The Surfer

"When The Surfer does break out of the sun-addled fugue state that marks its midsection, it delivers a gonzo finale that lets Nicolas Cage rev himself up into his most manic, meme-able self."

"“Before you can surf you must suffer,” says menacing surfing guru, Scally (Julian McMahon). Cage obliges throughout this entertaining B-picture."

"There is still much to enjoy and admire here if you can stay on the film’s wavelength without getting frustrated."

"It really is a midnight movie -- the kind of trippy slapdash comic nightmare where the only way to watch it is to sit back and “go with it.”"

"A film that really wants to be about hot-button issues, like toxic masculinity and gentrification, but doesn’t have anything interesting to say about them."

"In the end, the film feels too rollicking and self-parodying to be taken seriously."

"It’s good fun, mostly, although the director Lorcan Finnegan (Vivarium) eventually boxes the movie into a muddled dead end."

"Cage commits, again, to his latest malcontent on the verge, without troubling himself with an Aussie accent in any way, which is classic Cage."