The thing I liked about Surf’s Up was Z, the guy who is this archetypal mentor character whose dark past has made him bitter. But wait, he’s actually not bitter at all. And instead of sulking around like similar characters do in others movies, he emanates this aura of fun. Sure, like most of the recent crop of animated animal movies, Surf’s Up is structured around a simple message (winning isn’t everything). This never bothered me too much, kids could see worse and follow worse advice.
Surf’s Up is a mockumentary about surfing penguins (and one surfing chicken). The main character is your typical loser who admires the presumably dead surf icon Z and wants to surf himself. It’s obvious where the story goes from there, and most of the time it follows the template. But it’s well done, fun (the part where Z shows Cody how to make a surfboard made me ROFL) and the message is okay.
Rewatch 2023/01/04
Seeing this again year later and it still holds up. I’d almost forgotten the whole mockumentary aspect and while it should be annoying or plain ridiculous, it really never gets in the way of the story. This is a simple movie with a simple message, don’t let competitions get in the way of your enjoyment of the sport you are doing (or really any activity that you can do both for fun and competitively) and that the movie works despite having such a rather obvious message staring at you, shows that doing even something simple in a way that still is really enjoyable is hard work.
It’s one of those movies that doesn’t get mentioned often but it’s really perfect in its own way and a great way to spend some time.
The Entropy Pump 