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75Chasing Mavericks is made with more care and intelligence than many another film starting with its template might have been. It's better than most movies targeted at teens. And the cinematography of the big Mavericks scene by Oliver Euclid and Bill Pope is so frightening that you sort of understand why Frosty stays on the shore, watching Jay with binoculars.
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63The reason to see Chasing Mavericks is the same reason why people flock to shore locations when a hurricane approaches: the waves. This is less effective as a bio-pic of Jay Moriarty than it is as a big screen National Geographic Special.
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50The surfing sequences are some of the best I've ever seen in a film, and the re-creation of Jay's climactic battle to ride El Nino-driven waves is real white-knuckle stuff...But neither Curtis Hanson ("L.A. Confidential") nor the fellow veteran director who replaced him when Hanson took ill, Michael Apted ("Gorillas in the Mist"), can do much with the hokey sequences on land.
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50So at the very least, audiences will come away from Chasing Mavericks with a deeper understanding of surfing and an appreciation for surfers.
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20As it turns out, the only truly interesting element about this clichéd surfer flick is that it was made by celebrated directors Michael Apted and Curtis Hanson.
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50If you've seen the 2006 Nick Nolte vehicle "Peaceful Warrior," then you've pretty much already seen this. Capturing the essence of surfing – or any sport, for that matter – is more often than not a fool's errand. A more fitting tribute to Moriarty's legacy? Go buy a board and hit the deep blue yourself.
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50Ultimately the story of Jay Moriarity, who died tragically in a diving accident at 22, is a moving one, and he deserved a better tribute than this film.
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50Come for the surfing. Stay for the sainthood.
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50When the movie works, its buoyancy can be infectious and persuasive.
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33It doesn't help that the characters have so little to them. Weston plays Moriarty as such an unfailingly good, temptation-free kid that he only needs a halo floating above his pre-Raphaelite curls to complete the picture.
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50There's lots of extraneous plotting -- which, however fact based, is handled in such a pre-fab manner that it feels phony.
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63If your inner amphibian craves a wave, you have the right kind of brain to appreciate the elemental story and scenic backdrops. But advanced mammals might smell something fishy.
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70Chasing Mavericks manages to sufficiently overcome the obstacles with admittedly affecting results.
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60The film wants to be inspiring, when it might have been cosmic-a far greater ambition. Tossing boats and dreamers, the huge waves perform beautifully.
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50The outstanding big-wave footage proves more credible than the overfamiliar dramatics in Chasing Mavericks.
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58The surfing scenes are gorgeous and overwhelming. But the rest of the film...
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50The footage itself, particularly of the surf, is spectacular, with veteran cinematographer Bill Pope handling the camerawork. But the drama is soggy, overreaching for the heartfelt and overdoing the inspirational.
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70Chasing Mavericks may treat its characters with a little too much reverence, but it gives its titular subject its awe-inspiring due.
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40In 1994, 16-year-old surfer Jay Moriarity braved the biggest waves ever seen off the coast of Northern California. His biopic, Chasing Mavericks, gets that fact right but changes everything else about his life in order to bowl audiences over in a saccharine tsunami.
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25It's hard to tell who is to blame for the movie's abrasive anonymousness – Curtis or Apted – but it hardly matters. In either directors' hands, Chasing Mavericks would have been a wipe-out. It's totally bogus.
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Oct 27, 201240It'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.
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Oct 26, 201250In attempting to honor their subject, the filmmakers also sap the life out of a potentially thrilling story.
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Oct 25, 201250I don't know if you have to be a surfer to fully appreciate Chasing Mavericks, but it certainly wouldn't hurt.
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Oct 25, 201240A greeting card set in motion, Chasing Mavericks cheeses up the story of real-life surfing phenom Jay Moriarity so thickly you could spread it on a cracker.
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Oct 25, 201225The filmmakers' kinship to Moriarity is obvious, and it makes for a tone of unflinching hope and optimism, though it leaves little room for grit or nuance.
User score distribution:
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Negative: 1 out of 3
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5The film may serve as an inspiration to many, but too many scenes feel empty.