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MOVIE REVIEW

STEP INTO LIQUID

Name: STEP INTO LIQUID
Item: STEP INTO LIQUID
Author: Filemaker Upload

Breathtaking waves, joyful surfing, and a worldview worth discussing.

2012Not Rated88 minutesArtisan EntertainmentDocumentary

THE VERDICT What our ratings mean →

Worth the trip — older children and adults.

ENTERTAINMENT QUALITY ★★★★ 3 / 4 Exhilarating, beautiful, occasionally uneven.

FAMILY CONTENT Discernment −1 on the +4 to −4 scale Discernment; fine for middle schoolers and up, while parents should decide for elementary-age children and younger.

CONTENT LEVELS NONE → HEAVY

Language Moderate

Violence None

Sex None

Nudity None

BEST FOR Older children, teens, and adults who enjoy surfing, adventure, and thoughtful discussion.

NOT FOR Very young children or viewers seeking a clearly Christian explanation of creation.

CONTENT IN ONE LINE Pagan ideas about nature, religious exclamations, mild to coarse obscenities, and vague anti-capitalist environmentalism.

Should You Watch It?

You should see Step Into Liquid if breathtaking sports footage, beautiful locations, and the joyful oddness of surfing sound like your kind of movie. Dana Brown captures world-class surfers riding enormous waves, preteens learning the sport, longtime enthusiasts, and communities brought together through surfing.

The film is strongest when it simply shows the majesty of the ocean and the skill of the surfers. It is weaker when interviewees try to explain why surfing matters. Their answers often remain shallow, mystical, or hedonistic instead of recognizing the Creator behind the creation.

Christian viewers may still find the film useful. It offers glimpses of charity, peacemaking, friendship, and international goodwill, while also opening a door to discuss how people can enjoy creation without honoring its Author. For older children and adults, this is worth the trip, with discernment about its language and worldview.

The Story

NO SPOILERS — WE KEEP THE SURPRISES

Through loosely connected vignettes, Dana Brown travels from Costa Rica and Vietnam to Tahiti, Maui, San Diego, and beyond, showcasing surfers and spectacular waves. The film introduces world champions, amateurs, longtime devotees, families, and friends who experience surfing in very different ways.

Along the way, it asks what makes surfing so compelling: the waves, the fellowship, the challenge, the joy, or something deeper.

Is It Any Good?

Three stars means Step Into Liquid is a very good documentary with some notable weaknesses. Its lavish slow-motion and fast-motion photography captures impossible moves from every conceivable angle, including underwater. Fine sound editing makes the thunder of giant waves part of the experience, and one remarkable sequence falls completely silent as Peter “Condor” Mel rides a 66-foot wave.

The film also has warmth and variety. Its vignettes move from world champions and exotic locations to preteens, freshwater surfers, surfing veterans, and people using the sport to build relationships.

The interviews are sometimes shallow or silly, and stationary headshot interviews are occasionally out of focus. The film also gives only a few minutes and scant footage to world-class female surfers. Still, its beautiful, fun filmmaking makes it the most enjoyable surfing movie since Endless Summer.

The Worldview

Step Into Liquid treats surfing as more than a sport. It presents surfing as a lifestyle and a source of fellowship, describing a “tribe of people that feed off the energy” of the sea and an experience called “the stoke.” Some interviewees describe the activity in terms of personal happiness and pleasure.

The film also contains examples of biblical acts of charity and peacemaking. A Vietnam veteran travels with his son to spread goodwill through surfing, and the Malloy brothers bring Protestant and Catholic children together through surfing lessons. Friends help Jesse Billauer return to his board after a crippling injury. These moments show compassion, friendship, and reconciliation.

The film’s central weakness is that it does not connect the grandeur of creation to the Creator. Its characters attribute mystical qualities to natural elements, while none of the interviewed surfers refers to God as the Author of the beauty they experience. The film also includes vague anti-capitalist environmentalism and a global brotherhood of surfing.

A Christian viewer can appreciate the beauty while recognizing the missing conclusion. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1).

Movieguide® worldview codes: PaPa, BB, C, ACap, E, I, LL — preserved for our database, awards research and the annual Report to the Entertainment Industry. What the codes mean →

The Content Guide

The specifics — spoilers included by nature — so you can judge for your own family.

Content Summary

Pagan worldview with characters attributing mystical qualities to natural elements while some characters perform biblical acts of charity and peacemaking, including uniting some Protestant and Catholic surfers; five uses of “God” as exclamations and 12 mild to coarse obscenities; and, characters refer to global brotherhood of surfing and vague anti-capitalist environmentalism. GENRE: Documentary PaPa BB C ACap E LL I

Talk About It

Questions for the drive home, the dinner table, or the youth group.

The film shows people enjoying the beauty and power of the sea. How can appreciating creation lead us to worship the Creator rather than stop at creation itself?

Psalm 19:1 · Romans 1:20

The film includes people bringing Protestant and Catholic children together. What does peacemaking look like when people have real differences?

Matthew 5:9 · Ephesians 4:1–3

Several surfers describe happiness, fellowship, or “the stoke” as the deepest meaning of surfing. Where should Christians look for lasting joy?

Philippians 4:4 · John 15:11

The film portrays acts of generosity and goodwill. What opportunities do you have to serve someone outside your usual circle?

Galatians 6:10 · Hebrews 13:16

The Final Word

Step Into Liquid is beautiful, energetic, and full of human warmth. Its shallow explanations of surfing and its pagan ideas about nature keep it from being a cleaner recommendation, but older children and adults can appreciate its artistry and discuss what it misses. WORTH THE TRIP — OLDER CHILDREN AND ADULTS.

THE VERDICT Worth the trip — older children and adults.

M Movieguide® Contributor August 10, 2012

Planning family movie night instead? Start with this week’s family-friendly picks →

HOW THIS REVIEW WORKS The verdict in 10 seconds. The reasons in 2 minutes. The full depth in 8. One answer, stated at the top and again at the end — and we never spoil the story. The Content Guide is the same detailed listing Movieguide® has always published.

Details

Starring

Kelly Slater, Rochelle Ballard, Rob Machado, Keala Kennelly, Taj Burrow, a host of other professional, amateur surfers

Director

Dana Brown

Writer

Dana Brown

Producers

Bruce Brown, Ray Willenberg, Jr.

Distributor

Artisan Entertainment

Genre

Documentary

Rating

Not Rated

Runtime

88 minutes

Intended Audience

Older children to adultsREVIEWER: Jan and Jared StallonesSTEP INTO LIQUID is as exhilarating and refreshing as a summer day at the beach, and at times as exasperating as the long, sandy drive home. Through a series of loosely connected vignettes, Dana Brown showcases some of the finest surfers and most spectacular waves in the world. Numerous interviews feature world champions of the sport attempting to distill the essence of surfing’s allure. Their shallow and sometimes silly explanations cannot match the grandeur and majesty of their subject. None of these athletes so in tune with the creation references the Creator on camera, and the Christian viewer wants to “connect the dots” for them.Breathtaking surf footage is the staple of surfing movies, and Brown treats his audience to lavish slow motion and fast motion sequences. In settings as exotic as Costa Rica, Vietnam, and Tahiti, world-class athletes perform impossible moves shot from every conceivable angle, even underwater. Thanks to fine sound editing, viewers experience the thunder of giant waves off Maui and San Diego as expert surfers are towed into the swells by jet skis. In one astounding sequence, the sound stops entirely as Peter “Condor” Mel catches and rides a 66-foot wave. Occasionally one camera picks up shots of divers with cameras, providing a glimpse of the painstaking techniques that blend so seamlessly to create the surfing sequences. Oddly, when the camera is stationary for simple headshot interviews, it is often out of focus, as if the camera operators have become so adept at surf photography that they can no longer film on dry land.In seeking to explain surfing’s appeal, STEP INTO LIQUID reveals as much about the lifestyle of surfing as it does about surfing itself. The wide diversity among surfers is depicted by contrasting world champions challenging huge waves on cutting-edge hydrofoil surfboards with giggly preteens competing at a beginners’ level contest at a family beach. Brown profiles Dale Webster, the solitary northern California man who has surfed every day for nearly 30 years. The light-hearted goofiness of surfing is exemplified by a group of Texas coast surfers who surf for miles on the wakes of supertankers and “freshwater” surfers who experience the “stoke” of Lake Michigan shorebreak. Surfing’s recent history is portrayed through a profile of characters featured in ENDLESS SUMMER and ENDLESS SUMMER II, who show that they can still ride longboards like the pros. Unfortunately, for a sport whose popularity is growing fastest among young women, Brown gives only a few minutes and scant footage to world-class female surfers.In several heartwarming vignettes, STEP INTO LIQUID attempts to display the international brotherhood that surfing engenders. A Vietnam veteran travels to southeast Asia with his son in order to spread goodwill through surfing. At the end of his trip, he makes a gift of his surfboard to the ten-member Da Nang Surf Club. In a particularly moving vignette, three brothers from Ojai, California, the Malloys, use the draw of surfing lessons to bring together Protestant and Catholic children who would otherwise have nothing to do with each other. In another vignette, Jesse Billauer, a promising young champion who suffered a crippling injury, is helped back onto his board by loving friends. Dana Brown has proven himself to be the equal of his Academy Award-nominated father, Bruce Brown (ENDLESS SUMMER), as a maker of beautiful, fun movies about serious surfing. STEP INTO LIQUID spans the globe, not in an elusive search for the perfect wave, but in search of the essence of surfing. However, the essence of surfing may be merely that it is an exhilarating sport that brings its adherents into close contact with the creation, and, if they are sensitive to Him, with the Creator. None of the surfers interviewed in the film quite gets to that point. Instead, some attribute surfing’s allure to the fellowship that develops among surfers, a “tribe of people that feed off the energy” of the sea. Others credit the sublime experience of surfing to the mysterious urge called “the stoke.” Ultimately, though, the deepest meaning the interviewees can give their experience is hedonistic, expressed in statements like, “I get out of the water happier than when I get in,” and “all I’m looking for is a smile.” This is far removed from the simple eloquence of missionary Eric Liddell’s declaration, “When I run I feel His pleasure.” While we cannot expect those who are not Christians to appreciate this depth of communion between Creator and creation, it is sad to see those who are so in tune with the rhythms of the sea miss the Author of those rhythms. Despite its weaknesses, Christians will appreciate the majesty of the creation depicted so effectively in the surfing sequences in STEP INTO LIQUID. Perhaps, they may understand surf culture more deeply, too, the better to minister to surfers.Please address your comments to:Amir Malin, CEOArtisan Entertainment2700 Colorado Avenue, 2nd FloorSanta Monica, CA 90404Phone: (310) 449-9200Fax: (310) 255-3810Webpage: www.artisanent.com