Surf's Up

Who doesn’t like penguins?

And that is the question movie execs everywhere were asking a few years ago. After Madagascar (May 2005), March of the Penguins (July 2005), Happy Feet (November 2006), and farce of the Penguins (February 2007), the answer was… we used to.

So did we really need another penguin movie? That is a question probably not asked at Sony Animation Studios during the creation of Surf’s Up. (Considering it was in Production roughly the same time as Happy Feet, I don’t blame them)

So let’s break the movie apart like a surfboard crashing on the rocks of the boneyard.

The Good:
• The documentary style “camerawork.” Granted, it’s not the smoothest animation (yet the water looks almost real in several shots) but it is an improvement over Sony’s first cartoon Open Season. And the documentary feel reminded me of some great surfing documentaries (Endless Summer, Step Into Liquid). And it distracted from the feel of being in a kids movie feel that you can sometimes get when watching animated films.
• Casting. The Dude as Z and Napoleon Dynamite as the half-baked chicken – genius.
• The story is actually funny. After the beautiful downer March of the Penguins and the copulation driven storyline of Happy Feet it is nice to see wit and sarcasm coming from the beaks of penguins.
• Snide jabs at Happy Feet. What fun is it if you can’t throw elbows at the competition?
• The music. The people in charge of the soundtrack made some smart choices. The songs were well placed, lyrically and stylistically fitting in with the on-screen action - like The Dirty Heads’ Stand Tall and Sugar Ray’s Into Yesterday. I caught Bekah singing along to Incubus’ Drive, but I caught my self singing along with You Get What You Give (the greatest one-hit wonder ever). So I can’t hold it against her.

The Bad:
• Poop jokes. There are a lot of them. (Seriously? I didn’t even know that glow worms pooped)
• A creepy scene with trophies. The bad guy (Tank) is a jerk and we all know it from the minute he’s introduced. But when he takes you behind the curtain to introduce his trophies, we discover his real-life counterpart would be on the sex offender registry. Bad guys in family flicks should be mean – not dirty.
• Pee. As in urine is a proven cure for stepping on a poisonous fire urchin. Funny and disturbing all at the same time.

The Moral:
• You can’t give up because there is someone who is better and/or cooler than you
• Winning isn’t everything.
• Do what you enjoy and enjoy what you do.
• Do the right thing.

Bekah’s thoughts:
It was a little rude for a kids movie. The adult humor was funny but a bit heavy. Thankfully, the grown up stuff was lost on the mind of our five year old. Great lessons for kids to learn and most of the jokes for adults are above most kid’s comprehension level.

Christian’s thoughts:
His favorite part: “When the penguin fell down. It was funny.” He also liked the rockhopper penguin (Cody Maverick).