Surf's up

At this point in time I am fairly certain the world has had its fill of penguins but that didn't seem to deter this movie from being made. In fact, this movie takes penguins away from the socially conscience creatures they have become due to March of the Penguins and Happy feet and turns them into goofy and lovable characters. In this case, they are in love with surfing and pro surfers such as Kelly Slater appear in penguin form throughout the film. The story is your typical little "little man overcoming the odds" story and as he strives to be the best he realizes what is truly important and that is being happy. However, where this film differs from your usual film like that is that "family" has nothing to do with blood. In fact, our lead character's family is never on his side, even at the end of the movie.


Shia LaBeouf continues his hot streak here doing great energetic voice work for Cody, our hero. Cody is an undersized penguin who wants to be a world renowned surfer because as a baby "Big Z (the best surfing penguin)" gave him a necklace and told him to always follow his dreams. Big Z has since died and Cody wants his shot during the yearly Big Z memorial championship. Standing in his way is the fact that he is not a very good surfer and an evil tattooed penguin named Tank (voiced by Drew Carey's Deidrich Bader). Also in the mix are James Woods, playing a Don King like figure and Mario Cantone as the Don King's little gopher. Both hit home runs with their voice work, but Cantone is incredibly good considering I usually find his voice to be unbearable. The usually obnoxious Jon Heder ( Napoleon Dynamite) shows up as a chicken who surfs and while he is his usual slacker sounding self, the character gets a majority of the laughs. We tag on Jeff Bridges and Zooey Deschanel and our cast of gifted voice workers is complete.


The movie doesn't exactly soar but it is a better and good movie. Yes, the heart is a bit too heavily pounding at the end of this sappy story, but the intentions are good and you have to admire them for that. There are too many potty jokes and bathroom humor in this thing to really make me think this is a great movie but there are some cute kid penguins that get laughs, even if they area bit on the crude side. The innuendo works for me as things like "polishing your trophy" goes unnoticed by kids and by many of the adults, but was not lost on the teenage and twenty something crowd. The animation is incredible throughout but the stuff that happens in the jungle is absolutely stunning. The leaves, trees and ground often look like real life and the scene where a surf board is being shaved is just ridiculously real looking. Everything that happens here is predictable, but it is a fun summer escape film if you are looking for 90 minutes of fluff.