It is so nice to be surprised every once in a while.
I try to go into movie without too many preconceived ideas. But with approximately 6,000 talking-animal computer-animated movies released in the last couple of years, it was hard not to walk into the screening of Sony’s Surf’s Up without already feeling bored.
Photo © Sony Pictures Entertainment
You know a movie has a perception problem when the trailer playing in theaters the last couple of months teases itself for being somewhat redundant. For those who haven’t seen it, the trailer begins with “real” penguins complaining about yet another penguin movie?and this complaint certainly resonated with me. Although I was firmly on the “loved it” side of the aisle with last year’s crowd splitter Happy Feet, I really didn’t feel the need to watch more penguins.
I like to imagine that some door-to-door animation salesman scammed both Sony and Warner Bros. into buying the same penguin package.
So that’s how I felt walking into the theater. A brief 82 minutes later, I walked out in a completely different mood. Surf’s Up isn’t an instant masterpiece, but it is a refreshingly focused piece of storytelling. It favors the Pixar approach of wrapping jokes and pop-culture references around an actual narrative rather than the recently more common method of squeezing a haphazard story out of a string of movie parodies and fart jokes. [To be fair, Surf’s Up does have a fart joke, but I was actually amused by it.]
Photo © Sony Pictures Entertainment
The concept of Surf’s Up is that of a sports documentary about a young newcomer from Antarctica who goes to compete in the 10th Annual Big Z Memorial Surf Competition, on the tropical island of Pen Gu. It is an interesting format and allows a lot of leeway, but my biggest complaint about the movie is that this format is abandoned for a couple of action sequences. On the other hand, it allows the outtakes that Pixar puts at the end of some movies to be included in the actual movie, generally to good effect.
The young newcomer in question is Cody Maverick (Shia LeBeouf), a young man of 17 who has lived his entire life in a conservative Antarctic fishing village that doesn’t really understand his desire to surf. He caught the bug as a young kid when the big kahuna of surfing, Biz Z, visited during a promotional tour.
Photo © Sony Pictures Entertainment
When Maverick gets to Pen Gu, he quickly learns he is out of his depth when the James Woods-voiced sea otter Reggie Belafonte (a Don King-style surfing promoter) pushes him into a one-on-one big wave surf-off with the reigning champion, Tank Evans (Diedrich Bader, of The Drew Carey Show).
Humiliated by the outcome, Cody begins his journey on the movie’s life-enhancing message (“it’s the journey, not the destination”) with the assistance of cute lifeguard Lani (Zooey Deschanel), Chicken Joe (Jon Heder, even in voice work playing the spaced-out stoner type), and Geek (Jeff Bridges).
The direct focus on a single story with little in the way of side trips is refreshing, though probably not surprising. Most of the people at the top in making this movie have strong Disney/Pixar ties. Ash Brannon and Chris Buck co-direct. Brannon also co-directed Toy Story 2 at Pixar and worked as an animator earlier Pixar titles. Buck comes from traditional animation, was a director on Tarzan for Disney, and supervised on several titles from The Little Mermaid through Chicken Little.
As a writer, you wouldn’t expect much from the scribe behind both Big Momma’s House movies, The Santa Clause 2, and Agent Cody Banks 2. But for Surf’s Up, Don Rhymer keeps it simple and finds a solid heart around which to wrap the gags.
In my review of Meet the Robinsons, I praised the filmmakers for using a voice cast consisting mostly of unknown names, and hoped it would be the start of a trend. I still have that hope, but Surf’s Up sticks almost entirely to known (if not superstar) actors to provide the voice talent. With hardly an exception, however, they do great. Zooey Deschanel offers a very strong voice as Lani, but she doesn’t quite have the accent I expect from someone growing up in a place clearly meant to be Oahu’s North Shore in Hawaii.
Photo © Sony Pictures Entertainment
Otherwise, solid across the board, and two of the leads really shine. As Cody’s zen surfing instructor Geek, Jeff Bridges is essentially reprising (in atttitude if not character) his performance as The Dude in The Big Lebowski. Let’s just say Bridges provides a voice and attitude that is just perfect for the laid back surfer life.
It is way too early to predict such things, but if one day we are talking about Shia LeBeouf the same way we now talk about Tom Cruise, then Summer 2007 will be remembered as his coming-out party.
He opened an underrated teen thriller, Disturbia, that was successful beyond expectation. He has a potential 4th of July blockbuster in The Transformers. He has been announced as the young blood for the fourth (and please be final) Indiana Jones movie. He was great in Holes and The Greatest Game Ever Played, and even stood out in the abysmal Constantine. This summer, though, will make him a star. In all of that his contribution to Surf’s Up will likely be overlooked, but it is another great effort.
Photo © Sony Pictures Entertainment
Without falling into cliché, LeBeouf puts together a speaking style that brings forth a young surfer. When he ends every other sentence with “bro,” it feels authentic rather than just stupid.
Finally, you can’t review a CGI movie without talking about the quality of the CGI. I’ve said in previous reviews that the overall quality level is so high that it is difficult for anything to seem spectacular, and that remains true. Even with so much well-done water, I was never really left saying, “Wow, how did they animate that?!” The animators, though, found other ways to excel. The gimmick of being a low-budget documentary gave them leeway to play with lighting in interesting ways (one scene involving a walk through the jungle in the rain, with just the light from a camera spotlight, is fantasticly visualized). Old news footage is re-created very well. So, while there wasn’t necessary a big “wow” moment in the animation, it was still expertly done and very satisfying.
The movie is rated PG, though only for some slight language (I noticed only two utterances that strike me as problematic). The action may slow down a bit too much for the youngest audience members, but at a crisp 84 minutes, they won’t really have much time to get bored.
- Surf’s Up is a Sony Pictures Animation release.
- Wide release June 8, 2007
- Directed by Ash Brannon and Chris Buck
- Screenplay by Don Rhymer
- Starring Shia LaBeouf, Jeff Bridges, Zooey Deschanel, Jon Heder, James Woods, Diedrich Bader
- Running Time: 84 minutes.
- Rated PG
- Alex’s Rating: 8 out of 10.
