The Perfect Wave

The Perfect Wave comes packaged as a Christian or religious movie however one could easily change the title to 'The Perfect Family Movie' and be pretty close to the truth. Based on the true events of a young surfer who quits home in pursuit of his dream of the perfect wave it has the potential to be a bit of a yawner, far from it. The story line, while never rushed or compressed kept me riveted from the first frame to the last. It is beautifully written with just the right amount of clichés, like pepper and salt in the soup one needs to be careful as to what amount is added and in this case it tasted just fine.

The power of the acting was outstanding yet understated with very little ham, near perfect timing plus natural facial and body expression. However, the exceptional performances of Scott Eastwood (Ian McCormack) Rachel Hendrix (Annabel) and Cheryl Ladd (Mrs McCormack) were the key ingredient that transformed this potential cheesecake into a zesty Pavlova. They harpooned my heart and pulled me along to engage with the story, identify with the situations and feel for the characters as events unfolded. Indeed I was wiping away my first tear surprisingly early on in the film.

Another amazing thing about this movie is the way it transformed a relatively sedate early story line into such a dynamic and watchable experience leading up to the hugely dramatic ending with such panache. The praise for this must go to the production team. The cinematography, (especially the wave scenes) the editing, (just one small continuity distraction) the sound, the music (you will want to buy the DVD if it comes out), the lighting, the locations, the effects all perfectly and sensitively encased the story with great creativity and care. This could never therefore be a movie known for its great this or that but for the way in which this and that pulled together to create a beautiful movie.

There is a Christian message conveyed in the movie but done is such a way that it will not offend even the most anti-religious individual but if it did, what a pity it would be to allow one's views of religion to have one miss out on such a wonderful movie experience. Like The Passion of the Christ I believe this film can be enjoyed by all and loved by many. Yes this is a truly remarkable true story and as such, could even become one of the most touching and memorable films you will see. I know, as I am writing this with the effect of the film still stirring my mind and I do not believe the impact of this film will be diluted by the passage of time.

So to sum up this is a film that embraces all that is beautiful about the silver screen, all that is heart rendering about powerful acting and all that is unique in a true story, a story about The Perfect Wave.

Derek Keith

Caution: If you are about to watch the movie then you are going to get a free Church Service and donations are accepted.

Its about a young man falling in "love" for the first time, HOLD ON A MIN its in "Gods love"

BTW the lead actor is son of Clint Eastwood and he has not inherited any professional qualities from his Father or at least for this movie

Its basically produced by a Church, to make you realize that at the end of 90mins even Jesus would have hated this movie.

And a little advice to the director that you don't need so many characters for this story and they are awful actors, You should have pull the story with hardly 5 characters who are best at it.

Did the dude sold his Ferrari to do the Traveling? because he traveled like Bruce Wayne

I read most of the reviews on The Perfect Wave ! I really thought the actors did a very decent job portraying their parts ! I'm a big fan of surfing movies ! I've surfed most of my life ! The places they surfed are some of the best in the world ! There seemed to be just the right amount of romance in this story ! It wasn't over the top surfing ! And that really fit in with the story ! It was written from a perspective that surprised me . And I don't think it should or even needed to be in the movie ! Religion has a place, but it definitely shouldn't have been in this film ! The movie was good enough to make me like it until he almost died ! At that point I almost turned it off ! It is worth watching though, but if the ridiculous Religion part was left out I would have scored it higher !

This is possibly the very worst movie I have ever seen.

The camera-work is terrible. It was awkward and there was no movement. There were too many static shots. The scenes were awkward.

The sound was terrible. Bad mistakes were made like not mixing properly or not adding atmosphere. Voices were overdubbed and you could really tell because they didn't bother to add background sounds in. I've seen many student projects with much better sound.

The story bears almost no resemblance to the story on which it is based. Listening to a 5 minute clip of the man on who the story is based is much better. That's pretty bad considering that they used an incredible amount of resources to make a feature.

Most of the film is spent surfing all over the world, which isn't entirely integral to the story and probably cost a lot of unnecessary money.

The cast seemed universally terrible, which would indicate that the directing wasn't great. Some of the cast members weren't actors and you could really tell.

There's really no reason to watch this movie, not even if you are a Christian hoping to support the Christian filmmakers and cast of the movie. The movie makes Christians out to be hippy freaks that just read You Version and lose all interest in the activities that they love. This movie certainly did more harm than good to Christianity.

It's not that bad but as I hadn't read the summary of the story beforehand I expected other things to happen. However, it's nice to see his trip and the actor is really handsome.