August 9, 2007
The game’s up for animated penguins in Surf’s Up. Boringly rehashing the plot and characters of Cars, it kicks off with promise before crashing into the waves.
Young penguin Cody Maverick wants to be a super surfer like the famed legend Big Z (pronounced zee, naturally). But Big Z is long gone and the annual surfing contests on Pen Gu Island now attract all sorts of wasters and wannabees.
Leaving the Antarctic iceland of Shiverpool, cocky Cody heads off to tropical Pen Gu to win the day. Love and friendship, in the shape of a girly penguin and a hippy chicken, help keep him afloat: but when the going gets tough, it’s a blast from the past that puts the wind beneath his flippers.
Surf’s Up begins in ballsy fashion, with a media-savvy skit on celebrity culture and in-your-face documentaries, aimed squarely at the adults. Talking-heads, straight-to-camera, recount the highs and lows of penguin surfing, culminating in the triumph and tragedy of Big Z. It’s the highlight of the film, and the only spark of originality. Soon, though, the fires are out.
It’s about a penguin – as was Happy Feet and even March of the Penguins – but Surf’s Up’s more about TV culture than anything else. Poor little Cody could be an otter or a seal – but, hey, penguins are fashionable. The opening montage of black and white footage, interspersed with hand-held shots of contemporary colour, will be even more meaningful to American kids, steeped in crass telly and pumped up celebrity.
But – cut to the chase – some of the animated surfing sequences are great. Shia Le Boeuf (Transformers) and Zooey Deschanel (Hitchhikers Guide) are cool enough as the young penguins, while Jeff Bridges (Big Z) riffs on his Big Lebowski laid-back persona, even though the rip-off Cars plot gives him more than a whiff of Paul Newman’s Lightning McQueen.
Rising star Jon Heder (Blades of Glory) gets to strut his vocal stuff as the way-out chicken, but the character’s comedy shenanigans are a tired re-tread of Madagascar’s jungle forays, which were re-done anyway in Ice Age 2 and so seem especially redundant here.
On the plus side, it’s short and vaguely amusing – just like a penguin. But for all its ducking and diving, it doesn’t make much of a splash.
Young penguin Cody Maverick wants to be a super surfer like the famed legend Big Z (pronounced zee, naturally). But Big Z is long gone and the annual surfing contests on Pen Gu Island now attract all sorts of wasters and wannabees.
Leaving the Antarctic iceland of Shiverpool, cocky Cody heads off to tropical Pen Gu to win the day. Love and friendship, in the shape of a girly penguin and a hippy chicken, help keep him afloat: but when the going gets tough, it’s a blast from the past that puts the wind beneath his flippers.
Surf’s Up begins in ballsy fashion, with a media-savvy skit on celebrity culture and in-your-face documentaries, aimed squarely at the adults. Talking-heads, straight-to-camera, recount the highs and lows of penguin surfing, culminating in the triumph and tragedy of Big Z. It’s the highlight of the film, and the only spark of originality. Soon, though, the fires are out.
It’s about a penguin – as was Happy Feet and even March of the Penguins – but Surf’s Up’s more about TV culture than anything else. Poor little Cody could be an otter or a seal – but, hey, penguins are fashionable. The opening montage of black and white footage, interspersed with hand-held shots of contemporary colour, will be even more meaningful to American kids, steeped in crass telly and pumped up celebrity.
But – cut to the chase – some of the animated surfing sequences are great. Shia Le Boeuf (Transformers) and Zooey Deschanel (Hitchhikers Guide) are cool enough as the young penguins, while Jeff Bridges (Big Z) riffs on his Big Lebowski laid-back persona, even though the rip-off Cars plot gives him more than a whiff of Paul Newman’s Lightning McQueen.
Rising star Jon Heder (Blades of Glory) gets to strut his vocal stuff as the way-out chicken, but the character’s comedy shenanigans are a tired re-tread of Madagascar’s jungle forays, which were re-done anyway in Ice Age 2 and so seem especially redundant here.
On the plus side, it’s short and vaguely amusing – just like a penguin. But for all its ducking and diving, it doesn’t make much of a splash.