Dirs. Ash Brannon/Chris Buck, US, 2007, 85 mins
Cast (voices): Shia LaBeouf, Jeff Bridges, Zooey Deschanel, Jon Heder, James Woods
Review by Matthew Rodgers
If penguin fatigue could be diagnosed as a medical condition then the worldwide audience would be suffering from a terminal bout. They have Marched, Farced and used their annoying Happy Feet to dance across our screens over the last few years so most people probably wish that a miracle would occur and these flightless birds would take off. Such preconceptions may explain the huge underperformance of Surf’s Up across the pond where it failed to find an audience and waddled towards a pathetic $43M gross despite being a charming, hilarious, and refreshingly ingenious take on a tired genre.
Cody Maverick (The first of many references in this Top Gun on a surf board) is a young, ambitious penguin voiced by man of the moment Shia Labeouf (Transformers, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints). The focus of a mockumentary that follows him from his family home of Shiverpool, where he lacks a conformist identity and the guidance of a father figure – eaten by a killer whale – and is subjected to sibling rivalry from his much bigger brother that results him catching a wave to Pen Gu island, home of the Big Z memorial surf competition and its many eclectic characters.
Some of the characters work, in particular Tank and his odd obsession with his trophies, whilst others flounder; James Woods as the hyperkinetic porcupine Reggie Belafonte is just plain annoying. It also begs the question how all of these animals can survive in this tropical climate? But it's only a cartoon, right?
Surf’s Up stands apart from the flock of CGI offerings for its novel approach to the narrative style. The established pairing of directors Ash Brannon (Toy Story 2) and Chris Buck (Disney’s Tarzan) use all they have learnt to employ a gimmicky but effective shaky Cam style and intermittent animal interview technique that may sound like a Creature Comforts rip off, but impressive, naturalistic voice work from LeBeouf and Bridges (The Dude in penguin form) give this the feel of an animated Christopher Guest movie – Best in Show, Spinal Tap.
The Mocumentary approach is a technique that doesn’t quite stay afloat as the novelty wears off two thirds in and the plot veers towards clichéd Disneyfied “against the odds” tale of the underdog, but during a summer in which Shrek forget how to be funny and descended into formulaic tedium its Surf's Up’s attempt to be different that’s worth flapping your fins about.
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