I try to avoid spoilers in reviews, but it’s only fair to warn parents that the supposedly inspirational, family-friendly, fact-based and often sappy “Chasing Mavericks’’ ends with the main character’s memorial service.
A title card informs us that surfing legend Jay Moriarty drowned while diving (alone) at the age of 22, and in the film we see him repeatedly engaging in potentially lethal surfing off the California coast before his 16th birthday.
We’re eventually told Jay’s boozy single mom (Elisabeth Shue) is aware that he’s had his girlfriend forge the mother’s signature to a “permission slip,’’ but still, you might not want the kids trying this at home.
Jay’s chief enabler is his neighbor, surrogate dad and daredevil surfer Frosty Hesson, played by Scottish actor Gerard Butler with an amusing American accent that makes him sound like he gargled with scotch before each take.
It’s 1994, and Frosty discovers that teenage Jay (played at this point by Jonny Weston, whose best acting is done in the water) has stowed away atop his truck to watch Frosty and his pals surf massive waves in a secret spot called Mavericks.
Frosty’s wife (Abigail Spencer) convinces her husband it’s his obligation to teach Jay how to survive these waves, because if he doesn’t, Jay will just try to do this himself with tragic results.
Thus, Frosty becomes Jay’s Mr. Miyagi, lecturing his young charge about his philosophy of surfing while they spend so many hours in the water together that you wonder why someone doesn’t call children’s services.
Why two stars? The surfing sequences are some of the best I’ve ever seen in a film, and the re-creation of Jay’s climactic battle to ride El Nino-driven waves is real white-knuckle stuff.
But neither Curtis Hanson (“L.A. Confidential”) nor the fellow veteran director who replaced him when Hanson took ill, Michael Apted (“Gorillas in the Mist’’), can do much with the hokey sequences on land.
Jay works in a pizzeria to help support his mom, falls in love with a beautiful girl he will later (briefly) marry, helps a pal who is tempted by drugs and is taunted by a wealthy bully straight out of “The Karate Kid.’’
At least the makers of that film were able to provide a happy ending — unlike that of “Chasing Mavericks.’’