So I saw 'soul surfer' last week and figured I'd talk about it. In general it's a great movie about a great story. My only real complaint lies with some of the acting. I love Carrie Underwood and everything she's done, but she's a singer and not much of an actor. Same goes with Anna Robb, who played Bethany Hamilton, she wasn't horrible but beside great actors like Dennis Quaid and Helen Hunt there's not much of a comparison.
It was really well done and did a great job addressing the emotional side of the story. There was one scene between Carrie, who plays the youth group leader, and Anna which was amazing. The scene was the two of them addressing the verse that talks about God working for the best of those that love him (Romans 8:28? I can't remember). And you see her story and how everything pretty much seemed unfair, and it really reminds you of situations in your life when you've felt the exact same way. That particular scene really gets to the heart of the audience and is really the emotional core of the movie. Particularly because Carrie's character doesn't pretend to have the answer to why horrible things happen to people, which is a very human response to these kinds of things. I heard at least three people sniffing by the end of that scene.
Another thing I liked about it was that Bethany Hamilton's faith was showed very clearly in the movie. It made me wonder what Dennis and Helen's opinion of a blatant Christian theme was. I appreciated that they didn't downplay it at the expense of certain audience members possibly getting offended.
Lastly some of the shots in the movie were really cool. There were several underwater shots that looked up into the wave/surfer which were amazing. Plus it was set in Hawaii which always makes for a great backdrop. So it's totally worth a watch, because it's a story we all knew about and followed several years ago, and it's cool to see it in movie form. And as a Christian it was extremely surprising to see a mainstream movie have a prominent religious theme.
