Best movie of this year hands down!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

I want to avoid putting a knock on a family friendly movie but this picture didn't quite do it for me. If not for the resilience and determination of young Paikea (Keisha Castle-Hughes), I'm not sure there's much going on in the story to recommend it as family fare. Her grandfather Koro (Rawiri Paratene), if portrayed in an American film, would have been considered a classic male chauvinist, while her own father Porourangi (Cliff Curtis) demonstrated the utmost in cowardly behavior by fleeing the scene following the death of his wife in childbirth. Not to mention Koro's dismissive behavior in shunning the young boy Hemi (Mana Taumaunuwhen) because he was bested by Paikei in that stick contest. These were just a couple of horrible examples I would point out that don't deserve to be role modeled in a purportedly family picture.The only other character besides Paikea I could positively relate to was Uncle Rawiri (Grant Roa), who took her under his roof and behaved in a manner befitting a responsible adult whenever he saw something amiss around him. As for the young Keisha Castle-Hughes, I thought she did a credible job in her role as Paikea, with a compassion and love for her grandfather that transcended his rude behavior and brought the story to a positive conclusion. However one has to interpret her ride on the whale as somewhat allegorical. It was not as mystical and fun filled in the way the movie's advance would make you suspect.

Whale Rider is definitely one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. The movie used very artistic camera angles and the acting was very good. I also thought it was wonderful that the director wanted to show off the Maori traditions and add in a lot of those really cool details you would get from an actual visit to New Zealand. Besides the awesome culture in the film, the movie was very well written and I thought it went into great detail about the story line, plus the characters were very well thought out and developed. Though, I did think that the ending was very dramatic and even a little cheesy. Plus, I thought that it was very odd that the grandfather, just all of the sudden was happy to have a granddaughter instead of a grandson. Though, the story line does kind of justifies it. With that being said, I still think that Whaler Rider is a great movie and I think it deserves a lot more "mainstream" publicity. 9/10 !!!

To start this all off, I would have to give Whale Rider a 8 out of 10 stars. The movie was a little hard to follow in the sense of not knowing much about Pai's family's culture, but that wasn't a very big problem. The story starts off with Pai's father in the hospital with Pai's mother, who is in childbirth. Pai's unborn brother dies with her mother, causing Pai's father to leave and go travel the world taking pictures. To me it was very surprising that a father would just leave his only daughter, especially after what occurred. Yet, I guess that is how he was to cope with the dramatic loss. I won't get too in depth about the rest of the story, but Pia's grandfather is looking for a new leader, and right from the start there are gender rolls that take place. Pia is not allowed to go for the position as the leader of the people, as she is only a girl. There is a constant love-hate relationship between Pia and Grandfather, yet it all ends towards the end. I won't spoil the ending, but it is very easy to get lost when it comes to why everything is happening. Besides that, Whale Rider is a very excellent movie, and I would recommend it to anyone. Before you watch it though, make sure to do some research on the movie and the people who are in it.

I have very mixed emotions about this film. I enjoyed watching it because there were not very many slow scenes. However, it did seem a bit forced in terms of the acting. I did not really particularly like any of the character's roles, because they just seemed to be trying to hard to act in my opinion. If I had to choose a favorite character though, it would be the little girl because she was so under appreciated, it was almost (literally) unbelievable, and unrealistic. Her grandfather was so mean to her, but to me, it was a bit unclear as to why exactly, and why he did not somehow grow to love her. I was also confused about who her father was. In the beginning, I understand that her mother died during childbirth along with her twin brother, and that the man with the long hair at the hospital was her father. However, when the movie fast forwarded after a few minutes about ten years later, I was completely lost as to which man (there were two that looked the same to me) was her father and which was her uncle! As the movie progressed, I grew tired of the grandfather's lousy, mean behavior towards his granddaughter, and his moping. I don't understand how he became so upset when he saw the whale on the beach, yet seemed to have a cold heart of stone when it came to people around him who loved him very much! I really wish that the grandmother would have divorced him during the film, like she kept telling the little girl she would. I think that there should have been more character development for the grandfather's role, because that could have made it more intriguing, and given the audience some insight into his mind. I also wish that the little girl would have had a best friend, or someone she could have stuck with throughout the film, because everyone seemed to be so against her that I wanted to just jump in and hug her! Overall, this film is interesting because of the Maori culture aspect, but I would not recommend it, or watch it again. My favorite thing about this film to be completely honest was their accents.