I try very hard to be unbiased when I watch a film for the first time, but I have to admit that after "Happy Feet" I had no interest in seeing yet another full-length animated penguin film. My first reaction was, Over my tuxedoed body!
But "Surf's Up" caught me by surprise--kind of like the six-foot wave that knocked me off my feet in Maui earlier this year. I was expecting cute, and I got cute mixed with irreverent. I was expecting a "Madagascar"-like film pitched at kids, and I got one that winks at adults in almost every scene. I was expecting a familiar narrative, and instead I was treated to take-off on ESPN sports-feature programming, because "Surf's Up" offers a sometimes hilarious parody. It's the mocumentary format that keeps this second effort from Sony Pictures Animation ("Open Season") from being clichéd.
Certainly, the core premise isn't anything new. It concerns a rivalry between two brothers, one who follows the flock, and the other who follows the beat of a different wing. Add an ambition to become more than what is expected of an individual (or species) and you get the "I wanna be a big-time surfer" version of the "I wanna dance, not sing" go-against-the-flow theme we saw in "Happy Feet." Rip-off? At that point, I was certainly thinking so. Then the lines started to kick in, and a few laugh-out-loud moments were scattered here and there. Soon, you start to feel the energy between the characters, so you settle in to ride this wave until the end, when, unfortunately, no one seems to know when to get off their surfboards and call it a day. Maybe they were all having too good of a time to call it a wrap, but the ending does go on a bit long and loses power.
For the most part, though, "Surf's Up" is a funny, good-natured family film (more on that later) that holds appeal for all ages. It looked SO good on a standard DVD that I can't honestly see the huge improvement in picture quality that you often do with Blu-ray. If anything, there seems to be almost too much light on the Blu-ray version (see below).
But the voice actors clearly seem to be having a good time, and that transfers onto the film itself. Shia LaBeouf stars as Cody Maverick, the runt brother in a macaroni penguin family whose father was tragically killed--I mean, eaten--by a killer whale. Older brother Glen (Brian Posehn) is the perfect son to mom (Dana Belben), while Cody is a disappointment. Rather than being willing to warm the flock's eggs like the other males, Cody wants something more, and he spends his days riding Antarctic waves on surfboards he carves from ice. All this is told in semi-flashback, with a SPEN interviewer getting the family to talk on-camera about Cody as their errant family member prepares to finally achieve his dream of competing in the Big Z Memorial Surf-Off. You see, when he was little, the greatest surfer of them all crested into their little town of Shiverpool, Antarctica, and presented Cody with a Big Z necklace that he still wears as a young adult.
After a strained transition that gets Cody to Pen-Gu Island, where the big surfing competition is to take place, things settle into a familiar sports groove, with a mean, arrogant surfer named Tank Evans (Diedrich Bader) not only Cody's guy to beat, but the one who defeated Big Z on the wave that killed his hero. For comic "best buddy" relief there's a chicken surfer from Sheboygan, Wisconsin, of all places. But Chicken Joe (Jon Heder) fits right in with the surf crowd, because he's a bit of a nuts-and-granola guy who is so laid back he can't recognize a tribe of cannibals when they try to boil him, and he somehow manages to catch a wave while preoccupied lying on his back checking out the "radical" cloud patterns. Because they share a number of things-like a dad plucked prematurely out of this life (in Chicken Bob's case, to make a 6-piece combo), he's a natural best-buddy fit for Cody ("Cody's around somewhere. I can feel it in my nuggets."
Sometimes, the minor characters can get a bit shrill. James Woods plays what appears to be an otter sporting a Don King hair-do. He's the surfing promoter, of course, and occasionally the shouting can be a bit much. Then there's Mikey Abromowitz (Mario Cantone), who does the acerbic play-by-play narration on this sports mocumentary, while the only female voice to get much action belongs to Zooey Deschanel, who plays lifeguard Lani Aliikai. But a bevy of jokes, ranging from the cerebral (like an allusion to a famous Japanese woodblock print) to the scatological (when one tiny little penguin refers to the bad guy as a "bucket of poop") save the day every bit as much as a mysterious spaced-out former surfer known only as Geek (Jeff Bridges), who becomes the Obi-Wan to Cody's reluctant Annakin. What parents will appreciate, though, is that this doesn't reinforce sports stereotypes. That's especially welcome in a championship-minded society where placing second is seen as a loss. In this film, winners sometimes lose. And that's okay.
But "Surf's Up" caught me by surprise--kind of like the six-foot wave that knocked me off my feet in Maui earlier this year. I was expecting cute, and I got cute mixed with irreverent. I was expecting a "Madagascar"-like film pitched at kids, and I got one that winks at adults in almost every scene. I was expecting a familiar narrative, and instead I was treated to take-off on ESPN sports-feature programming, because "Surf's Up" offers a sometimes hilarious parody. It's the mocumentary format that keeps this second effort from Sony Pictures Animation ("Open Season") from being clichéd.
Certainly, the core premise isn't anything new. It concerns a rivalry between two brothers, one who follows the flock, and the other who follows the beat of a different wing. Add an ambition to become more than what is expected of an individual (or species) and you get the "I wanna be a big-time surfer" version of the "I wanna dance, not sing" go-against-the-flow theme we saw in "Happy Feet." Rip-off? At that point, I was certainly thinking so. Then the lines started to kick in, and a few laugh-out-loud moments were scattered here and there. Soon, you start to feel the energy between the characters, so you settle in to ride this wave until the end, when, unfortunately, no one seems to know when to get off their surfboards and call it a day. Maybe they were all having too good of a time to call it a wrap, but the ending does go on a bit long and loses power.
For the most part, though, "Surf's Up" is a funny, good-natured family film (more on that later) that holds appeal for all ages. It looked SO good on a standard DVD that I can't honestly see the huge improvement in picture quality that you often do with Blu-ray. If anything, there seems to be almost too much light on the Blu-ray version (see below).
But the voice actors clearly seem to be having a good time, and that transfers onto the film itself. Shia LaBeouf stars as Cody Maverick, the runt brother in a macaroni penguin family whose father was tragically killed--I mean, eaten--by a killer whale. Older brother Glen (Brian Posehn) is the perfect son to mom (Dana Belben), while Cody is a disappointment. Rather than being willing to warm the flock's eggs like the other males, Cody wants something more, and he spends his days riding Antarctic waves on surfboards he carves from ice. All this is told in semi-flashback, with a SPEN interviewer getting the family to talk on-camera about Cody as their errant family member prepares to finally achieve his dream of competing in the Big Z Memorial Surf-Off. You see, when he was little, the greatest surfer of them all crested into their little town of Shiverpool, Antarctica, and presented Cody with a Big Z necklace that he still wears as a young adult.
After a strained transition that gets Cody to Pen-Gu Island, where the big surfing competition is to take place, things settle into a familiar sports groove, with a mean, arrogant surfer named Tank Evans (Diedrich Bader) not only Cody's guy to beat, but the one who defeated Big Z on the wave that killed his hero. For comic "best buddy" relief there's a chicken surfer from Sheboygan, Wisconsin, of all places. But Chicken Joe (Jon Heder) fits right in with the surf crowd, because he's a bit of a nuts-and-granola guy who is so laid back he can't recognize a tribe of cannibals when they try to boil him, and he somehow manages to catch a wave while preoccupied lying on his back checking out the "radical" cloud patterns. Because they share a number of things-like a dad plucked prematurely out of this life (in Chicken Bob's case, to make a 6-piece combo), he's a natural best-buddy fit for Cody ("Cody's around somewhere. I can feel it in my nuggets."
Sometimes, the minor characters can get a bit shrill. James Woods plays what appears to be an otter sporting a Don King hair-do. He's the surfing promoter, of course, and occasionally the shouting can be a bit much. Then there's Mikey Abromowitz (Mario Cantone), who does the acerbic play-by-play narration on this sports mocumentary, while the only female voice to get much action belongs to Zooey Deschanel, who plays lifeguard Lani Aliikai. But a bevy of jokes, ranging from the cerebral (like an allusion to a famous Japanese woodblock print) to the scatological (when one tiny little penguin refers to the bad guy as a "bucket of poop") save the day every bit as much as a mysterious spaced-out former surfer known only as Geek (Jeff Bridges), who becomes the Obi-Wan to Cody's reluctant Annakin. What parents will appreciate, though, is that this doesn't reinforce sports stereotypes. That's especially welcome in a championship-minded society where placing second is seen as a loss. In this film, winners sometimes lose. And that's okay.
I try very hard to be unbiased when I watch a film for the first time, but I have to admit that after "Happy Feet" I had no interest in seeing yet another full-length animated penguin film. My first reaction was, Over my tuxedoed body!
But "Surf's Up" caught me by surprise--kind of like the six-foot wave that knocked me off my feet in Maui earlier this year. I was expecting cute, and I got cute mixed with irreverent. I was expecting a "Madagascar"-like film pitched at kids, and I got one that winks at adults in almost every scene. I was expecting a familiar narrative, and instead I was treated to take-off on ESPN sports-feature programming, because "Surf's Up" offers a sometimes hilarious parody. It's the mocumentary format that keeps this second effort from Sony Pictures Animation ("Open Season") from being clichéd.
Certainly, the core premise isn't anything new. It concerns a rivalry between two brothers, one who follows the flock, and the other who follows the beat of a different wing. Add an ambition to become more than what is expected of an individual (or species) and you get the "I wanna be a big-time surfer" version of the "I wanna dance, not sing" go-against-the-flow theme we saw in "Happy Feet." Rip-off? At that point, I was certainly thinking so. Then the lines started to kick in, and a few laugh-out-loud moments were scattered here and there. Soon, you start to feel the energy between the characters, so you settle in to ride this wave until the end, when, unfortunately, no one seems to know when to get off their surfboards and call it a day. Maybe they were all having too good of a time to call it a wrap, but the ending does go on a bit long and loses power.
For the most part, though, "Surf's Up" is a funny, good-natured family film (more on that later) that holds appeal for all ages. It looked SO good on a standard DVD that I can't honestly see the huge improvement in picture quality that you often do with Blu-ray. If anything, there seems to be almost too much light on the Blu-ray version (see below).
But the voice actors clearly seem to be having a good time, and that transfers onto the film itself. Shia LaBeouf stars as Cody Maverick, the runt brother in a macaroni penguin family whose father was tragically killed--I mean, eaten--by a killer whale. Older brother Glen (Brian Posehn) is the perfect son to mom (Dana Belben), while Cody is a disappointment. Rather than being willing to warm the flock's eggs like the other males, Cody wants something more, and he spends his days riding Antarctic waves on surfboards he carves from ice. All this is told in semi-flashback, with a SPEN interviewer getting the family to talk on-camera about Cody as their errant family member prepares to finally achieve his dream of competing in the Big Z Memorial Surf-Off. You see, when he was little, the greatest surfer of them all crested into their little town of Shiverpool, Antarctica, and presented Cody with a Big Z necklace that he still wears as a young adult.
After a strained transition that gets Cody to Pen-Gu Island, where the big surfing competition is to take place, things settle into a familiar sports groove, with a mean, arrogant surfer named Tank Evans (Diedrich Bader) not only Cody's guy to beat, but the one who defeated Big Z on the wave that killed his hero. For comic "best buddy" relief there's a chicken surfer from Sheboygan, Wisconsin, of all places. But Chicken Joe (Jon Heder) fits right in with the surf crowd, because he's a bit of a nuts-and-granola guy who is so laid back he can't recognize a tribe of cannibals when they try to boil him, and he somehow manages to catch a wave while preoccupied lying on his back checking out the "radical" cloud patterns. Because they share a number of things-like a dad plucked prematurely out of this life (in Chicken Bob's case, to make a 6-piece combo), he's a natural best-buddy fit for Cody ("Cody's around somewhere. I can feel it in my nuggets."
Sometimes, the minor characters can get a bit shrill. James Woods plays what appears to be an otter sporting a Don King hair-do. He's the surfing promoter, of course, and occasionally the shouting can be a bit much. Then there's Mikey Abromowitz (Mario Cantone), who does the acerbic play-by-play narration on this sports mocumentary, while the only female voice to get much action belongs to Zooey Deschanel, who plays lifeguard Lani Aliikai. But a bevy of jokes, ranging from the cerebral (like an allusion to a famous Japanese woodblock print) to the scatological (when one tiny little penguin refers to the bad guy as a "bucket of poop") save the day every bit as much as a mysterious spaced-out former surfer known only as Geek (Jeff Bridges), who becomes the Obi-Wan to Cody's reluctant Annakin. What parents will appreciate, though, is that this doesn't reinforce sports stereotypes. That's especially welcome in a championship-minded society where placing second is seen as a loss. In this film, winners sometimes lose. And that's okay.
But "Surf's Up" caught me by surprise--kind of like the six-foot wave that knocked me off my feet in Maui earlier this year. I was expecting cute, and I got cute mixed with irreverent. I was expecting a "Madagascar"-like film pitched at kids, and I got one that winks at adults in almost every scene. I was expecting a familiar narrative, and instead I was treated to take-off on ESPN sports-feature programming, because "Surf's Up" offers a sometimes hilarious parody. It's the mocumentary format that keeps this second effort from Sony Pictures Animation ("Open Season") from being clichéd.
Certainly, the core premise isn't anything new. It concerns a rivalry between two brothers, one who follows the flock, and the other who follows the beat of a different wing. Add an ambition to become more than what is expected of an individual (or species) and you get the "I wanna be a big-time surfer" version of the "I wanna dance, not sing" go-against-the-flow theme we saw in "Happy Feet." Rip-off? At that point, I was certainly thinking so. Then the lines started to kick in, and a few laugh-out-loud moments were scattered here and there. Soon, you start to feel the energy between the characters, so you settle in to ride this wave until the end, when, unfortunately, no one seems to know when to get off their surfboards and call it a day. Maybe they were all having too good of a time to call it a wrap, but the ending does go on a bit long and loses power.
For the most part, though, "Surf's Up" is a funny, good-natured family film (more on that later) that holds appeal for all ages. It looked SO good on a standard DVD that I can't honestly see the huge improvement in picture quality that you often do with Blu-ray. If anything, there seems to be almost too much light on the Blu-ray version (see below).
But the voice actors clearly seem to be having a good time, and that transfers onto the film itself. Shia LaBeouf stars as Cody Maverick, the runt brother in a macaroni penguin family whose father was tragically killed--I mean, eaten--by a killer whale. Older brother Glen (Brian Posehn) is the perfect son to mom (Dana Belben), while Cody is a disappointment. Rather than being willing to warm the flock's eggs like the other males, Cody wants something more, and he spends his days riding Antarctic waves on surfboards he carves from ice. All this is told in semi-flashback, with a SPEN interviewer getting the family to talk on-camera about Cody as their errant family member prepares to finally achieve his dream of competing in the Big Z Memorial Surf-Off. You see, when he was little, the greatest surfer of them all crested into their little town of Shiverpool, Antarctica, and presented Cody with a Big Z necklace that he still wears as a young adult.
After a strained transition that gets Cody to Pen-Gu Island, where the big surfing competition is to take place, things settle into a familiar sports groove, with a mean, arrogant surfer named Tank Evans (Diedrich Bader) not only Cody's guy to beat, but the one who defeated Big Z on the wave that killed his hero. For comic "best buddy" relief there's a chicken surfer from Sheboygan, Wisconsin, of all places. But Chicken Joe (Jon Heder) fits right in with the surf crowd, because he's a bit of a nuts-and-granola guy who is so laid back he can't recognize a tribe of cannibals when they try to boil him, and he somehow manages to catch a wave while preoccupied lying on his back checking out the "radical" cloud patterns. Because they share a number of things-like a dad plucked prematurely out of this life (in Chicken Bob's case, to make a 6-piece combo), he's a natural best-buddy fit for Cody ("Cody's around somewhere. I can feel it in my nuggets."
Sometimes, the minor characters can get a bit shrill. James Woods plays what appears to be an otter sporting a Don King hair-do. He's the surfing promoter, of course, and occasionally the shouting can be a bit much. Then there's Mikey Abromowitz (Mario Cantone), who does the acerbic play-by-play narration on this sports mocumentary, while the only female voice to get much action belongs to Zooey Deschanel, who plays lifeguard Lani Aliikai. But a bevy of jokes, ranging from the cerebral (like an allusion to a famous Japanese woodblock print) to the scatological (when one tiny little penguin refers to the bad guy as a "bucket of poop") save the day every bit as much as a mysterious spaced-out former surfer known only as Geek (Jeff Bridges), who becomes the Obi-Wan to Cody's reluctant Annakin. What parents will appreciate, though, is that this doesn't reinforce sports stereotypes. That's especially welcome in a championship-minded society where placing second is seen as a loss. In this film, winners sometimes lose. And that's okay.
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