The LA Times critic admittedly doesn't like ocean waves except at a distance and couldn't see the difference from the curl of Pipeline to the crushing confusion of Maverick and complained about the eventual commercialism that followed when surfing became a competitive sport and people like Noll and Hamilton cashed in on their fame.

The Pasadena Weekly critic took a leap of logic and groused that the racism of "Locals Only" wasn't exposed and found Hamilton's assertion that he faced racism as a white Anglo-Saxon kid among an Asian-Pacific Islander majority growing up in Hawaii audacious considering the white racism of surfers in general. This despite the movie's inclusion of non-white surfers such as Gerrie Lopez.

The LA Weekly reviewer gave it perhaps the most positive review, but characterized the cinematography of the waves as pornographic. For a publication that has recently featured an article about porn filming in the San Fernando Valley, you have to wonder just what that means.

The documentary was produced by Laird Hamilton and the entertainment branch of QuikSilver and it does miss some points such as you won't realize that Laird's deceased mother eventually divorced Bill Hamilton. Laird still considers him his father. The documentary isn't really about surfing in general. This is about the adrenaline junkies of the surfing set, athletes who did find a way to finance their involvement in a sport. The cinematography isn't as impressive as Step into Liquid, but the new footage fits well with the older, grainy amateur footage.

For a look at how California and Hawaii have had an international cultural influence via surfing and how sports push other sports into innovation, Riding Giants is a fascinating, entertaining documentary by a man who was first a surfer and then a radical skateboarder. This documentary fits well with Peralta's first feature, Dogtown and Z-Boys, another documentary about a Los Angeles subculture and how a drought changed the path of skateboarding and a few of the young boys were able to capitalize on their fame and make worthwhile futures out of poverty.

In limited release. Opened on July 9.