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Top Critics (26)
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Fresh (46)
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Rotten (53)
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DVD (3)
Soul Surfer seems simply too sugar-coated to be true.
Hamilton is played, blandly, by Anna Sophia Robb, and her devoted parents, less bland, are played by Dennis Quaid and Helen Hunt. The surfing footage, much of it shot off the coast of Kauai, is not bland at all.
It's Bethany and Alana's friendship - its sturdiness and vulnerability, its laughs and sincere apologies - that rules the day.
A by-the-numbers biopic about young surfer Bethany Hamilton.
For plenty of family viewers, this film will catch a wave.
An inspiring tale, even when true, doesn't necessarily make for an inspiring movie.
A well-meaning, handsomely staged biopic of the top Hawaii-based surfing star Bethany Hamilton who lost her arm to a shark in 2003 at the age of 13...
It's ultimately let down by some heavy-handed sentimentality, an over-abundance of Bible-bashing and some dodgy CGI sequences.
Essential viewing for any injured armed forces veteran or contender for next year's Paralympics.
Sure, the film has its mawkish moments, but it's a remarkable, well-intentioned tale that deserves to ride its wave rather than to wipe out on it.
The film is sincere and even a little sanctimonious in the way it depicts Hamilton's family, strong Christian values and work with post-tsunami orphans in Phuket.
Clearly Bethany was quite a girl but this film prompts one simply to say "Amen".
With a tale this strong, what could go wrong? Pretty much everything, as it turns out, with the story buffeted into oblivion by a tidal wave of syrup.
The film that follows is thin and frothy, though watch out for that final sentimental upsurge. It could drag and lift you against your will.
It's clear that Quaid learned nothing from Jaws 3.
A surf film employing massive amounts of CG is incredible for all the wrong reasons.
In the end, the platitudes take over completely, but the inspirational story is still worth telling.
Unless you like your inspiration in heavy-handed doses, you might be better off watching the real thing - on YouTube.
A succession of would-be rousing clichés.
An amazing true story for sure, but this earnest dramatisation is so wholesome, it feels like being stuck in a never-ending Activia advert.
Inspiring true story wipes out on underdog clichés and waves of melodramatic Hollywood cheese.
Faith-based...With its sports-movie structure and Hollywood production values, Soul Surfer is a creditable crossover picture; it just could've done with more nuance. [Blu-ray]
A sincere, occasionally surprising melodrama that hits mostly rewarding messages of perseverance and family unity, unearthing an unanticipated sense of coherence to a frenzied situation.
Like Bethany's sunshine filled life, once a great white takes the talented girl's left arm, the film takes a dramatic turn in both tone and artistic execution.
Hamilton's story is a human one with spiritual underpinnings, yet to the detriment of the inherent drama, the filmmaker tells it the other way around.
Beyond the Hollywood gloss and PG rating, there is no denying the power of this gritty true story about a teenage champion surfer who defies the odds to get back on her surfboard and win again after losing her arm in a shark attack
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