I was able to attend a sneak preview of this film last night. I took my 7 year-old daughter. She enjoyed the movie tremendously. I think it inspired her without scaring her too much.
I enjoyed the incredible true story and the family interactions. There were a couple of times when it really hit me to think about what I would do if this happened in my family. The shark bite scene wasn't all that gory. It certainly could have been more graphic but I was thankful they didn't take it to that level.
As an astute adult, I did find some of the special effects lacked the look of a bigger budget movie. In several surf scenes it was obvious that they superimposed the actor's faces over someone else doing the surfing. The close-up shots done while surfing were obviously done in a studio. They did do a much better job of "erasing" the missing arm on AnnaSophia Robb. There were only a couple of times when you noticed some irregularities.
I didn't really care for religious aspects of the movie. To me, it seemed as if they cut some religious scenes while keeping in some of the more subtle religious parts (reading the Bible, quoting scripture, etc.). Bethany does take a religious mission but even the religious nature of the trip takes a back seat to the lessons learned. They either needed to make the family's faith a bigger part of the movie or remove it altogether. It just seem disjointed, almost as if they originally planned on a more focused religious audience only to cut parts out to appeal to a broader audience (i.e., non-believers).
Overall, I would recommend this movie to adults and kids. Kids younger than 6 might get a scare from a couple of scenes. The inspirational parts outweighed the relatively low-budget CGI scenes.
I enjoyed the incredible true story and the family interactions. There were a couple of times when it really hit me to think about what I would do if this happened in my family. The shark bite scene wasn't all that gory. It certainly could have been more graphic but I was thankful they didn't take it to that level.
As an astute adult, I did find some of the special effects lacked the look of a bigger budget movie. In several surf scenes it was obvious that they superimposed the actor's faces over someone else doing the surfing. The close-up shots done while surfing were obviously done in a studio. They did do a much better job of "erasing" the missing arm on AnnaSophia Robb. There were only a couple of times when you noticed some irregularities.
I didn't really care for religious aspects of the movie. To me, it seemed as if they cut some religious scenes while keeping in some of the more subtle religious parts (reading the Bible, quoting scripture, etc.). Bethany does take a religious mission but even the religious nature of the trip takes a back seat to the lessons learned. They either needed to make the family's faith a bigger part of the movie or remove it altogether. It just seem disjointed, almost as if they originally planned on a more focused religious audience only to cut parts out to appeal to a broader audience (i.e., non-believers).
Overall, I would recommend this movie to adults and kids. Kids younger than 6 might get a scare from a couple of scenes. The inspirational parts outweighed the relatively low-budget CGI scenes.