Surf's Up [2007]

Amazon.co.uk Review

Surf's Up is a computer-animated sports mockumentary about penguin surfing contests, which makes it stand out from the crowd of penguin movies. The story unfolds as it would on any sports-channel on TV, with interviews (with penguins) overlapping footage of (penguin) surfing action, gradually unveiling the tale of Cody Maverick (voiced by Shia LaBeouf, Transformers), a young penguin from Antarctica with dreams of winning a surfing competition--a competition named after his idol, the missing Big Z (Jeff Bridges, The Big Lebowski). But when he joins the competition, Cody finds his zeal for winning may not be enough to defeat the cruel reigning champ, Tank Evans (Diedrich Bader, Grim & Evil). The story of Surf's Up is typical stuff: Youngster learns to value friendship over material success. But the documentary style gives the movie a different rhythm from the usual feature-length cartoon; it stutters and skips around, dithers on side topics, and backtracks to catch up with supporting characters. Some viewers may be annoyed, but others--perhaps the more media-savvy--will find it a refreshing change of pace. (Kids who don't watch much sports, however, may just find it confusing.) Surf's Up also features the voices of James Woods (Hercules), Zooey Deschanel (Elf), and Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite). --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews:

no competition for the best of em..........2008-01-21

With the top quality cartoons that are being rolled out these days 'Surf's up' falls a little flat. It isn't particularly funny / even cute and cudly which makes me wonder what the selling point is.
The characters aren't developed to the point you get to love them such that they become household names.. like Shrek. Everyone knows who that is, even 80yr olds! Sadly, Cody Maverick won't make the cartoon wall of fame.
I'm not sure if 'Surf's up' will be able to hold any kids attention for it's full run time though you can rest assured it's all clean without even any innuendos meant to go over kids heads and entertain the adults (unless I missed them!).

The movie wasn't awful but it wasn't brilliant either. I still derived some enjoyment from it as it provided a nice break from studying while not requiring the use of many brain cells.

Could have been Pixar.......2008-01-08

I went into this expecting one of those also-ran CGI kids movies but what I got was something that has out-Pixared Pixars recent output. This is a superb film and far more entertaining for adults than "Cars" or "Ratatouille"...not surprising as this is written and directed by Toy Story 2's Ash Brannon.

Surfs Up has a great cast, some cracking gags and elements of some recent classics; "The Incredibles" (love the fact that old footage, grain, focusing and other camera techniques have been worked in), "Finding Nemo" (it has that tear welling ahhhhh-factor without being too gushy) and a little dash of Aardman Animation (creature comfort type gags everywhere).

OK, so its not an out and out classic like Toy Story but its far better than rubbish like Shrek. Well recommended.

A big let down from Disney.......2008-01-07

Normally I'm a big fan of the animated Disney films, Cars, Incredibles etc etc. But this was rather poor. As my other half said it'd of beenbetter if it was a Disney film, and not a Disney documentary. At times even we got confused as to what was going on. If I'd of paid to watch this at the cinema or rent it I'd of been very very disappointed (as it happens a friend lent it us).

Peronsally unless you have money to burn, or are lent this then don't bother. And if you have little children dont even think about this film as we only just got the jist of the film.

Not That Exciting - Thumbs Down.......2008-01-04

I was really looking forward to watching this DVD with the family over Christmas after reading the reviews on this site - how disappointing! I think we might have been watching another film because neither the adults or children found it entertaining and after a long hour we turned it off - The only thing pleasing was how colourful the scenes were.

A FUN FILM FOR ALL THE FAMILY.......2007-12-31

The 21st Century saw a new genre arise to challenge the Western, the action movie and the David Lynch Baffler. The Penguiner is a flexible template: after the documentary (March Of The Penguins) and the postmodern musical (Happy Feet), it's time for the surfer flick. No, really. As Surf's Up's intro reminds us, penguins have been kings of the breakers from days of yore (one is glimpsed careering merrily down Japanese artist Hokusai's The Great Wave Off Kanagawa).

Surf's Up may be a computer animation, but it's worth watching even if you swore off CGI critters after Chicken Little. Appropriately, it succeeds by practicing what Jeff Bridges' benign, flippered drop-out preaches: have lots of fun, and don't worry about winning. Surf's Up doesn't feel like it's out to blow our minds with razzle-dazzle software, although the wave effects in the too-brief climactic scenes are stunning. Very different in feel from Happy Feet, which gets cheekily dissed ("Singing and dancing? Yeah, right!"), Surf's Up is closer to Lilo & Stitch: a smart, endearing, relatively small-scale comedy.

It's also a mockumentary that seems to have borrowed some tricks from Blighty's Creature Comforts, though Nick Park fans know that penguins are treacherous, jewel-thieving bastards. Penguins and other creatures squirm in awkward vox pops; an odious otter promoter (James Woods) has his naughty bits digitally mosaiced in the bathtub; and your eye is drawn to the back-of-frame business in the best Aardman fashion.

Directed by Ash Brannon and Chris Buck (ex-Pixar and Disney), the film follows an over-familiar course as teen penguin Cody (Shia LaBeouf) jousts for glory and suffers a surfing humiliation that's cruelly but hilariously replayed from all angles, before he finally finds a dad in Bridges to replace the one he lost. But the scenes between Bridges and LaBeouf have real heart, love-interest Zooey Deschanel is charismatic even when she's sidelined, and Jon Heder jollies things along as a lunkhead chicken connecting with the jabbering natives ("Yum yum!").

Shame on America for rejecting this unpretentious gem, a dead duck at the box office, which finds leisurely space to develop its characters without slowing to a Cars crawl. If the film fails here, we'll know who to blame: that git Feathers McGraw.

Average customer rating:

Surf's Up [UMD Mini for PSP] [2007]
Starring: Shia LaBeouf , Jeff Bridges , and Josh Brolin
Director: Chris Buck , and Ash Brannon
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: UMD Mini for PSP

UMD | Format (binding_browse-bin) | Refinements | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

ASIN: B000SNUQUI
Release Date: 2007-12-10

Average customer rating:

Perfect cure for insomnia
Good Film but buy on normal DVD
Good not great

Surf's Up [Blu-ray] [2007]
Starring: Jeff Bridges , Shia LaBeouf , and Jon Heder
Director: Chris Buck , and Ash Brannon
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: Blu-ray

Blu-ray | Format (binding_browse-bin) | Refinements | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

ASIN: B000SNUQVC
Release Date: 2007-12-10

Amazon.co.uk

But when he joins the competition, Cody finds his zeal for winning may not be enough to defeat the cruel reigning champ, Tank Evans (Diedrich Bader, Grim & Evil). The story of Surf's Up is typical stuff: Youngster learns to value friendship over material success. But the documentary style gives the film a different rhythm from the usual feature-length cartoon; it stutters and skips around, dithers on side topics, and backtracks to catch up with supporting characters. Some viewers may be annoyed, but others--perhaps the more media-savvy--will find it a refreshing change of pace. (Kids who don't watch much sports, however, may just find it confusing.) Surf's Up also features the voices of James Woods (Hercules), Zooey Deschanel (Elf), and Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite). --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews:

Perfect cure for insomnia.......2008-02-04

I usually like these kind of films - where the quality of animation is great and the voices are well matched to the characters.
This film however falls in to the 'tedious' category. It has a commentary style, which is more akin to a 'making of' supplementary DVD than an actual film. The pacing is very slow, to the point that it can't even keep an adult interested, let alone children. Bottom line is, nice premise, nice animation, but nice is just sooooo uninspiring.
Yawnsville.

Good Film but buy on normal DVD.......2008-01-30

This is a really enjoyable film and my favourite of 2007.I would normally give it 4 or even 5 stars,but this review is for the blu ray version.

The thing is ,the film is done in a loose documentary style and the camera work reflects this by having a grainy image.It is still a bright and colourful film but the purposely downgraded image quality means that you may as well buy it on normal DVD as it doesn't really show off the potential of Blu ray.For that I reccommend Open Season which is made by the same company and looks absolutley stunning.

Good not great.......2007-09-22

I went to see this with my son at the pictures and didn't enjoy it much but he did which is the important thing.

The story line has all been done before and much better in my opinion in other children's films: Our main character meets legend in the field that he hopes to achieve greatness in himself and has to coax said legend out of retirement in order to learn the trade and valuable life lessons.

On the other hand there are some real belly-chuckle scenes and the real winning character for me was the chicken.

I feel confident that the first few viewings of this film will hold any child's attention but after this I feel equally confident they'll be looking back to the shelf for their firm favourites.

Average customer rating:

Surf's Up [2007] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Starring: Diedrich Bader , Jeff Bridges , Chris Buck , Mario Cantone , and James Woods
Director: Chris Buck , and Ash Brannon
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

All Comedy | Comedy | Categories | DVD | Video

Animated | Comedy | Categories | DVD | Video

Comedy | Television | Categories | DVD | Video

All Children's DVD | Children's DVD | Categories | DVD | Video

Region 1 | Special Features | DVD | Video

DVD | Format (binding_browse-bin) | Refinements | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

ASIN: B000UFIYP8
Release Date: 2007-10-09

Average customer rating:

All Comedy | Comedy | Categories | DVD | Video

Animated | Comedy | Categories | DVD | Video

Comedy | Television | Categories | DVD | Video

All Children's DVD | Children's DVD | Categories | DVD | Video

Region 1 | Special Features | DVD | Video

DVD | Format (binding_browse-bin) | Refinements | DVD | Video
ASIN: B000UFIYOO
Release Date: 2007-10-09

Average customer rating:

Surf's Up [UMD Mini for PSP] [2007]
Starring: Diedrich Bader , Jeff Bridges , Chris Buck , Mario Cantone , and James Woods
Director: Chris Buck , and Ash Brannon
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: UMD Mini for PSP

UMD | Format (binding_browse-bin) | Refinements | DVD | Video
ASIN: B000UFIYPI
Release Date: 2007-10-09

Average customer rating:

Surf's Up [Blu-ray] [2007] [US Import]
Starring: Diedrich Bader , Jeff Bridges , Chris Buck , Mario Cantone , and James Woods
Director: Chris Buck , and Ash Brannon
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: Blu-ray

Blu-ray | Format (binding_browse-bin) | Refinements | DVD | Video
ASIN: B000UFIYOE
Release Date: 2007-10-09

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