Surf’s Up Movie Review

Rating: PG

Cast: Jeff Bridges, Brian Benben, Zooey Deschanel

Director: Ash Brannon, Chris Buck

Genre: Animation / Comedy / Family

Recommended for: Kids 5+

Release Date: June 8, 2007

If you can stand your six year old telling you “Chill out, dude!” every time you drop something, then this movie is totally cool for you and your family. What’s not to like in Surf’s Up? There’s surfing and…there are penguins. What else is going to beat the heat this summer? 

Done in a”mockumentary”style,a camera crew follows the adventures of penguins in the Antarctic and delivers the ground breaking news that surfing was actually invented by penguins. That alone should have the family talking for hours about the history and nature of that most quixotic art; and then perhaps planning a trip to California.

The focus of the mockumentary is Cody, a penguin who leaves his home in Shiverpool, Antarctica, to travel to Pen Gu Island. While getting there, he manages to team up with surf nut Chicken Joe, famous surf promoter Reggie Belafonte, surf talent scout Mikey

Abromowitz and spirited lifeguard Lani Aliikai.The Penguin World Surfing Championship is what is at stake and we get to find out which end of the ocean Cody comes out of. There will be lessons a plenty to take home about competition,daring and following one’s dream no matter howoutrageous they may seem to others.

The movie has been billed as a ‘stylistically daring CGI feature’ and will be showing in theaters this June.