Up until I saw “Soul Surfer” in July of this year, I felt there were no entertaining movies that really told any noteworthy story or had any memorable acting. Sure there was the Harry Potter finale, the string of comic book stories –The Green Hornet, The Green Lantern, Thor and Captain America, plus another Twilight installment, but really? What do we have in the way of actual, smart entertainment with an inspiring, uplifting story?
Enter “Soul Surfer”. We follow the unfolding story of a close-knit, home schooled, family living in Hawaii who all love surfing. The teen daughter, Bethany Hamilton, (played by Anna Sofia Robb), shows her competitive edge and competes to try her hand at a major surfing competition. A tragedy occurs when she is attacked by a shark, losing her left arm which makes it very difficult to pull herself up on the board at the right moment.
Complications always seem to appear when we embark on a worthy goal but this girl had an overwhelming difficulty in order to accomplish her goal of competing with other two-armed girls. With one arm, we see how she achieves some success through great adversity.
With the help of her father, she is given a fighting chance as he installs a rope handle in the middle of the surf board-not breaking any laws of the surfing world-to try once more at winning that competition.
We are acquainted with the actors who play her parents, Dennis Quaid and Helen Hunt as well as an old familiar face, Kevin Sorbo whose character keeps his head as he helps the surfer girl who is bit and losing blood fast to keep calm as she is transported to the hospital.
Too many times to count, modern entertainment throws out gratuitous sex and violence instead of telling a good story as in “Soul Sufer“. I was sorely disappointed with the movie industry thus far in 2011, but with the release of this family movie, it gave me some hope for the rest of the year. Rent or borrow “Soul Sufer”and you will watch real entertainment with an interesting story and real characters. You won’t regret it.