SUCK MY DISC

DVDs and Blu-Rays for the week of August 2nd, 2011

 

SOUL SURFER

2 STARS

 

“Soul Surfer” is a tough movie to hate. First of all, it’s the story of 13 year old surfer girl Bethany Hamilton, who gets her arm bitten off by a shark. It’s also sickly sweet. Even the shark bite scene is coated with sugar and lollies. The sweetness continues when Bethany is back on her board in less than a month, and is competing just fifteen minutes later. Sure, she spent that fifteen minutes in a hardcore workout montage, but impressive nonetheless. To top it all off, she uses her lopsidedness to inspire children, at one point telling a reporter she wouldn’t change what happened to her, because then she wouldn’t be able to inspire all of the other stumpy kids across the nation. See? Hard to hate, right? But somehow, the people behind “Surfer” still found a way to make it hateable.

 

 

 

The film itself isn’t anymore than an overproduced Children’s Lifetime movie that somehow snuck into theaters. This makes the movie anywhere from mildly annoying to, at times, hard to watch. This isn’t necessarily a recipe for hate. But the movie can’t just thank their Lord (something we’ll get to in a minute) that they were handed a foolproof plot, ripped from the headlines. Someone at some point, or more likely, many people at many points, were still nervous that the film won’t beat enough people over the head with its messages and feelgoodedness. So they inject a giant plastic tube into the heart of the movie and pump it so full of cheese that you can’t help but feel sick for most of it.

 

 

 

 

I know what you’re thinking: this doesn’t sound like a bad movie, it sounds like a movie for kids. And while that’s true, the only reason it’s for kids is because of how lameballs it is. No one thinks, I want to write a great movie, but because I want kids to see it, I have to make it lameballs. Instead they think “I’m only capable of a lameballs movie, so then I guess I have to make it for kids.” Huge difference? Not really, at least not to me and you. The only reason it could matter is if you have kids and are forced to watch it, or you write for a crappy website. I don’t have kids, so that’s why it doesn’t really mat…Shit. Nevermind.

 

This all starts with the star and her fake parents, played by AnnaSophia Robb (Violet from Tim Burton’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”), Dennis Quaid, and Helen Hunt. Quaid and Hunt are more than capable, if not great, and Robb has been a promising young actress for awhile now. But they are given little more to do than smile in the two-arm scenes, frown in the one=arm scenes, and beam with pride in the one-arm scenes where everyone gets to prove themselves. It’s terribly unrealistic, and not because of how different it is from real life, but how different it is from other movies. All three actors must have realized early on how paint-by-numbers this entire enterprise was going to be, and jumped right on that band wagon. This is unfortunate for a lot of reasons, but the most glaring throughout is the movie already has something going against it, right from the beginning: it’s based on a true story.

 

True stories are tough, especially in the case of “Soul Surfer”. We know she gets bitten by a shark, so in the beginning of the movie, we can’t help but think “Get to the shark biting part, already.” We know she doesn’t die, so that takes all of the suspense out of the shark scene. And then most of us already know that she returns to the ocean to surf, so the last two-thirds of the movie loses that built-in suspense. Uh-oh, filmmakers. What are we going to do? Hire a director who is capable of anything interesting? Get the shit we already know about over with so we can learn the untold story? Work really hard on the family dynamic, especially regarding character development and rapport, so no matter how much of the story we already know, we’re still interested? No, no, and fuck no.

 

The whole “based on a true story” thing never gets more distracting than when it comes to the character Malina, the bad girl surfer who, when she gets out in to the ocean with Bethany, is full of attitiude and poor sportsmanship. Guess what color her swimsuit is? There are really two situations that the character Malina could come from. One, Malina is based on Malina, an actual cunt that these characters had to deal with. I have to assume that in real life, Malina isn’t so poorly written, so, upon seeing this movie, the real Malina must have been pissed. The other situation is that there is no Malina, and the filmmakers actually said that this story doesn’t have enough conflict, what with the shark bites and all, and had to jam in a super-villain. But as awkwardly as Malina is wedged in, the writers were able to jam in another character even harder.

 

Within the first three minutes of the movie, Bethany is with her family at church. No big deal. I’ve heard that many families across the country still go to church. During the credits, we get to meet the real Bethany, who mentions multiple times about how important her faith is to her. Great, so not only is it not a big deal, but it’s accurate to real life. Perfect. But from then on out, the movie strains its ass off to get God into the movie in any way they can. It never once feels like the characters are genuinely filled with faith, but instead, God sponsored the movie, and the cast and crew have to drop God’s name as often as they can, no matter how weird or unnatural this might feel. It’s not as if Pepsi sponsored the movie, so they have to drink Pepsi for dinner. Instead, it feels more like Pepsi sponsored the movie, so you have to gargle with Pepsi after you brush your teeth. The God shit doesn’t really make it any worse, but it is yet another distraction in a film that can’t afford it.

 

Ultimately, the movie leaves you too bored to find any enjoyment out of a third act that, although filled with cliches, mostly of the sports film variety, could have been at least a little stirring. We don’t get a ton of surfing movies, so setting your climactic scene at a surf competition gives you an opportunity to teach us how it works, which can distract us from all of the cliches you’re throwing at us. But, by that point, we’ve all guessed how it’s going to end, have a pretty good feeling that we’re right, and are tired of how right we’ve been for the rest of the movie. And you feel yourself, even if it’s just a little bit, praying that another shark shows up.

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RIO

Did you guys know that this website has a podcast? Did you know that on the last episode, we discussed the cinematic classic “Rio”? No? NO? Well, now you can listen to it.

https://popfilter.co/2011/07/popfilter-ep-3-in-which-the-friends-kick-june-gloom-square-in-the-balls/

 

THE PERFECT GAME

I have no idea what this is. It looks fucking awful. I could have reviewed this instead of “Soul Surfer”, but chose “Surfer” instead. Maybe that will put things into perspective for you.

 

Thanks for sucking!

-Ryan Haley