 Are you sick of the big blockbusters and superhero nonsense going on these days? Maybe you need to scale back. Look at something a little smaller, a little bit more indie. Well, the film I'm talking about today is Whale Rider. It might be right up your canal. I was gonna say alley, but canal feels more appropriate because of the water and the whales, and let's start. Whale Rider came out in 2002. So naturally now is the time to talk about this film. Oh no, it was actually recommended by Owen Menning over on Patreon at patreon.com Adam does movies. He became a myth roll member just so he could have me watch this and review it. Thank you, Owen. Let's dive in. Oh, the water. Written and directed by Nikiki Karo, Whale Rider's based off a novel of the very same title. Actually, full transparency, I believe the book is called The Whale Rider and it came out in 1987. The film dropped the the, got right to the point. There's a whale, there's possibly riding in this thing. Come out and watch it. The film was shot in New Zealand. It has a very documentary style to it. Very kind of low budget, low res. Still very pretty though. A lot of good vistas and locations. Music, fine, it's slower. It's more somber because this is a more somber tale. A tale of a tribe that was once great but has fallen on hard times due to the lack of leadership, due to the fact that the answers promised another to lead them to glory and that boy died in childbirth. Unfortunately for them, the daughters survived and now they have to deal with a girl who doesn't belong in a leadership role because you know, patriarchy, sexism, things of that nature. But we might possibly see something change by the time this movie's done. The girl in question is Paikia, played by Keisha Castle Hughes. Fantastic acting here by this young one. She's only 12. Sometimes it's dangerous to follow a child actor throughout the course of a movie but yeah, Keisha gets it, she gets it. Very sympathetic young girl. We're gonna be following this girl as she does everything she can to impress her grandfather. Why not the father and mother? Well, the mother went Padme style, died in childbirth, trying to deliver two kids. The boy passed away. But the girl Paikia made it out okay and the reason why is simple. She's a strong female lead. Hollywood loves to throw the buzz term around but whale rider does it right. This girl is sympathetic. She's passionate. She wants to gain the admiration of her peers and really impress her grandfather because even though the father of Paikia survived, he might as well be dead. He moved on with his life, abandoning his daughter basically, leaving the tribe and the island to start a new life with a new wife in New York. I know it rhymed, it wasn't supposed to. I'm not gonna spoil the ending because I want you to check it out. I do think it's worth watching. For me personally, a movie like this a little too slow. Not enough explosions, not enough action for me. A joking, I can watch slow movies. I can appreciate them. Whale Rider just is a little bit too tedious for me. I was sitting there kind of thinking, okay, I get this. I get what she's trying to do, what she has to accomplish. I just wish it moved on a little bit quicker. So without those James Cameron colors attacking my eyeballs every five seconds, I start to think, yeah, we can move on from this scene of her crying in her bedroom or of her just looking on as other kids are trained while she's swept aside. It's so disappointing to constantly see these guys dismiss her when she has good ideas and she has a spiritual connection to the whales. That's right, there are whales in Whale Rider. They do play a very prominent role. I will say the last 20 minutes is really good. If only the movie moved a little quicker to get to that point, I would have been all in instead of just half in. Seeing those beached whales is tragic. Anytime animals are in harm's way for no good reason, you just feel bad, don't you? I mean, we can watch people get their heads blown off all the time, because we know people are kind of garbage, but what the hell did a whale do to us? You know? How is that a whale's fault that they're trapped on a shore? Come on, let's help them out. And the tribe does, they work together. It's a very beautiful moment, very beautiful sequence. I don't honestly know how they filmed it. Maybe they really beached a bunch of whales, at which point, I mean, something's gotta be done about this film. Something's gotta be done about the director putting these whales basically out of their misery for this film. Disgusting stuff. Joking aside, Owen Menning, I appreciate you recommending this film. I appreciate all Patreons in the movies they bring to the table. Whether I love them, like them, tolerate them or outright hate them. Whale Rider, it was a good watch. I could watch it again. I recommend everyone checking it out and forming their own opinion. Just not my favorite by any stretch of the imagination. A very serviceable, watchable movie. And I do appreciate it going a little bit into the culture, which is something I'm sorely lacking when it comes to some of these tribes and just how spiritually connected they are. Another thing that I have nothing of. I'm essentially a useless husk of skin and bone waiting for my time on this earth to come to an end. Subscribe. Well, that's 2002 Whale Rider. A nice self-contained film. There's no two whales, two furious, or any follow-up movies. It's a one and done, nice little picture. Thanks again, Owen and all Patreons out there, and YouTube joint members. Like the video, please, if you had a good time and please subscribe if you haven't. I post tons of movie content and reviews every single week. Would love to have you stick around. Take care. We sure had a whale of a good time, didn't we? If you wanna see more of my stuff, check out the link tree in the description below the video. It has access to Spotify, where you can hear my podcast with my buddy, Bless. It has access to my second channel, Adam After Dark, that I'm still working on building up into something special over there. It's skit-based humor, nothing too fancy, nothing too flashy. My TikTok, Instagram, Letterboxed. Actually, I don't know if Letterboxed is in there. I'll put it in there. All that and much more, right at your fingertips.