March of the Penguins: Surfs Up! Review (Comission for WeirdKev27)
Hello all you happy pengy’s and welcome back to march of the penguins, my kev sponsored look at pengy media in march. If you wondered why there wasn’t an instalment last week, I was sick and thus this was my natural state for the last few days
As such I had to cut the opus segment, but I feel this is a fun enough theme to possibly do again next year. Still your getting both surfs up movies so...
So for those of you wondering why Surf’s Up, the short answer?
The longer answer is that like me Kev saw this film once, both of us in theaters, and vaguely remembered it, but otherwise forgot it... till he found out ten years later, WWE made a sequel to it, which i’ll be covering next week. This left him with an obvious question
I don’t have the answer yet, I may never have it. It may be one of those big cosmic what if’s. But I was still intrested enough to agree to the reviews and to dive into this film I half remembered and it’s sequel that honestly probably shoudln’t exist but does because like me, vince mcmahon is made of stone. Unlike me he’s made of lovecraftian insanity, hard tack, essential oils and screaming, but point is I’ve got some pengy movies to review.
I couldn’t find much on the making of this film sadly, but to compesnate i’m going to reflect on something amazing: this was the SECOND film ever done by sony pictures animation. Yes before we got four hotel transylvanias, the best spider-man movie, a few aardman movies , and about half a dozen films cerfied by the fda to give you scabies, it all started with a buddy comedy that got three dtv sequels for some reason and this movie about surfing penguins. It’s just weird to think that an animation company I didn’t think much abou tall the way back then has had such a varied history. But with such a topsy turvey history was there any good in this one or did it wipe out at the start? Join me under the cut to find out.
The Trailers Before Surf’s Up
This is a fun stupid side adventure I cooked up. See originally I was going to watch the film on Tubi, as I will with the sequel. But last week, just before my cold punched punched me in the face, I went to my library after far too long and got my card unblocked. And while for the most part it’s meant drowning myself in the wide and glorious variety of manga from my youth and various adventures of phoebe and her unicorn, it also meant checking to see if the library had the movie so I could watch it add free. It did so I did but that wasn’t entirely true as I forgot one of the funnest parts of old dvds, the ads. Seeing films from long ago I saw shoved in my face constantly on kids networks while I was just trying to watch chowder and total drama dammit like any respectable high schooler, it was nostalgic for me and fun too. So I thought id break them down both for my own amusment and to give kev some extra content since while I obviously coudln’t control this being delayed the way it was, I still feel bad it took this long. So without further adeu...
Water Horse: Legend of the Deep
While i’ve never seen this film I remember getting bombarded with ads for it on cartoon network which only brought one thought to my head.
It’s your usual mediocre kid movie: kid finds cg dragon monster, has to keep it from his mom along with his dad, uncle, mom’s sex buddy, weirdly age gapped brother, comic relief, child with benjamin button disease, hamster piloting a human whatever he is, and also there’s a kraven the hunter afoot they have to protect their new friend whose also the loch ness monster from. I just told you the entire plot and i’ve only seen the trailer.
Daddy Day Camp:
This film’s mere existance has haunted me for the past century. See I liked Daddy Day Care. Partly because it refrenced the flash, partly because back then i Liked anything steve zahn was in, and partly because I also liked Jeff Garlin back before he was replaced by a terrifying cgi cutout because it’s more plesant than actually having to work with Jeff Garlin. I watched it far more than a middle schooler probably shoud’ve as it was one of my only dvd’s. So getting bombarded with ads for it’s shitty half assed sequel no one asked for that had none of the original cast filled me with a weird and deep hatred.
Now i’ve grown as a person, allegedly. I’ve come to face harsh truths: Steve Zahn is awesome but picks very shitty films including the very film that made me love him Saving Silverman (That I may still cover because it is insane. Let me know or comission me if you want to see that), shitty sequels exist and Daddy DayCamp is throughly mediocre. But I still hold a special place in my colon for Daddy Day Camp as the defintion of a lazy sequel: They had no money to get anyone of note back, as evidenced by resulting to oscar award winning star of Boat Trip Cuba Gooding Junior, the kids are lazy hackneed bits including one named mullet that was in every tv spot for this because they were actually proud of a mullet joke which unless it’s about superman’s glorious permed mullet is never acceptable, and just looks hilariously half assed. Maybe i’ll also cover this thing some day.
Storm Hawks:
The only tv show of the bunch. I remember it exists and has a fun setting nad character designs (i’ve always been a sucker for sky settings), but otherwise was just your standard action show. Still it got nerd corps far enough to make slugterra which was equally cliche but also had one of the best mons premises of all time in “SHOOT THEM AT EACH OTHER DAMMIT”.
Spider-Man 3:
Now we’re into films I have seen and I rewatched both of these last two films decently recently. I watched Spider-Man 3 around no way home as I was showing my neice the rami films. She like dem even if she dosen’t like this version of venom. It wasn’t as horrible as I remembered, but it’s still not... good and while disco peter is enjoyably stupid, the scene with him dancing in the club is to superhero movies what the I think I love you scene from scream 2 is to horror. An embarsing moment we’re still not sure why or how it happened.
Monster House:
Rewatched this one with @jess-the-vampire around halloween. Really damn fun and REALLY fucking killer animation. Seriously it’s gorgeous. Also connecting it to this film it was one of several John Heder did before his napolen dynamite fame evaporated.
The Plot of Surf’s Up:
Surf’s Up is your standard “Punk ass kid has a talent his family and hometown dosen’t undrestand so he runs off to try and fufill his dream, it’s harder than he expects, his idol isn’t who he thought, he makes friends and learns the true meaning of things was love of friendship or no traffic accidents, he has a force love intrest, dedrich bader as a pengin trys to fuck a trophy”
You know a regular kids movie. But so you know what i’m talking about i’ll go into a bit more detail.
Surf’s Up is a mockumentary, following the tenth anniversay big z memorial. Big Z was the world’s greatest surfer but apparently died a decade ago. But
So you can probably see where this is going. So every year they have the Big Z Memorial at pengu island, the biggest surf spot in the world to honor him. So a camera crew heads off to the cold north of Shiverpool to follow a rookie surfer named Cody Maverick (Actual Cannibal and Actual Actual Abuser, Shia Le Bouf) , who thanks to Z visiting has had a lifelong obession with surfing despite having no real experince. Despite the scout not wanting to take him, Cody chases the whale their riding to get his shot, and heads to the island.
There he encounters your stock characters: Love interest Lani (Zoey Daschenel), comedy sidekick Chicken Joe (Heder) and rival and boisterous asshole Tank (My boy and underated va legend Dedrich Bader), flanked by his manager, formerly z’s, Reggie, played by public nusance james woods. For some reason the film thinks we need a pixalated nut shot of reggie
Weird Sex Stuff In This Franchise Count: 1
Trust me.. one clip from two tells me we’ll need this.
So after some shenanigans, Cody challenges Tank after he disrespects z, he wipes out bad and is prepared to quit , and he gets peed on by Z while he’s headling Cody, as he’s lani’s uncle and also pretending not to actaully be z even though the audience called that he was still alive about 30 minutes ago. Also
Weird Sex Stuff in This Franchise Count: 2
So naturally your standard shonen traniing arc occurs as Z has cody wax on, wax off, building a board and doing various stuff to ballance him while Cody opens the old curmodugeon’s heart. Eventually they have the falling out you expect when it turns out Z faked his death not for tax purposes but because he was afraid of loosing, hence why he dosen’t like competition. Cody goes back to surf, Lani yells at him, and Joe returns from his 20 minute comedy plot involving obnoxious savage native sterotypes that took 20 minutes of my life I wish I could get back.
The finale is telegraphed: Cody gives up his chance at winning for friendship and fun and lets joe win, and has to navigate some deadly rocks with Z’s help. Z comes out publicly, reggi’es career is ruined and Joe is king of the beach at least till joker zaps him with the surfing skill drainer and vigor reverser.
The Things I Liked About Surf’s Up:
Before I get into why I was mostly EHHH on the film I do feel some credit is due on the things it does right.
The animation.. is drop dead gorgeous. While Sony Pictures has made some questionable decisions, at their best and even sometimes at their worst the animation is a fucking wonder to behold and Surf’s Up, even this early is no exception. The water effects are top notch, something that later netted them Aardman’s underated Pirates, and the characters all look vibrant and intresting.
Except Reggie but it’s hard to make james woods not look like a reanimated corpse even in animation. It’s why Disney just leaned into it. The surfing is also just utterly fun to watch, on par with lilo and stich’s own landmark sequences, and ther’es some great pov shots that i’m astounded they pulled off in animation. The film may be light on plot and subtance but it DOES have style.
Next the mocumentary idea is good. The execution dosen’t really work as they don’t really do anyting intresting with it and frankly a standard kids movie plot just dosen’t fit. The film would’ve been better if it was essentially an animated christopher guest movie: add a few surfers, have some comedic talent voice them. It’s not hard and i’ts something I do hope is tried again as I love a good mocumentary but here it’s really just an excuse the pad the film out. A LOT of the run time is just ad libbed attempts at jokes by the cast and while Heder, Bader and Daschinel are talented, they aren’t great at improv.
The final thing i’ll give it is Jeff Motherfucking Bridges. The dude himself is great in anything and one of my faviorite actors now I think about it. So of course he’s fun here as Z, perfectly cast as the worn out surfer and serves as the perfect comedic foil to Shia “shouty pants” Lebeef. Every moment he’s on a scream, dramatically and comedically makes the film better. Z himself, while not the most original character, is still engaging, if entirely thanks to bridges: he’s funny, you get why he quit and his arc of getting out of his own ass and rejoining the world again as he regains his love of surfing is geninely touching, with the final scene , as mentor and mentee surf with tons of other surfers for the fun of it, being incredibly charming. I mean it’s set to get what you give by the radicals, so it has some help but Z is a geninely good character and I dread going into the sequel without him. Speaking of which.
Everything Else About Surfs Up:
I will say Surf’s Up is not a terrible movie. Outside of some blatant padding and a quetsoinable moment or too, I was never offended. But it is a very forgetable film. Me and Kev both forgot it because.. it just dosen’t have that much. It has a decent soundtrack.. bu tone that by this point had been heard in tons of better movies. It has a decent cast but two of them have ruined any good will they built up and the rest aren’t given much to work with.
And a big part of the problem is the format: a mockumentary requires decently sized personalites. They can deadpan saying insane stuff, but you need oddballs talking to the camera or engaging personalities for it to work. But the characters are so thin outside of z that it dosen’t work at all. Cody is a try hard, his brother glenn is a giant asshole and a waste of brian poshen who spends all his screentime bullying his brother and making me wish a walrus would come for him in the night and put me out of my misery, lani is a genric love intrest, chicken joe is just “wow he’s kinda spacey” which works once or twice but dosen’t really work overall and Tank is just a generic bully whose only real comedic set peices are bullying children and not so subtly implying he fucks his trophys.
Weird Sex Stuff In This Franchise: 3
There’s just nothing there to latch onto. I don’t care if Cody wins often because while I want him to show his brother wrong, he’s also so annoying half the time because Shia LeQuack is playing him that despite WANTING to root for him he makes me instead want that walrus to take another pass. I don’t care if chicken joe finds cody because he only met him yesterday, and I don’t care if cody and lani get together because again they met yesterday and their only together because the plot says so.
And the message of the film, while valid it’s okay to just have fun with a hobby... dosne’t work. Cody’s wanted this his whole life. The message should be you don’t need validation, you just need a passion for something. To enjoy it. It dosen’t hlep lani yells at cody for wanting to win.. despite NEVER HAVING ASKED HIM WHY HE WANTS IT SO BAD. Instead of tying his need for the people back home who never got him to love him into his main character arc naruto style, they just ignore that he has a valid freudian excuse for being so competition focused and focused on z: Z Beleived in him when no one else did.
The film is just flat and lifeless. It has a lot going for it but in the end.. it’s just a lot of nothing and trophy fucking. It’s memorable because it looks good but they didn’t bother ot put something that feels good underneath. It’s far from the worst animated film i’ve seen but it’s just right in the middle where it belongs and where it’ll likely fade from my memory again.
Anyways join me next week to see Vince McMahons weird fetishes, join my patreon bellow to help keep the lights on and ask, or comment. Let me know what you thought and follow if you want more nonsense from me. Next time it’s the 400TH review as I tie a ribbon on a retrospective i’ve been working on for almost the entire span of this blog thus far.
