Chasing Mavericks 2012

Mary F. Pols, TIME Magazine: A sweet ride worth catching. Read more

Kathleen Murphy, MSN Movies: ... you see what 'Chasing Mavericks' missed entirely: the transfiguring energy that animated this remarkable child of the sea. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: The surfers and the surfing, along with the natural beauty of the California coastline, help balance the movie's weak areas, including its lamentably one-dimensional protagonist. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: With the massive power and mesmerizing curl of the giant waves, Chasing Mavericks is at its best offshore. Read more

Keith Phipps, AV Club: While Chasing Mavericks has a couple of eye-catching moments, it doles them out stingily. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: A family movie of aggravating blandness. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Never really [delivers] the sun-in-your-face, salt-in-your-hair, sandy-cocky thrill of surfing or surf culture. Read more

Michael Rechtshaffen, Hollywood Reporter: Chasing Mavericks manages to sufficiently overcome the obstacles with admittedly affecting results. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: "Chasing Mavericks" falls into the "Machine Gun" category of disappointments - at best it's a wash. Read more

Mark Conley, San Jose Mercury News: "Chasing Mavericks" ... trained its glossy, big-budget Hollywood lens on the surfing culture and did something unheard of: It got it right. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: "Chasing Mavericks" invents minor conflicts but avoids major problems, coming off less like a biographical drama than a visit from a guest lecturer during Sunday school. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: The sinking feeling starts as soon as "Chasing Mavericks" opens, with Gerard Butler's solemn narration: "We all come from the sea," he intones, "but we are not all of the sea." Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Neither Curtis Hanson nor the fellow veteran director who replaced him when Hanson took ill, Michael Apted, can do much with the hokey sequences on land. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: For Hanson and Apted, this is a rather inconsequential effort. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: "Chasing Mavericks" is made with more care and intelligence than many another film starting with its template might have been. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: "Chasing Mavericks" moves as fast as a runner in waist-high water and wears out its welcome. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Nothing special; decent enough considering the circumstances. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Granted, both directors have been adrift for the past decade, but even someone with water in his ears should have sensed that this script needed a rescue. Read more

Michael Posner, Globe and Mail: When every frayed plot device you've predicted makes its inevitable appearance, at least you'll have the majestic waves off the California coastline to comfort you. Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: The heart-pounding surfing scenes are epic but the script can barely keep its head above the waves in the dramatized biopic Chasing Mavericks. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: With a storyline as by-the-numbers as a square dance, the movie's one surprise comes with the closing credits -- namely, that this trite "inspirational" movie is the product of two world-class filmmakers, Curtis Hanson and Michael Apted. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: The outstanding big-wave footage proves more credible than the overfamiliar dramatics in Chasing Mavericks. Read more

Casey Burchby, Village Voice: Floating atop the explosive breakers, like an overabundance of phytoplankton, is a roiling colony of cliches that stops at nothing to dominate the screenplay. Read more

Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture: It's a perfect fortune cookie of a movie, full of bland life lessons for everybody; would that there were some drama or style in it somewhere along the way. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: The tsunami of schmaltzy melodrama ... threatens to swamp the proceedings, which at heart are actually kind of thrilling and inspirational. Read more